08/06/2026
“Why isn't anyone doing anything?”
We see this question a lot. The honest answer: an enormous amount is being done to improve the Merrimack River’s water quality. It's just slow, expensive, underground work that rarely makes the news — until something breaks.
Fixing a major infrastructure problem takes an enormous amount of collaboration (as well as time, money, and hands to do the work.) Watershed-wide, fixing sewer overflows is estimated to cost over $1 billion.
Here's how it works. When a city's sewer system violates the Clean Water Act, the EPA and the state can take the city to court. The result is a consent decree: a legally binding, court-enforced agreement laying out exactly what the city must fix, by when, at what cost. It’s important work, but the process takes decades, even with every stakeholder engaged.
Here is some the current consent decrees work being done on the Merrimack River:
🔧 Manchester, NH — Major infrastructure excavation has begun this year to separate key sewer systems, with more projects planned over the next 10 years.
🔧Nashua, NH — The city is actively scaling up the holding tanks to facilitate the treatment process for stormwater runoff, a major source of bacteria.
🔧Lowell, MA — After paying civil penalties, the city is actively pursuing a major project to update the remaining antiquated sewage system in the Centralville neighborhood
🔧Haverhill, MA — In addition to the current repairs, the city is actively constructing a new dual-pipe system to separate storm water and sewage.
🔧Lawrence, MA — The city is rolling out continuous phases of pipe replacement as well as updated outflow tracking systems and storm water treatment systems.
Why so slow? These projects mean tearing up streets, digging new tunnels, and building storage tanks — and cities mostly borrow the money, which residents pay back over decades through their water and sewer bills. Federal grants for this kind of work have largely dried up since the 1980s, leaving loans as the main tool.
All this slows the process so that day to day, it may feel like the process isn’t working. But ironically, the river is cleaner than ever. We have more data on how to clean it up than before. It just still has far to go. Communities are actively working to solve this problem, which was created way back in the 1890s.
Progress is happening. It's measured in decades, not news cycles. That's exactly why independent monitoring — and an informed public — matter the whole way through.
