Sky above, history below,aqueduct trails lure fans

Leading the way down a well-worn path, Henry J. Finch at first seems to be walking through people's backyards. Then the path widens, and the houses fade into the distance.

The seasoned trail guide arrives at a favorite spot, a quiet ravine surrounded by graceful pines where the only noises he can hear are birds twittering and planes flying far above. Under his feet runs 150 years of history -- an aqueduct that once funneled millions of gallons of water into Boston.

''It's nice to have a neat little place close to home," said the 56-year-old architect from Newton. ''I like the way it's a little bit hidden."

The tops of some underground aqueducts that cut through Boston's western suburbs have essentially become grassy nature corridors bordered by flowers, bushes, and trees. And they are attracting hikers, bikers, and cross-country skiers.

The trails' fans say they are little-known gems that provide a different perspective on their communities and are a welcome addition, a conduit even, to existing official trails.

While some of the aqueduct trails are posted with ''No Trespassing" signs, officials generally look the other way when the trails are used by residents who are simply getting a daily fix of fresh air.

Finch, a bearded man with wire-rimmed glasses, has introduced dozens of people to the trails, including his wife, Pat Robinson. He now acts as a guide for the citizens' group Newton Conservators, leading biking and walking tours on the trails that the group promotes on its Internet site.

''People have been coming through here since I was a kid," he said.

One popular set of trails runs along the Cochituate Aqueduct, which transported water from Lake Cochituate to metropolitan Boston through Wayland, Natick, Wellesley, and Newton. Other trails run along the Sudbury Aqueduct, which once carried water from a reservoir in Framingham to Boston through Sherborn, Natick, Wellesley, and Needham. Two other aqueducts, the Weston and the Hultman, have also been used by trail enthusiasts.

Exercising with friends or his wife, Finch has explored every inch of the aqueduct trails around his home, piecing together a 15-mile route along the Cochituate and Sudbury in Newton, Wellesley, and Needham. He veers off the path when necessary to avoid chain-link fences, Interstate 95, and T stops, using roads to reach the next segment of trail.

In more than two decades running and biking the paths, Finch said, until recently only one person has asked him to get off the trail.

But before a bike ride he led on the trails two weeks ago, Finch received an anonymous note in the mail from someone who claimed to own property on the trail and expressed concern about Finch leading rides there. When Finch gave the tour, he avoided one stretch that passes within 30 feet of houses, as he always does when he bikes that trail.

The state built the 17-mile Cochituate Aqueduct in 1848 and the 22-mile-long Sudbury Aqueduct 30 years later. Both were built of brick and designed to carry water to metropolitan Boston by gravity. As the city grew, the capacity of the aqueducts became insufficient and new ones were built.

The Cochituate, which the state abandoned in 1951, was handed over to the towns and cities it passes through, said Tom Lindberg, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. Newton uses the aqueduct to carry sewage to the Deer Island treatment plant, said Jeremy Solomon, a city spokesman.

The Sudbury Aqueduct, which was taken offline in 1978, is still owned by the MWRA, and it could be used in ''a dire situation," Lindberg said. The water that flowed through it would have to be boiled to be potable, he said.

Significant portions of the aqueduct pass through private land, which the MWRA uses with easement rights.

Lindberg said there are liability concerns, but the agency generally does not mind when people use the trail.

''There's always been unauthorized, informal access to those areas, and they have not, to date, caused a problem," Lindberg said.

Robinson and Finch said that in the few areas of Newton where the aqueduct cuts through private land with easement rights, most residents have accepted the trails that pass next to their decks. Some have even incorporated the paths into their landscaping, laying mulch and pieces of slate along them.

''It's just kind of understood that's part of the trail," said Robinson.

The path runs 50 feet from the front porch of Nancy and Modestino Criscitiello's Newton home. Modestino Criscitiello said 50 to 150 people walk their dogs or stroll by with children in strollers in a 24-hour period.

''We don't mind it at all," said Criscitiello, a 79-year-old retired physician. ''We find it pleasant because we get a chance to say hello to neighbors and friends."

Robinson and Finch want more people to be exposed to the trails. The couple and others who belong to Newton Conservators want to post signs and to create an official trail map, a move the Criscitiellos support.

Solomon, the Newton spokesman, said that if the Conservators, a group that advocates for the city's open spaces, brings a proposal before the city to mark and maintain the trails in the city, officials would consider it.

Some Natick residents are hoping to do the same with the Sudbury Aqueduct in their town.

Tim Collins, chairman of the Natick Trails Committee and founder of Natick Walks, a town wellness program, said he runs into perhaps a dozen people every time he hits the Sudbury Aqueduct trails that snake through Natick.

''Right now, the public is trespassing on MWRA land and MWRA kind of turns a blind eye to it," he said.

The trails, hemmed in by trees on both sides, are heavily used not just for recreational purposes, but also to reach a destination. Children walk the paths to get to Memorial Elementary School on Eliot Street, he said.

''It's a beautiful walk along the wilderness," said Collins, who sometimes brings his three children on the trail.

Collins said he wants to be able to post signs on the trails and maintain them so that more people can use them. But until the MWRA gives formal permission to use the 1-mile segment of the aqueduct it owns in town, their existence can't legally be publicized and Collins's group can't lead guided walks. The path is currently denoted on the group's brochures with a dotted line signifying a future trail.

The aqueduct right-of-way also runs through a large, private estate owned by the Hunnewell family. Parts of the aqueduct on that property are off limits, but the family has granted access to another segment, Collins said.

The MWRA said it is willing to entertain offers from communities that want to take the trails off their hands, if the communities will promise to maintain and accept liability for them.

A 1999 study conducted by Beals and Thomas Inc. for the MWRA and MetroWest Growth Management Committee, a collaborative of nine communities, found that the best use of the aqueducts would be in linking parcels of open space. The study, which considered how MWRA property throughout the region should be used, suggested that ''friends" organizations could help foot the bill for maintaining trails.

Lindberg, the MWRA spokesman, said the authority does not want to be in the parks business.

''Somebody has to step forward with the resources to help us," Lindberg said. ''We have some of the most beautiful lands in the Commonwealth, but we're not a parks agency."

Some towns have already moved to make the trails official.

Weston agreed in January to maintain trails near the Weston Reservoir along the Weston Aqueduct, which is also owned by MWRA and kept on standby status like the Sudbury.

In Wellesley, trails along the Cochituate Aqueduct are now maintained by the town, laid out in printed maps, and marked with kiosks.

Wellesley Trails Committee member Denny Nackoney said the committee is still negotiating with the MWRA to maintain the Wellesley portion of the Sudbury Aqueduct.

One of his favorite things about the aqueduct trails is the way they connect to other trails and enhance the town's trail system.

He likes the fact that the aqueduct trails are flat, completely off road, and easy to walk. Spotting wildlife like deer and coyotes is not unusual, and people on the trails can admire conservation land that isn't visible from the road, Nackoney said.

''They just provide a different way of looking at your town."

Willie Voss, a 76-year-old Newton resident, made his way down Newton's Cochituate Aqueduct trail with his two daughters and seven grandchildren one recent fall day, a walk he typically does three times a week.

''I enjoy it, getting away from the street and cars," he said.

Finch makes a point of getting on the trails four or five days a week. He looks forward to his regular encounters with wildlife, and sometimes brings along a basket to collect wild mushrooms.

''It's right in the suburbs," Robinson said, ''yet here is this avenue of green grass going through."