Lowell wastewater treatment plant dumps 84 million gallons of untreated sewage water in Merrimack River during April storm

A wastewater treatment plant in Lowell discharged 84 million gallons of rainwater mixed with raw sewage into the Merrimack River on April 29, the Herald has learned.

“That’s one of the biggest events we’ve seen in years,” said Merrimack River Watershed Council policy specialist John Macone.

The Herald nabbed a report from Lowell Wastewater Utility disclosing the late-April combined sewer overflow that pushed more than twice as much sewage water into the river than the Halloween storm that made headlines four years ago. During that instance, the plant in question — the Duck Island Clean Water Facility — dumped 32 million gallons into the river.

A combined sewer overflow happens when too much water rushes through outdated pipes running through the area. The antiquated infrastructure is overwhelmed by the amount of liquid, forcing it to discharge everything in the system — including raw sewage from toilets and septic tanks — straight into the Merrimack River.

Sewage-filled water rushed into the river for 12 hours on April 29, according to the report. Macone said that’s an unusually long time for an overflow to last — typically they only go on for two or three hours, at most.

A footnote from Lowell Wastewater Utility indicates that some equipment in the plant was being serviced during the storm, which further hindered its ability to treat a high amount of water at one time.

The 117-mile Merrimack River supplies drinking water for Lowell, Lawrence, Methuen and Tewksbury. Residents and visitors all over the region use the water for boating and recreation in summer months.

Communities as far away as Newburyport have been impacted by sewer overflows in past summers.

“We’ve found a couple of days after a storm, the bacteria levels in Newburyport are over six times what the maximum level safe for swimming should be,” Macone said.

Newburyport Mayor Donna Holaday said in this particular instance, her town was lucky the storm moved water quickly through the river and away from her residents’ waterways.

“In the past, we have had issues with this,” she said.

But the Lowell plant has dumped sewage-filled water into the river as recently as Memorial Day weekend, when a heavy storm forced an overflow into the river for two hours. The amount of untreated wastewater discharged during that storm hasn’t been disclosed yet.

With the help of engineering consultants, Holaday’s administration is developing an alert system to predict and communicate to area residents when overflows occur.

“It’s horrible that these things are happening, but there’s still a lot of progress,” she said.

Ironically, drought conditions through most of the spring months have slowed down development of the tool, but she hopes it will go live as soon as they’ve collected enough data to validate findings.

Municipal leaders, environmental activists and wastewater plant heads agree the only real solution to the aging infrastructure will come from Washington. The cost to update plants is far too expensive for local and state government to fund.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3z3HPPK