Millions Of Sewage Processing Disks Unintentionally Released From Hookset Plant

[frozennortherner]

Early this year somewhere between four million and 8 million disks were accidentally discharged into the Merrimack river from the municipal sewage treatment plant in Hookset NH.

The environmental charity Clean River Project, their ranks filled with volunteers from the University of Massachusetts in Lowell under the guidance of the UMass Lowell Society of Environmental Scientists, went to work quickly. University administrators allowed volunteers to use the entire dock and staging area of the Bellegarde Boathouse to unload the disks and a disgusting variety of other litter from the recovery boats. Volunteers had previously placed shallow, wide nets to catch litter, and they went up in boats to pick it out with pool cleaning supplies.

The results were impressive, capturing more than some had thought possible, but it was inevitable that a large amount evaded capture. These made it all the way to the Atlantic, where they were turning up as far north as Seabrook Beach NH, and were expected to make it south to the shores of cape cod bay, their expected final resting place.

Government and industrial response was slow and poorly organized. It took longer than expected to get a reliable estimate on the number released and how contaminated the disks were. A local official claimed they were contaminated about the same level as normal littered garbage, and recommended using rubber or plastic gloves and properly washing hands before and after handling with hot soapy water. A beach on the merrimack was closed for weeks due to fears of children possibly contracting enterococcus.

The river supplies most of Lowell's Drinking water needs. The treatment level is minimal. Boating this river I see a building labeled Lowell Regional Water Utility. It is smaller than most of the local houses, and likely contains little more than a strainer and a pump. Chlorine levels were not increased in response to this incident. On a trip to Scituate, Massachusetts this summer I saw a disk on shore. It had circumnavigated cape cod and stayed near shore.