{"id":751233,"date":"2026-07-08T21:11:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T21:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/751233\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T21:11:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T21:11:50","slug":"merrimack-river-still-contaminated-as-rain-brings-new-concern-nbc-boston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/751233\/","title":{"rendered":"Merrimack River still contaminated as rain brings new concern \u2013 NBC Boston"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tuesday&#8217;s rain could complicate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcboston.com\/news\/local\/north-shore-beaches-closed-in-massachusetts-due-to-haverhill-sewage-spill\/3974206\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.nbcboston.com\/news\/local\/north-shore-beaches-closed-in-massachusetts-due-to-haverhill-sewage-spill\/3974206\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">cleanup efforts on the Merrimack River<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>New testing from the Merrimack Watershed Council revealed some areas are still contaminated after a massive sewage spill in Haverhill <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcboston.com\/news\/local\/heavy-rains-cause-2-sewer-main-breaks-in-haverhill-sewage-now-flowing-into-merrimack-river\/3972234\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.nbcboston.com\/news\/local\/heavy-rains-cause-2-sewer-main-breaks-in-haverhill-sewage-now-flowing-into-merrimack-river\/3972234\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The water is being tested every day between Haverhill and the mouth of the river.<\/p>\n<p>Another concern was that the rain could trigger a combined sewer overflow, adding even more bacteria to the water before the river has a chance to recover.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Rain, in and of itself, can introduce bacteria into the river just from stormwater runoff. But it can also put a lot of bacteria in the river, as well, from a CSO, or a combined sewer overflow,&#8221; said Curt Rodgers of the Merrimack River Watershed Council. &#8220;Haverhill does release CSOs when its system becomes overwhelmed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>NBC10 Boston reached out to the office of Haverhill Mayor Melinda Barrett to see if there had been a CSO release during the storm, but has not heard back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tuesday&#8217;s rain could complicate cleanup efforts on the Merrimack River. New testing from the Merrimack Watershed Council revealed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,112231,2001,79],"class_list":["post-751233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-haverhill","tag-massachusetts","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}