Amesbury Rotary Club is focusing on this initiative locally by addressing the Combined Sewage Overflows (CSOs) into the Merrimack River.
One of the main initiatives of Rotary is clean water, sanitation and hygiene education. These are the basic necessities for a healthy environment and a productive life. Rotary has a long history of helping communities around the world with solving clean water issues. Over 800 million gallons of sewage was released into the Merrimack River in the year 2018. Untreated sewage can cause life threatening disease including cholera, typhoid, dysentery, Hepatitis A and other nasty diseases. The young and elderly are the most susceptible to these diseases.
The cause of the dumping of the sewage is known as combined sewer overflows that result when a sanitation district has both their sewer and sewage pipes combined. During periods of heavy rain the system gets overloaded and sewage is released to prevent back-up.
Up until now no one new when the sewage discharges were occurring. Massachusetts law makers are working on a bill that would require sanitation districts to notify residents that a discharge has occurred within 4 hours of the event. We would like to tie into these announcements through the use of a phone app. This would allow boaters, fisherman etc. with real time information concerning the sewage discharges. The cost to develop the App is $50,000.
Why is a notification system so important?
- 1,200,000 people use the Salisbury Beach along the Merrimack River annually.
- The boat launch at Cashman Park is the busiest launch in the state.
- There are over 2,500 boats docked on the Merrimack River in Newburyport
Many of the recreational users of the river have no knowledge of the sewage discharges into the river.
The Amesbury Rotary club is leading the effort to educate and notify residents of the issue through the use of a phone App. To raise money for the project we have started the process of obtaining a Global Rotary grant.
The first step to addressing this problem is notification, education and awareness. The long term goal is to have the sanitary districts with combined sewer and sewage systems is to separate the pipes to completely eliminate these events. If the river becomes swimmable and fishable.
If you would like to help Rotary with this project, please donate at www.gofundme.com/f/notification-system-for-combined-sewage-overflows.
