Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
Milwaukee's Sewage Problems Highlight National Issue
CARRIE ANTLFINGER
Associated Press
MILWAUKEE - A decade ago Milwaukee opened a $2.8 billion deep tunnel sewer
system to help eliminate sewage dumpings into Lake Michigan, the city's source
of drinking water.
But within two weeks this year the city and some suburbs dumped 4.6 billion
gallons of untreated sewage after heavy rains, angering residents,
environmentalists and Milwaukee's big-city neighbor to the south.
Milwaukee's sewage dumping is typical of a problem plaguing other cities such as
Pittsburgh, Atlanta, St. Louis and Detroit.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that as much as 860.5 billion
gallons of sewage are dumped a year into rivers and lakes nationwide.
Many cities have inadequate sewer systems - some with pipes as old as a century
- that can't keep up with heavy rains and need billion-dollar, decades-long
updates.
"The basic point is that sewer overflows are a large national problem and the
problem did not develop overnight," said Ben Grumbles, acting assistant
administrator of the EPA's water division. "It developed over many decades."
Milwaukee also had to dump more than 2 million gallons into waterways this
month, mostly due to sewer error.
Mayor Tom Barrett ordered an audit of the agency that runs the system, which is
working on $900 million of court-ordered sewer improvements.
But those upgrades may not persuade 29-year-old Carly Daniels to take to the
lake right away.
She recently watched her 3-year-old son play in the sand at a Milwaukee beach
not far from a sign that indicated good water quality in Lake Michigan.
"I won't let him go in the water. It's disgusting," she said. "It's the thought
of that much being dumped into the water."
In 1993 Milwaukee opened a 405 million-gallon tunnel system that holds sewage
and water until treatment plants can clean them of biological contaminants that
cause disease and pollutants such as fertilizers from yard and street runoff.
Sandra McLellan, an assistant scientist at the Great Lakes WATER Institute in
Milwaukee, said both types of contaminants are worrisome, but scientists are
especially concerned about how runoff affects a lake's ecosystem.
Biological contaminants eventually die, but runoff pollution doesn't, she said.
Whatever is in Milwaukee's sewage overflows, it's caused Chicago Mayor Richard
Daley to blame the city for recent Illinois beach closings.
"That's a lot of garbage. It's going to float down here," Daley has said.
EPA officials say that's impossible.
Most of Milwaukee's sewage flows to plants through a sanitary system, which has
separate pipes for rain runoff and wastewater from homes. The rest flows through
an older combined sewer, which has one pipe to capture everything.
Most of what was dumped after heavy May rains was from the combined sewers,
which were designed to overflow so sewage won't back up into basements. In
Milwaukee, it's estimated the combined sewer overflows contain 15 percent raw
sewage.
Of the more than 20,000 sewer systems nationwide, 752 are combined systems,
mostly built before the 1950s. Since then, cities have built sanitary systems.
Sometimes sewage is not treated or only partially treated to remove contaminants
but still released, often after heavy rains. That's when it can become illegal.
A decade ago the EPA issued a rule, made into a law by Congress in 2000, that
required cities with combined systems to develop a plan to prevent overflows.
About 34 percent have done so, said Jim Hanlon, director of EPA's office of
wastewater management.
The government generally prohibits sanitary sewer overflows and allows only a
certain number of combined sewer overflows, depending on the waterway.
Ken Kirk of the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies criticized the EPA
for not providing enough money for sewer system upgrades.
He noted the agency used to provide grants for most repairs but now has a loan
program that provides up to 7 percent of repair costs.
Like Milwaukee, other cities are doing major upgrades. _Atlanta is working on a
$3.2 billion upgrade to its aging system, which has dumped 10.6 billion gallons
into streams and the Chattahoochee River since 2002.
The city will likely pay for it through water and sewer rate increases - the
average monthly bill could rise from $50 to $148 by 2008.
_In Allegheny County, Pa., an estimated 16 billion gallons overflow from sewers
into rivers annually. The county, home to Pittsburgh, is under orders to do $3
billion in upgrades.
_St. Louis' combined sewer system dumped 26 billion gallons of sewage a year
into the Mississippi and another river since 1995. The district started a $3.7
billion, 20-year upgrade last year.
_Detroit has dumped 49.1 billion gallons from its combined sewers into rivers
since 2002. The city is spending $1 billion on upgrades.
The EPA expects to soon finish a report for Congress about sewer overflows.
Grumbles said Milwaukee's sewer upgrade was ahead of many others, although May's
overflow indicates a serious problem. The EPA is reviewing it.
Bill Graffin of the Milwaukee-area sewage district said the storage tunnels have
kept 52.4 billion gallons of wastewater out of rivers and Lake Michigan since
1994.
Building tunnels is only part of the solution, said Paul Schwartz of the
national advocacy group Clean Water Action. He said cities must consider the
environment when laying concrete or constructing buildings.
"We have so disrupted water hydrology that if you're a rain drop, you can't find
a place to fall and get into the ground like you are supposed to," he said.