By Hiroko Sato, The Sun, Lowell, Mass.
May 3--LAWRENCE -- Lynnda Ignacio remembers walking along the banks of the Merrimack River outside downtown Lowell in the late 1960s, and seeing a textile worker throw a boxful of sewing pins out a mill window and into the river.
And up the stream in Lawrence, the river used to change its color every day, depending on what dye local shoe manufacturers were using for leather tanning, said Joseph Bevilacqua.
Forty years after people celebrated the first Earth Day, Bevilacqua, president of Merrimack Valley Chamber of Commerce (MVCC), and Ignacio, a Lowell native, are happy to see no more waste or pigment.
Instead, the 180-mile stretch of waterway has now become a resting place for such drugs as antidepressants, painkillers and cocaine contained in human feces, said Christine Tabak, executive director of the Merrimack River Watershed Council (MRWC).
Communities have made tremendous strides over the years to improve the quality of water, Tabak said.
"But there is still a way to go," she told a crowd of environmentalists at the recent Earth Day event jointly organized by the MVCC and MRWC.
The council recently released its 2009 Water Quality Report. The Lowell-based nonprofit monitors water quality by taking samples between May and October, comparing results against three different sets of standards -- the state standard, the one set by the Charles River Watershed Association and that of the state of New Hampshire. It found that overall bacteria
counts are improving but the river remains acidic.
Tabak said the river was safe for boating nearly all of 2009, regardless of which standard was applied. It was also safe for swimming 95 percent of the time, based on the state Department of Environmental Protection standard that the E.coli count in any single sample must not exceed 200 colonies per 100 mL.
However, she said, it was unsafe to swim in the river on one of every three rainy days and one of seven dry days when the New Hampshire standard was applied. The N.H. Department of Environmental Services requires bacteria counts in a sample to not exceed 80 colonies per 100 mL, Tabak said.
E.coli bacteria is a result of sewage overflow from wastewater treatment, Tabak said. Old mill cities, including Lowell and Lawrence, have combined sewer systems, meaning both wastewater and stormwater go to treatment plants. When the volume of sewage exceeds the plants' capacities during heavy rainfall, the overflow goes into rivers untreated.
Thanks to investments the cities have made to address the problem, bacteria counts during wet weather have greatly improved. However, the result is "diminishing" on dry-weather days, Tabak said. The watershed council is now trying to figure out why that is.
The report also includes information about pharmaceuticals found in the river for the first time. Samples collected at several locations between Lawrence and Haverhill came back positive for 16 of 20 common drugs, according to the report.
To see the complete report, visit http://www.merrimack.org/ and click on "publications."
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