By Bill Forry and Patrick McGroarty
Reporter Editors

The restoration of Dorchester and Mattapan's waterfront once virtually walled off from its neighbors and dominated by industrial plants, auto repair yards and other private businesses has made dramatic strides in the last decade. The dream of reclaiming the shoreline of Dorchester Bay and the Neponset River for public recreational use &endash; conceived in the 1970s with state land-takings and stricter environmental regulations have seen major triumphs in more recent years with new parks, trails and improved beaches that have changed the neighborhoods' posture towards the water.

But the job, say neighborhood and environmental activists, is not yet done.

"I think we're at least half-way through, but there are still some big challenges to be dealt with," says Ian Cooke, executive director of the Neponset River Watershed Association.

Foremost among the accomplishments are the Neponset River Greenway, a well-used, multi-use path that parallels the river from Port Norfolk to Milton's Central Avenue. Last year, the state completed work on another key stretch of the waterfront behind Bayside Expo Center, connecting Columbia Point to South Boston.

The crowning achievement of the restoration era, however, remains Pope John Paul II Park, the sweeping, 72-acre park that was carved out between the hulking columns of the expressway and the marshes of the Neponset River. Once home to an abandoned drive-in movie site and a notorious landfill, the parkland was carefully capped and beautifully landscaped in the late 1990s, after languishing for two decades in state hands.

This year comes the latest addition: Neponset II, a seven acre park that replaces a tow yard, trash transfer station and equipment dump that once littered the corner of Granite Avenue and Hilltop Street. The waterfront greenspace, which includes a key link in the bike trail and a canoe-kayak launch, was completed last year and will be officially dedicated in a ceremony planned for later next month.

Valarie Burns, president of the Boston Natural Area Network, an advocacy group that has been a key player in restoring the Neponset waterfront, says that it's easy to forget, just six years after the Pope John Paul II Park opened to the public, how difficult it was to transform the former off-limits dump to its current condition. The 72-acre site was acquired by the Commonwealth during the 1970s, but sat unused and inaccessible for two decades before legislative action in the mid-1990s under Speaker Tom Finneran and state Rep. Martin Walsh finally funded the park's clean-up and construction.

"That was a difficult and long process. Now that we've enjoyed the Pope John Paul II Park for a few years, the spectre of the drive-in and the landfill sites aren't as fresh. To me, Pope John Paul Park defines what the Neponset corridor and the greenway vision can be."

According to Burns, the Pope park, and the newly opened Neponset II site, make a strong statement that "change has come to the Neponset."

"The pace has been set and the challenge now is to continue that pace as we go inland through Mattapan to Hyde Park and reach Blue Hills. We're well on the way there," says Burns.

If Burns and other longtime waterfront activists aren't yet breaking out the champagne, it's because they worry that a break in momentum could result in further delays to other critical, unfinished links to the greenway system that continue to frustrate other sections of the neighborhood.

Topping the list is an 11 acre site in Port Norfolk. Controlled by the state since 1985, the so-called Shaffer Paper site is a collection of waterfront parcels with varying levels of contamination left behind by past industrial uses. See related story, here.

"I think the time has really come to push the state to step up and meet their obligation as owner of a waterfront site that is contaminated," says Burns.

"(Shaffer paper) is not a missing link. It's a missing tooth in a teriffic smile," says Burns.

Another pressing problem on the Dorchester Bay portion of the Southie-Blue Hills connection is at Commercial Point, home to the Keyspan gas tank. A plan to build a pathway along the perimeter of the Keyspan property was shelved after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has yet to be dusted off. That leaves trail-users with a real dilemma: They have to navigate two expressway off-ramps to continue their journey between Port Norfolk and Columbia Point.

"That connection is a really important link to connect bikes and walkers to the Point," says Burns.

Back on the Neponset River, Burns and the Neponset River Greenway Council hope to see the next phase of the bike trail continued from its current terminus at Central Avenue in Milton through Mattapan Square onto the Blue Hills reservation. A master plan, released last year by the DCR, outlines much of the way forward, but a key stretch of the route- between Mattapan Square and Lower Mills- has yet to be conclusively laid out. See related story, here.

Meanwhile, Ian Cooke and his members at the Neponset River Watershed Association are zeroing in on concerns about water quality problems- and how it affects both wildlife and recreational users of the river. The dam at Lower Mills, a 1950s era replacement of earlier dams that powered the Baker factory mills since the 17th century, is a barrier to fish- like herring and chad that spawn on the Neponset- and humans, who, increasingly, are using the Neponset for canoe and kayak excursions. The dam- and another like it upstream in Hyde Park- continues to pose an environmental danger, according to Cooke and others.

"One of the things that has become apparent is that there is a fairly significant PCB contamination problem behind the Baker Dam (in Lower Mills)," says Cooke. "We hope to work with the DCR and the state Department of Fish and Game to figure out a way, in one fell-swoop, to deal with the fish piece and the PCBs and the canoeing piece."

The PCB deposits, according to Cooke, are localized behind the dams and are not thought to be widespread throughout the river. But, during heavy rain events, the contaminants are released into the Neponset estuary, endangering fish and birds who make it their home.

Tim Purinton, a river restoration planner for the state's Riverways project, is coordinating a study of the dam contamination that is now being conducted by a private contracting firm, Malone and MacBroom. The study is aimed at completing the work of an Army Corps of Engineers study that ended due to lack of funding. Purinton says that the study should be complete by this fall, at which point the Riverways department will go public with its results and seek public input on what to do next. Options could include removing the Baker dam- and another in Hyde Park.

"Restoration and remediation are the real objectives of the project," Purinton says. "There's evidence that PCBs are in the water column and the source of them is most likely the sediments behind the dams."

James W. Hunt, III, the Chief of Environmental and Energy Services for the City of Boston, says he believes that we're "reaching a new era of investments and restoration along the Neponset" and, indeed, along the Dorchester stretch of the harbor.

"A lot of the planning has been done and we've seen it come to fruition with the Dorchester park lands. What we're seeing now- and what we haven't seen in the past- is private investments along the river," Hunt says.

Hunt points to proposals to recent redevelopment projects, including the Bay State Paper site in Hyde Park and the latest phase of condo construction at Baker square in Lower Mills as evidence that government investment in helping lure new development to the river.

Last week, Gov. Deval Patrick appointed Westfield Mayor Richard Sullivan to head the department. Sullivan and his staff &endash; under Patrick's direction- will likely make critical decisions about which local projects get priority placement in upcoming budget rounds.

"I would certainly hope with the kind of success that DCR has had over last ten years in restoring this system, that the Patrick administration would embrace this as a project they want to out their name on and their stamp on," Valerie Burns says. "It would be a real accomplishment for this administration to be the ones to complete the entire alignment of the urban Nepoinset Greenway from Hyde Park and Mattapan to Dorchester to South Boston."

Is past is prologue on the Neponset, whatever new progress is made will only come with patience and perseverance- and a vision for what could be a whole new waterfront.

"One only needs to look across the river at Quincy and see what they've done with their land. It's all private business and industry. It seems to be, anything goes," says John O'Toole, president of the Cedar Grove Civic Association. "The grassroots people here had a vision for a park at this former dumpsite," O'Toole said. "We should be very proud of the work that's been done over three decades."