Erin Delawalla, Director of Water Solutions, explores how Milwaukee is becoming a national leader in climate-resilient urban water management. In her latest article in the Epicenter, she highlights the innovative strategies used by the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) to reduce flooding, protect clean water, and prepare for a changing climate.
The Clean Water Act was passed in the U.S. in 1972 in the wake of public outcry that rivers were literally on fire from industrial pollution. In addition to restrictions on industrial dumping in public waterways, the Clean Water Act required governments to take actions to treat used wastewater and manage stormwater to protect downstream water quality. These requirements pushed communities to address legacy infrastructure problems, like combined sewers, which allow untreated wastewater to combine with stormwater and pour into public waterways after big rain events (known as a “Combined Sewer Overflow” or “CSO”).
Milwaukee, like many early cities in the U.S., was built partially on a combined sewer system, and when it rained, untreated wastewater flowed directly into Lake Michigan, which also happened to be the drinking water supply for 1.5M people in the Milwaukee Metropolitan area. Regulatory pressure to limit Combined Sewer Overflow events (CSOs) and public pressure to protect drinking water led the regional government agency responsible for water management, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD), to make major investments in managing stormwater, such as the Deep Tunnel project completed in 1994. The Deep Tunnel helped MMSD cut their CSOs from an average of 50 per year to an average of just over two per year, but it could not eliminate the problem completely.
Read the full article on The Epicenter and see how Milwaukee is shaping the future of water infrastructure.