By Frank Bonet
The Lower Merrimack River winds from Manchester, New Hampshire to Newburyport, Massachusetts and provides drinking water for close to 600,000 people in five Massachusetts communities; Lowell, Methuen, Andover, Tewksbury, and Lawrence, as well as Nashua, New Hampshire. These five Massachusetts communities depend on clean water for drinking and recreation.
However, I would not recommend that you get into the Merrimack River for recreational purposes; boating, swimming or fishing from Manchester, NH to Newburyport, MA. If you want to get into this river, it’s best that you do so up in New Hampshire from Hooksett up to near Franklin Falls State Park.
From Franklin Falls State Park in New Hampshire up to Newburyport, Massachusetts only two cities have EPA Water Quality Monitoring Stations, Lawrence, and Andover. That’s because the illicit sewage discharges to storm drain systems are so extensive that these communities are being affected with sewage, bacteria, viruses, phosphorous and nitrogen, surfactants, and toxic pollutants.
The biggest pollutants in the Merrimack River and affecting the City of Lawrence are the wastewater treatment plants in Manchester, New Hampshire and Lowell, Massachusetts.
The biggest pollutants from Manchester, NH to Newburyport includes the treatment plant of the Greater Lawrence Sanitary District (GLSD) and Haverhill Wastewater Treatment Plant. Unlike its name, the GLSD is not located in Lawrence but in North Andover, Massachusetts. And the Commissioner and its management team read like the who’s who of political patronage.
Untreated sewage from cities such as Manchester, Lowell, Haverhill, North Andover, and more sewage treatment plant cities have dumped more than 800 million gallons of raw sewage into the Merrimack River during 2018. Five of those treatment plants dumped 400 million in 2017.
Our residents need an on-time notification of river overflow. At this moment only water treatment plants, downstream, are being notified of the overflow into rivers. Lawrence residents don’t get to know about these contaminants of the river until days or weeks later when cities must report to Environment Protection Agency (EPA).
This failed notification system means that anyone in the Merrimack River is at risk of getting sick. It means water treatment plants must work double to clean the water and it also means that fishes are eating everything that comes out of the sewer. But most importantly, people are getting sick because of it.
Eighty-thousand (80,000+) plus Lawrence residents get their drinking water from the Merrimack River. Studies have shown that people are treated in the emergency rooms, year after year, for gastrointestinal illnesses associated with raw sewage discharges.
The policies of the 1970 must change. Political patronage must stop. EPA and the people must demand that new policies, systems, and notifications be placed to better protect the residents of Massachusetts.
I advocate for the protection of Lawrence residents, and I strongly urge every resident not to use the Merrimack River for recreational activities such as boating, swimming or fishing. Your kids will get sick. You will get sick.
I advocate for the education of Lawrence residents and I strongly urge every resident not to contaminate your grounds, sewers, or properties with chemicals, oils, or trash. You can help the future of this area by doing these simple things.
