REGIONAL – After years of banging on crumbling sewer pipes to get Washington’s attention about the sewage in the Merrimack River, the disaster this month of dumping millions of gallons a day of raw sewage into the river just before the 250th anniversary of Independence Day seems to have been what was needed.
The disaster occurred when Haverhill hired a contractor to replace two collapsed portions of a 42-inch concrete line with two 24-inch mains. An accident released 8 million gallons of raw sewage into the Merrimack, which resulted in days of closed beaches.
With beaches closed, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure agreed to a request from U.S. Reps. Seth Moulton and Lori Trahon to raise the amount of funds from $40 million to $50 million.
In addition, Trahan and Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren introduced a bill, the Water Emergency and Technical Assistance Act, to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to provide technical and financial support to water treatment facilities during emergencies in hopes of preventing and mitigating threats to public health.
The funds are not guaranteed. According to Moulton’s office, a future appropriations bill would also be required before the city can receive the additional federal support.
In addition, the city of Newburyport is looking at its legal options for recovering lost revenue from the accident for businesses and the city.
“Haverhill’s sewer system is one of the oldest in the country and a temporary bypass is not an acceptable solution,” Moulton said, “These CSOs are polluting our environment and compromising public health, and we need to work across all levels of government to find a permanent solution. The funding that is authorized by my amendment, if funded by appropriators, will make sure we finish the job once and for all. No family in Massachusetts should have to wonder if their beach is safe to swim at again.”
Trahan said, “Haverhill showed us what happens when a century-old system fails and the federal government is nowhere to be found. Cities were left to fight sewage flowing into the Merrimack with local dollars and borrowed time. Our bill fixes that. It puts real federal money on the table the moment an emergency like this hits, so no community has to face it alone.”
Trahan also introduced the bipartisan Stop Sewage Overflow Act to grow federal investment in combined sewer overflow (CSO) projects to $500 million annually and secured direct community project funding for such work in Haverhill, Methuen and Lowell.
“Water system emergencies spell disaster for their communities—they’re expensive, bad for business and dangerous to public health. Our communities deserve clean water and quick access to support in response to emergency situations that put their health and economies in danger,” Markey and Warren said in a joint statement. ♦
