LOWELL >> Elected officials from communities up and down the Merrimack River in Massachusetts and New Hampshire gathered at the Duck Island Clean Water Facility Monday afternoon to talk about next steps in dealing with combined sewer overflows, and to embrace cooperation across the state border on the issue.

A similar meeting took place in April to address the issue after 2023 brought more rain to Greater Lowell than the region had experienced in more than a century, but this time officials from New Hampshire were invited because the river extends into their state, and with it the same issues with CSOs.

State Sens. Edward Kennedy and Bruce Tarr led the discussion. Kennedy pushed for federal legislation to provide funding to deal with sewer overflows into the river in both states by moving older communities away from combined sewers, and converting them to separate systems for wastewater and stormwater. Kennedy even floated the idea of a modern version of the Clean Water Act of 1972.

“I do think the type of legislation we need is something that would give annual funding, not just a one-time hit,” Kennedy said at the roundtable. “I do think there might be a better way to separate the systems than we are doing now.”

Lowell Regional Wastewater Utility Executive Director Aaron Fox said the city was about to undergo a large project to separate about 800 acres’ worth of combined sewer, in addition to another project to install a sewer tank to mitigate overflows in some neighborhoods.

Tarr pointed to recent cooperation between the Merrimack River communities, where Lowell loaned a bacteria sensor to be installed in the Newburyport area of the river, which has taken dozens of samples since it was placed in the river earlier this year.

Data was still gathered up and down the river this year, which the Merrimack River Watershed Council called in a 2024 CSO report “A tale of two weather patterns.” The year began with significant rainstorms in January that caused two large CSO events, and another one was detected in April. As the summer set in, however, the rain significantly declined and it played out to be a mostly dry summer, save for a couple weeks of frequent rainfall.

So far, the MRWC has found, based on data in Lowell and Lawrence, that about 600 million gallons of CSOs have been released so far this year. The annual average between 2013 and 2023 was 675 million.

“If our weather returns to normal precipitation levels for the rest of 2024, we’d estimate we will exceed the annual average,” the MRWC report said.

In the report was a map marking spots along the river from Manchester, New Hampshire, to Newburyport, which depicted how frequently bacteria samples were coming back with unsafe levels since those tests began in the spring.

MRWC Executive Director Curt Rogers noted these bacterial levels aren’t necessarily associated with CSO events, though CSOs do cause elevated bacteria in the water. The hotspots on the map were primarily between Dracut and Haverhill, with Newburyport having elevated levels as well.

“We’re capturing what appears to be a lot of runoff, and also some CSO volume,” said Rogers.

New Hampshire state Sen. Keith Murphy suggested the creation of an interstate commission to tackle the issue of CSOs in the Merrimack River.

“I would be happy to sponsor legislation on our end, or we could modify an existing commission,” Murphy said via Zoom. “I would welcome any sort of state compact to make sure we stay up on this.”

The meeting concluded with the identification of three “action items” officials in the room should begin to make moves on. Tarr listed them out, with the first being for the MRWC to come up with a plan to install more bacterial sensors along the Merrimack River. The second is for the two state legislatures to advance legislation on an interstate partnership on the issue, and the third is for officials to meet with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to see about unlocking funds to deal with the issue.