Boston middle schoolers in the KeySteps summer program spent a recent Tuesday learning about the Lower Neponset River and its Superfund site cleanup with the help of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and the Neponset River Watershed Association (NRWA).

KeySteps is a Boston-area nonprofit that aims to support “at risk school-age youth in order to ensure that they stay in school and gain the skills and emotional resiliency to become educated productive adults and citizens who contribute to society.” The organization hosts a summer camp that focuses on the environment, science, and photography.

On that day, about 20 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders first met up in the basement of the former Baker Chocolate Factory in Lower Mills to hear from Natalie Burgo, the EPA’s remedial project manager, about how the agency functions. She noted that this was the second event that KeySteps and the EPA have held in the Lower Neponset region.

“In 2023, EPA was invited to participate in the KeySteps program, and met with students for approximately one hour at the Walter Baker Chocolate Dam,” she wrote in an email to The Reporter. “Members of the EPA Site Team engaged with the students to discuss the Superfund process, as well as career paths in environmental fields. The EPA Lower Neponset River Superfund Site team was invited back again in 2024 to be a part of the program to host an all-day event fostering connection to the environment and the Superfund Site actions happening in their own community.”

The longtime Lower Mills fixture Walter Baker & Company, now defunct, belongs to Kraft Foods under the name Baker’s Chocolate, and is one of the companies the EPA is pursuing for remediation for ecological damage to the river, EPA representatives told the KeySteps members. Then, they went out to view the Baker Dam to see how the facility can allow for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), the primary chemical behind the Superfund site designation, to build up in the Neponset’s sediment.

“The goal was to foster connection to the environment and the Superfund Site actions happening in their own community, while also providing an avenue for the students to connect with professionals in environmental professions,” wrote Burgo.

“The Superfund process is lengthy, and the program identified many connections for environmental learning and for student interest to potentially continue beyond the end of the summer, especially for those who live in the neighborhoods most impacted by the Superfund site.”

In February, the site team held a community meeting to talk about the progress they had made since the Superfund site designation in 2022, and they described how they were still in the process of determining the scope of the problem. On the KeySteps event day, crews were spotted taking sediment samples from the riverbank. Burgo also said mussel traps had been placed so that crews can analyze the chemicals they filter out.

Ethan, a 13-year-old KeySteps member from East Boston, said he had been unfamiliar with the Neponset River prior to the event day, but was interested in seeing how practices from hundreds of years ago affect the river’s health to this day.

“I liked learning about how companies from the past can impact the future,” he said.

The group walked about a mile upstream to Ryan Playground off of River Street for lunch, but also to observe mussels and to play a bioaccumulation game.

“I think it was a great success,” Burgo wrote. “EPA looks forward to further opportunities to connect with local youth!”