The $1 trillion infrastructure bill signed into law last month will offer a boost for painstaking, expensive work that’s been underway in Maine for decades to reduce the amount of untreated sewage and other dangerous wastewater flowing into rivers and streams.

Over the next five years, the amount of federal funding that pays for major upgrades to outdated sewer systems so they no longer release untreated sewage and other waste into rivers when they’re overwhelmed by heavy rain, flooding and snowmelt, will double.

The infusion of cash marks the first sweeping federal investment in wastewater work in decades, coming as those wastewater systems have to contend with more frequent heavy rainfall and resulting floods.