More Sewage Released Into Merrimack River Heavy Rain Causes Latest Incident that Worries Public
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henever the Merrimack River Watershed Council announces a release of untreated sewage and storm water into the river, its social media accounts explode. So said Matthew Thorne, executive director of the organization — and it happened again recently due to a heavy rainstorm. "People go nuts about the release announcements," said Thorne, noting that on Thursday a Facebook post about an overflow of sewage and storm water was viewed 18,000 times and shared nearly 200 times. "I do a fund-raising post, and nobody seems to notice," Thorne said, chuckling. Public interest in the discharge of sewage mixed with storm water is understandable, as it dumps bacteria and other toxins into the river, making it unhealthy for people and dogs to swim in for up to 48 hours. One of the problems with that time frame, however, is that if the river is running slow — as it is now — it could take even longer for that tainted water to clear out, making its way downstream to Newburyport and the mouth of the river. In short, the monitoring and measuring of the impact of so-called Combined Sewer Overflows, or
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CSOs, is an imperfect science using imperfect data, Thorne said.
Storm Causes Complex Problem CSOs happen when heavy rain flows into a community's wastewater network, overwhelming the sewer treatment plant. The untreated wastewater then spills out into nearby waterways, in this case the Merrimack River. During two periods of heavy rainfall July 23, untreated storm water and sewage overflowed into the river more than a half dozen times from several different treatment plants — and that multi-overflow happened twice. Early Thursday (July 23) morning, a rainstorm caused treatment plants in four cities — Haverhill, Nashua, Lowell, and Greater Lawrence — to release sewage and storm water into the river. The Greater Lawrence Sanitary District treats sewage from Andover, North Andover, and Methuen, as well as Lawrence. About 3 p.m. that same day, a heavy rain struck the region again, this time causing overflows from Haverhill Lowell and the Greater Lawrence district. The total amount of sewage released into the river was not reported, according to the Watershed continued on page 63
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