This MA town is drowning in its own sewage — and residents like it that way

The picturesque town of Carlisle, Massachusetts, which is virtually unchanged from colonial times, has a dirty secret: there is no hygienic, or safe, way to dispose of sewage. The result is E. coli in the town’s wells, contaminated drinking water and refuse seeping into the groundwater. Ben and Amy Pirri, who moved to Carlisle during the pandemic and hope to reopen the town’s general store, are fighting to solve Carlisle's sewage problem. Residents, however, aren't so sure they want a solution.

“Have [the Pirri’s] been welcomed as heroes? Not quite. Their efforts have created a controversy, and they now find themselves contending with a particular strain of Carlisle NIMBYism. If they fix the sewerage, their critics say, won’t developers build more housing? And what about the town’s character?” Mike Damiano writes for the Boston Globe.

Susan Murcott, a waste water expert and lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said if the town's sewage continued to leak, the problem could turn “deadly.” However, addressing it could be complicated: Resident Angus Beasley described Carlisle's government as “Gridlocracy” to the Boston Globe, with a never-ending list of committees overriding each other until any new project ground to a halt — including wastewater infrastructure.