September 24, 2026 — New Bedford sailors did a double-take on a Saturday morning in mid-September when plumes of the normally blue harbor water turned a deep, wine-dark red.
The unusual color wasn’t a rust tide or environmental disaster, but a dye study conducted by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. Management officials hope the study, which involves dying New Bedford’s wastewater with 100 gallons of EPA-approved red dye, will help them better understand how the city’s treated sewage moves throughout Buzzards Bay.
Dale Leavitt, a shellfisherman and aquaculture industry advocate, is particularly invested in their results. Since 2021, Leavitt has operated a 47-acre oyster farm in Nasketucket Bay in Fairhaven. In 2024, he and seven other area oyster farmers received word that the bay would be subject to more stringent food-safety regulations, due to the high volume of wastewater flowing out of New Bedford’s wastewater treatment facility.
These new rules were based on a mathematical model from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s School of Marine Science and Technology, or SMAST. Leavitt hopes that the dye study will tell regulators something different.