Aberjona River

Aberjona River
The river just below the Mill Pond in Winchester center
Country	United States
Basin features
River mouth	Mystic Lakes 7 ft (2.1 m)
Basin size	25 sq mi (65 km2)

Coordinates: 42°29′17″N 71°7′24″W / 42.48806°N 71.12333°W / 42.48806; -71.12333

The Aberjona River is a 9.3-mile-long (15.0 km), heavily urbanized river in the northwestern suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts.

The river rises in Reading, flows roughly south through Woburn and Winchester, and empties into the Mystic Lakes. It is generally small and heavily channelized, often running through underground culverts, but is quite apparent in Winchester center where it widens into Judkins Pond and the Mill Pond. The river's 25 square mile watershed covers most of Woburn and about half of Winchester, as well as portions of the surrounding communities of Lexington, Burlington, Wilmington, Reading, Wakefield, and Stoneham.

The Aberjona River was first identified by Europeans shortly after 1631, when Captain Edward Johnson explored the area. The name Aberjona appears in the earliest colonial records, but its origins are unknown. By 1865 there were 21 tanneries and currying shops in Woburn, and by the 1870s pollution from tanneries in Woburn and Winchester was affecting both the river and the Upper Mystic Lake (then a public water supply). The Massachusetts Legislature banned the discharge of wastes into Horn Pond Brook (a tributary) in 1907 and into the Aberjona in 1911.

A 1995 study by Spliethoff and Hemond analyzed sediments of the Upper Mystic Lake with industrial records, and determined that high concentrations of arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, and zinc were deposited by chemical and leather industries dating from the early 1900s.