Every year, tens of millions of gallons of untreated sewage enter the Merrimack River in New Hampshire because heavy rains overwhelm the sewer systems in Nashua and particularly Manchester.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday announced the availability of $648,000 in grants over two years to help address that, as well as other stormwater and sewer infrastructure needs in New Hampshire. The money is barely a drop in the bucket of the overall cost to upgrade those systems.
The state’s two biggest cities have combined stormwater and sewer systems, which means when heavy rains hit, the discharge is too great for the wastewater treatment plants to handle and the untreated excess goes straight into the river. Manchester is working on a long-term project to separate the systems, but officials say it could cost more than $300 million and take up to 20 years.
Combined overflows are regularly recorded downstream on the Merrimack River in Lawrence, Lowell and Haverhill, according to the Merrimack River Watershed Council.
Concord has fully separated its stormwater and sewer systems, so rains don’t go into the wastewater treatment plants.
The EPA’s Sewer Overflow and Stormwater Reuse Municipal Grant program will prioritize projects for small and/or financially distressed communities, according to the agency. Under the existing regulations, those communities are not required to share the cost.
