While progress has been slow and expensive, a Massachusetts city remains determined to cut back how much untreated sewage it dumps into the Connecticut River.
Sometimes in the Pioneer Valley, when it rains, it pours. And if it pours enough, it can mean anything from underpasses turning into small ponds to the Oxbow river bend flooding in Hampshire County.
Over the years, it’s also meant Holyoke’s wastewater treatment plant being overwhelmed, leading to millions of gallons of untreated water ending up in the Connecticut River.
As Mayor Joshua Garcia tells WAMC, it’s what happens when one of the country’s oldest planned industrial cities is left dealing with an extensive, obsolete sewer system that often combines waste and rain water.
“We're stuck here with the infrastructure that exists and there's legacy issues. It might have been good at the time, but then we learned new things and understood impacts at a greater scale, which then caused the new generation to figure out how to navigate that,” Garcia says. “We know what we need to do, which is great. The price tag is… big.”
Holyoke’s not the only municipality in the region periodically dumping untreated sewage into the river. Springfield, Chicopee and Montague are just some of the western Mass. communities that do the same.
But, there’s only so much untreated wastewater a community can dump during a combined sewer overflow discharge. Despite efforts to get things under control dating back to at least 2000, Holyoke’s discharge frequency led to a consent decree in 2023 involving the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
That designation stipulated a new “long term control plan” that would run through 2035, according to the city, with an estimated price tag of about $35 million at the time. Grants, loans and state and federal funding have been coming together ever since, including a new infusion of $800,000 in federal funding announced late last month.
Seeing where the money would be going, Congressman Richard Neal, Garcia and others recently made the rounds at the city's Water Pollution Control Facility off Berkshire Street, operated by Veolia.
“There's this really tough story right now about a pipe that just burst on the Potomac River and, my God, the calamity that it’s created for miles around - but you know what? The piping was that old, and that's the other challenge you have in places like Holyoke and Springfield and Chicopee: it's the age of many of these investments that were from prior generations,” the Massachusetts Democrat said at a Feb. 27 press conference.
It’s a fairly standard facility, filled with pumps and treatment systems, but as some Veolia officials tell WAMC, it’s also showing its age.
It’s mean leasing equipment and operating in less-than-ideal conditions, including removed wastewater sludge being transferred into receiving trucks in exposed spaces, translating to a less-than-pleasant odors hitting some of the city’s 38,000 residents.
The hope is that the $800,000 will make a dent in the some $4 million needed for upgrades, according to Mary Monahan, a contract compliance manager for the wastewater operation.
“Ideally, we can find that money through other grants and funding sources without putting that cost on the ratepayer, but we still need to move forward, with or without it, within the next 12 months or so,” she told WAMC following the tour.
Officials tell WAMC that, ultimately, upgrades like a new centrifuge will mean better, more efficient water treatment, which can translate to further reductions in overflows.
Simultaneously, the city's "River Terrace CSO Sewer Separation project" continues on the other side of the city. It’s a multi-phase, $22.5 million venture overhauling storm drains, catch basins and pipelines.
Progress is slow going. City and vendor data indicate the amount of combined sewer and water mains is down to at least 77 miles’ worth, compared to 83.5 in 2019.
As American Rivers Northeast Regional Director Andrew Fisk tells WAMC, it’s progress worth noting and building on.
“This infrastructure is incredibly complicated and it takes time, and I think the public needs to pay attention to when there are these combined sewer overflow events, but also know the big numbers,” he explains. “It's also a big river - if you have several million gallons of water going into billions of gallons of the river, the problem is a problem. [But] it does not extend for hundreds of miles - it goes away over a period of time. It is still a problem, but it's important to put it into that context...”
A Holyoke resident who has been involved in river conservancy for over two decades, Fisk says there’s no getting around it – no one wants to swim in a river inundated with untreated sewage every time there’s a major storm or snow melt.
But, at the end of the day, the river tide appears to be turning.
“Holyoke, Springfield, Chicopee are making steady improvements, and we're seeing less and less of these combined sewer overflows. It's going to take time, but we know that with the public notifications and people paying attention to the data, you can go online to Is It Clean, and you can find out the cleanliness of the Connecticut River,” he added. “The vast majority of the time, it's really terrific for swimming and boating. We've done good work, and we'll keep doing more.”
