By Frank Bonet
Quite some time ago this year, I wrote in regards to the pollution in the Merrimack River. I wrote how it was everyone’s responsibility to maintain its pollution-free. I wrote about how I would not use the river for anything because of the contaminants that it possessed and the lack of on-time notification of those pollutants coming downstream.
I have just learned that federal government officials and state government officials are allowing a New Hampshire landfill to send close to 100,000 gallons a day of polluted runoff into the Merrimack River through the Lowell Regional Wastewater Utility who lack the treatment process for the type of pollution that will be allowed to run into the river. Waste Management Turnkey will be polluting the waters of the Merrimack Valley not caring about anyone who lives, fish, or uses the river for recreational purposes.
The polluted runoff contains outrageous amounts of extremely toxic chemicals known as PFAS. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of man-made chemicals that have been manufactured and used in a variety of industries around the globe, including in the United States since the 1940s. Both chemicals are very persistent in the environment and in the human body – meaning they don’t break down and they can accumulate over time and as the Boston Globe explains it – “forever chemicals” because of these contaminates that never fully degrade.
There is evidence that exposure to PFAS can lead to adverse human health effects. The most consistent findings are increased cholesterol levels among exposed populations, with more limited findings related to low infant birth weights, effects on the immune system, cancer (for PFOA), and thyroid hormone disruption (for PFOS).
For most residents who are uneducated on what this exactly means for Lawrence – be afraid. Be very afraid.
In the meantime, your politicians are waiting for federal government intervention. Good luck waiting for that intervention. The City of Lawrence needs to file lawsuits to force that this city’s residents are not affected. We, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (if they want to come into this) should sue the state of New Hampshire – for basically all the waste that is coming downstream.
In the meantime, the company that will be sending the runoffs downstream to Lawrence and other cities along the Merrimack Valley was provided approval for a big expansion of their landfill! They want to add 60 acres to their already 1,200-acre trash land. New Hampshire approved it. In June 2018 Waste management Turnkey stated that they were not “taking in hazardous waste”.
People should not use the Merrimack River and I am cautioning parents against allowing their children to boat, canoe, swim or fish in the Merrimack River. It is not safe.
