Photo courtesy: Boston Herald
LOWELL, MA – Last week, Congresswoman Lori Trahan (MA-03) joined Representatives Seth Moulton (MA-06), Annie Kuster (NH-02), and Chris Pappas (NH-01) in requesting additional federal funding to support sewage upgrades along the Merrimack River for the fifth year in a row.
This year’s letter requesting $280 million was sent to House Appropriators leading negotiations on funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Sewer Overflow and Stormwater Reuse Municipal Grant program. The amount requested is equal to that requested by the President.
“This is a particularly urgent challenge for communities along the Merrimack River, which supplies drinking water for over 600,000 people,” the lawmakers wrote. “On average, almost 550 million gallons of sewage and untreated stormwater are released annually into the river, which runs more than 100 miles from central New Hampshire, through northeastern Massachusetts, and then out to sea. Combined sewer overflow discharges in Lowell and Manchester on average account for over 80% of the annual volume.”
For the fifth year in a row, the representatives wrote to the Chairwoman and Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee’s Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Subcommittee requesting that additional funds be allocated to combat the issue of combined sewer overflows (CSOs). When Trahan took office in 2019, the EPA’s Sewer Overflow and Stormwater Reuse Municipal Grant program received $0 in appropriations. Following consistent advocacy from Trahan, Moulton, Kuster, and Pappas, the program received $50 million in federal appropriations last year.
A digital copy of the letter sent last Thursday can be accessed by CLICKING HERE.
