The Merrimack River rushes over the Pawtucket Falls on July 25, 2023. (Melanie Gilbert/Lowell Sun)
LOWELL — Now that the city has executed a consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency, it is eligible for federal grants to help fund the almost $200 million pipe separation project that will address combined sewer overflows and flooding issues in the Lowell’s Centralville neighborhood.
“The agreement between the City of Lowell and the EPA is a necessary step to unlock access to federal water infrastructure funds that will be critical in supporting major upgrades to our century old sewer system,” U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan said by text on Monday.
Since she was elected to the 3rd Congressional District in 2019, Trahan has pushed to divert more federal resources to address chronic sewage overflows. The Westford Democrat toured the Lowell Regional Wastewater Utility, also known as Duck Island, as part of her infrastructure tour after being elected to Congress.
Last week, the Biden-Harris administration announced $5.8 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to support essential water infrastructure projects that protect public health and the nation’s bodies of water like the federal waterway of the Merrimack River.
According to the EPA’s website, the Merrimack River begins in central New Hampshire and flows 115 miles south to the Atlantic Ocean in Newburyport. It is the fourth-largest watershed in New England, and winds through all or parts of approximately 200 communities, with almost 2.6 million people. The river also provides drinking water for about 500,000 people in the communities of Lowell, Methuen, Andover, Tewksbury and Lawrence.
LRWWU treats the sewage flow from the communities of Lowell, Chelmsford, Dracut, Tewksbury and Tyngsboro, and Executive Director Aaron Fox told the City Council back in December that the mandate that Lowell meet a schedule for the elimination and control of CSOs was a complex project that was “going to require a lot of capital planning.”
The sewer pipes and systems in Lowell were designed and laid out in the late 1880s to the mid-1900s, long before the Clean Water Act was written into law in the early 1970s.
In neighborhoods like Centralville, the systems collect stormwater in the same pipes as sewage and are designed to overflow when they become inundated, usually due to heavy rain.
The wastewater facility frequently discharges that contaminated wastewater from outfall locations situated along the Merrimack and Concord rivers and Beaver Brook.
Last year, just over 2 billion gallons of CSO wastewater were discharged into the river from five cities along the Merrimack. The previous record, set in 2021, was 823 million gallons, said John Macone, a policy and education specialist with the Merrimack River Watershed Council.
But federal dollars may help move these restorative waterway projects along.
“I voted for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to finally make the necessary federal investments, including the $5.8 billion announced just last week, in rebuilding our outdated water systems and preventing combined sewer overflows,” Trahan said. “I commend City Manager Golden and Mayor Rourke for continuing their work to position Lowell to compete for the federal funds we need from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.”
The city has been working on sewer separation projects since 2003, completing more than 1,150 acres including the Highlands, Sacred Heart, Acre and Pawtucketville neighborhoods at a cost of $105 million. These projects have resulted in reduced flooding in those areas.
The Centralville project is expected to start in 2025 and finish in 2031. The engineering and construction firm of CDM Smith presented a 143-page report to Fox, outlining a two-phased preliminary design for the Humphrey’s Brook/Billings Brook drainage area.
The sewer separation is the most ambitious and complex — and potentially disruptive, given the neighborhood’s density — infrastructure project the wastewater utility will undertake. The project is expected to involve digging up streets, building underground storage tanks and expanding outfall stations.
Approximately 43 bore holes will be drilled throughout Centralville running along Ennell, Hildreth, Billings, Willard, 20th, Stanley, West and W. Sixth streets, VFW Highway and Bunker Hill Avenue. Those points are also the proposed path of the Phase 1 construction of the mainline conduit.
City Manager Tom Golden said the EPA consent decree has been a issue since 1988, but now that an agreement has been signed, the city is ready to move forward.
“The City of Lowell is committed to upgrading our sewer systems and preserving the Merrimack River,” he said by text on Monday. “We are grateful to Congresswoman Trahan for her tireless advocacy in Washington to secure the long overdue federal investments necessary to improve our water infrastructure. We look forward to working together to compete for and win the federal funding needed to complete these projects and make our city a better place to call home.”
The city is looking to engage the public to improve project planning and collect resident feedback. In addition to feedback on public documents and at public meetings, the LRWWU has launched a resident survey to capture firsthand experiences with the sewer and drainage systems.