Merrimack Station

The coal-fired Merrimack Station power plant in Bow is the subject of an environmental lawsuit.

A federal judge has ruled in favor of the Merrimack Generating Station in a 2019 lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club and Conservation Law Foundation against the company that owns the plant, Granite Shore Power, claiming it polluted the Merrimack River with heated wastewater and violated a permit from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Merrimack Station, located on the banks of the Merrimack River in Bow, is one of New England’s oldest coal-fired power plants. The station draws about 287 million gallons of water per day from the river, heats that water as a result of its cooling process, and discharges the water back into the river at temperatures that often exceed 90 degrees Fahrenheit, environmentalists claim in court documents.