Environmental Challenges for the Merrimack River

The EPA says The primary source of bacteria pollution to the Merrimack River is untreated sewage. The solution is expensive: cities and towns in the watershed must spend hundreds of millions of dollars in municipal wastewater infrastructure improvements to assure that sanitary sewer systems capture and fully treat all sewage before discharge. Many communities on the Merrimack River are working to find and remove illicit connections of sewers to storm drains. In addition, six sanitary sewer systems (all of them located above drinking water intakes) have very old combined sewers which discharge untreated sewage during wet weather.

Elevated bacteria levels are primarily caused by the following sources: To read more about the Merrimack River please see the EPA article on the merrimack river