Author: Mara Mellits

Mara Mellits

Two years ago, Richard O’Mara closed Cedar Grove Gardens after running the floral and gift shop at 911 Adams St. for more than 44 years. He wanted something less demanding and transitioned to a floral studio, where he made floral arrangements for customers but without a storefront.

But something was awry. He didn’t have a street presence, and the studio was isolating. “I missed my retail customers,” O’Mara said in an interview.

“I didn’t realize that I was a people person until I didn’t have the people.” 

On Nov. 11, Cedar Grove @ Ashmont opened for business at 1973 Dorchester Ave., across from Ashmont Station. It was 45 years to the day after he established the floral shop in 1980. There was a small fire in 1984, the store reopened on Nov. 11 that year, so it made sense to open on the 11th this year, even though the store wasn’t exactly ready, O’Mara said.

It was a quiet opening, mainly because he didn’t publicize it. However, he will hold a holiday open house next Sunday, a post-Thanksgiving that O’Mara said is a tradition carried over from the old store.

He plans to have food, wine, and cider, and will show customers how florists make centerpieces for the holidays. 

The Dot Ave. location gives the shop street presence in an area that has undergone tremendous growth with housing, O’Mara said. He talked about the area in the 1960s, when it was bustling, but in a very different way, than now. The neighborhood has grown to be much more urban but still somewhat gentrified, he said.

As for business, O’Mara said about 10 to 15 people come by per day. With the holiday season on tap, he will be keeping the store open longer.

Vicki Rugo, who lives in Dorchester, said she has been buying from O’Mara for 45 years. He did the flowers for both of her daughters’ weddings, she noted, and he’s the “go-to source” for holiday centerpieces.

“He is a neighbor, and the people who worked in his shop, many of them were familiar faces,” Rugo said. “You got to know people. It felt like a very personal experience.” 

Another longtime customer, Joannie Jaxtimer, said there was a “grieving in the community” when O’Mara closed his shop on Adams Street.

“It was the go-to place. You’d always see people you know and like,” she said. “I’m really happy for him that he’s found space that suits his needs and that will be open to all of us.”

O’Mara grew up in Mattapan and said he has always identified himself as being from Lower Mills. His interest in gardening started when he was a kid, when, with no place near him to practice, he had to travel to Needham or West Roxbury to do so. So, he said, he knew that Dorchester would be “an ideal place to open a garden center.”

He went to Boston Latin School and then the University of Massachusetts in Amherst with thoughts of becoming a politician or lawyer. That all changed when, taking his gardening hobby to another level, he switching into UMass’s College of Food and Natural Resources.

Looking back, O’Mara said he’s had more than 470 people work with him at the old store over the course of 44 years. Today, in Ashmont, he is working with three part-time and a couple of contract employees to help out with the holidays.

“I want to bring a little bit of the flavor of the old store in, but also to progress to the next step, and be a little bit more selective,” he said. “And considering how tight the arrangement was in terms of space, this is bound to be a lot better, and more reminiscent of the old store.”

This story is part of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.

Mara Mellits

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized its plan to clean hazardous pollutants out of a 3.7-mile stretch of the Neponset River, the landmark waterway that runs 29 miles from Foxborough into Dorchester Bay.

The project will target those parts of the river that are highly polluted with Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other hazardous materials that have been discharged or runoff into its waters from manufacturing sites that have dotted its banks since the 1600s.

After years of lobbying by local officials, the EPA designated the river a Superfund Site in March 2022 and with the final plan now in place, the next phase of the cleanup will begin where the river merges with Mother Brook in Hyde Park and then extends downstream through Mattapan and Milton, ending at the Walter Baker Chocolate Dam in Lower Mills.

A Superfund designation is both a mechanism for the federal government to clean up polluted sites and a tool to hold polluters accountable for the cleanup, said Ian Cooke, executive director of the Neponset River Watershed Association.

Last June, the EPA completed its analysis of cleanup alternatives and recommended the plan to address the widespread river contamination, especially PCBs, chemicals used in many manufacturing processes until the EPA banned them in 1979. According to the EPA, they can cause cancers, learning deficits, elevated blood pressure, and immune and reproductive disorders.

While mills and other businesses going back to early colonial times had used the Neponset to power their gunpowder, lumber, textiles, paper, and chocolate operations, from the 1930s to 1970s, many industries operating along the river and its watershed used PCBs, man-made chemicals introduced in the late 1920s, as production applications. According to Tristan Pluta, a remedial project manager with the EPA, the PCB infestation was the result of both direct discharges and runoff into the river.

Andres Ripley, the greenways program director at the Neponset River Watershed Association, said the Superfund designation allows the EPA to fund the cleanup while it looks for the parties that polluted it and potentially hold them responsible for the cost. 

The cleanup will include work at the Tileston and Hollingsworth Dam, where workers will excavate all the riverbank soils where PCBs exceed one part per million, EPA’s Pluta said.

The EPA will restore both the riverbed channel and the river’s banks after its cleanup and will then conclude with the removal of the dam, which is seen as a significant hazard, she sais, noting that the design will begin next year, and the cleanup will follow in 2027. It’s anticipated, she added, that the project will be completed in 2031.

“EPA believes that not only will this cleanup abate the immediate risk, it will also achieve the greatest efficacy for our long-term cleanup goals for the entire river,” Pluta said, “and it will give us the greatest likelihood that we won’t have to do a large mobilization in the future to address contamination in this area.” 

The EPA accepted public comments about the plan from June 13 through August 1, which included a virtual public hearing on July 9.

Public feedback was instrumental in the process, Cooke said. The EPA received many observations, and a lot were positive, which is unusual at a Superfund site, he noted. 

The Lower Neponset River Superfund Site Community Advisory Group, which meets monthly, is a group of interested citizens, residents, and community organizations that is following the cleanup and want to provide input to it. 

“They sort of provide a connection point for EPA with the community and other state agencies as the process goes along,” Cooke said.

Jay Paget, a member of the group, has been involved since early 2024. Most of the group members are residents of Hyde Park, Mattapan, Dorchester, and Milton, he said, as well as some advisory members from the Neponset River Watershed Association.

Other participants include members from the state Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Department of Environmental Protection, as well as the EPA. 

Paget said that the report that came out in June, in which the members solicited comments from the community, was a “great success in getting the word out, getting folks engaged.

“Our voice in ensuring that the river is clean to the highest standard possible, and our voice on how we would like to access and utilize this beautiful natural resource is important,” he added. 

This story is part of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.