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Climate change will bring heavier storms and our sewers aren’t ready Sabrina Shankman © Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff Volunteer Clarke Esler, of the Merrimack River Watershed Council, takes a water sample from the Merrimack River in Lawrence, MA on July 14, 2021. If the heavy rains of this summer are emblematic of our future normal as climate change progresses, then so, too, is this: Much of that rainwater overwhelms local sewers, triggering the release of hundreds of millions of gallons of raw, untreated sewage into Massachusetts waterways. When the rain falls, as it has so many days this month, aging sewers can fill and overflow, spilling pathogen-laden sewage into the same places where people fish, swim, and boat. It’s a problem that plagues the state, even without the expected impact from climate change.

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