Raw sewage

[Alex]

Demand lower taxes? More like quit making taxation go higher and get wise with the citizens' money for once.

[torgy1962]

And city sewer systems were never designed to fail. They were designed to meet the standards and regulations of their day. A typical sewer system in this country is 40 to 100 years old. Try to get that amount of service life out of your automobile or computer.
http://www.greatlakes.org/document.doc?id=1178

Comparing the longevity of sanitary sewers to computers or automobiles is absurd! The cost of a new Soo lock also is quite unrelated to the separation of storm and sanitary sewers...

[guest]

Cities are held responsible. Detroit (which is bankrupt) has already spent $800 million to reduce combined sewer overflows, Milwaukee has spent $4 billion and Chicago has spent $3 billion. But each has millions more dollars of work to do to complete the task. So the total cost is in the range of several thousand dollars per city resident. To put that into perspective, the proposed new Soo Lock is estimated at $490 million. That would be 100% federal funds, yet Congress doesn't have the willpower to appropriate the funds. Typically over 80% of the funding for sewer improvements comes from the local communities (ie local taxes or bonds).

In this day and age when everyone demands lower taxes, it is exceedingly difficult to fund large infrastructure projects, especially for things like sewers that are rarely seen and are usually taken for granted.

And city sewer systems were never designed to fail. They were designed to meet the standards and regulations of their day. A typical sewer system in this country is 40 to 100 years old. Try to get that amount of service life out of your automobile or computer.

http://www.greatlakes.org/document.doc?id=1178

[Nighthunter]

Why aren't cities held responsible when they dump raw sewage into our water system? If we have a septic system and had a field within a 150 ft. of a stream, we would be fined, but first it would not have a permit issued to build. Septic systems do not receive run-off or rain water, city systems are designed to fail. Remember, when it rains 1 inch it = 1,000,000 gals of water per 40 acres. The other day we receive 5+ inch at home.

[Guest]

pleasure craft putting garbage into the lake...

Not true, there are not enough small boats to cause level needed to close the beaches.

Milwaukee certainly does dump raw sewage.

http://www.wisn.com/news/south-east-wis ... s/19702110
"The rain this week has forced the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District to dump raw sewage mixed with rainwater into local rivers and on to Lake Michigan."

So does Chicago

Storm forces officials to dump sewage into Lake Michigan
7/3 - Chicago, Ill. – The hard rain that pummeled Chicago earlier this week forced officials to open the locks and sluice gates that protect Lake Michigan, releasing a noxious mix of sewage and storm runoff into the water supply for 7 million people in Chicago and the suburbs.
After a surge of murky, debris-strewn water overloaded the city's underground labyrinth of sewers and stormwater tunnels, officials at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District relieved the pressure by opening gates on the North Shore Channel in Wilmette at 11:23 p.m. Monday.
About an hour later, the locks at Navy Pier were flung open, allowing millions of gallons of runoff as well as raw and partially treated wastewater into the lake. The Wilmette gate was closed again at 5:50 a.m., followed by the Chicago locks at 7:10 a.m., said Allison Fore, a district spokeswoman. Estimates of how much sewage-laden river water flowed into the lake won't be available for several days.
Chicago water officials typically start adding more bacteria-killing chlorine to the region’s drinking water in these situations. City officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment this morning.
Despite construction of the $3 billion Deep Tunnel project, Lake Michigan has been hit harder by sewage overflows in recent years, mostly because of a handful of monsoon-like storms that quickly fill the giant stormwater tunnels winding below Chicago and the Cook County suburbs.
Climate change is projected to increase the frequency of rainfall greater than 2.5 inches a day, the amount that can force runoff into Lake Michigan, according to a study by scientists from the University of Illinois and Texas Tech University. By the end of the century, the number of big storms could jump by a whopping 160 percent.
Chicago Tribune

[Al]

A very common practice in Milwaukee and other eastern shore cities is dumping raw sewage into the lake. The South Shore beach in Milwaukee is closed due to high amounts] of bacteria resulting from sewage dumping. At times the sewage is "blended" with rainwater to make it all 'nicer'. We have a deep tunnel in Milwaukee that helps but doesn't eliminate the problem. There is now a new plane to dump excess water into the basements of abandoned, foreclosed and abandoned homes in Milwaukee. I can't imagine anybody living in those areas being ecstatic about the plan.
We certainly are ruining our beautiful lake.

Raw sewage is Never dumped into Lake Michigan in Milwaukee. If there is a very heavy rain and the Tunnels are full. then partially treated sewage may be dumped into the lake, but the sewage is partially treated before it is pumped. It would be nice to see where the information comes from about using abandoned houses to dump excess water. I believe that may be a figment of some ones imagination. Bacteria at beaches can come from many sources besides disposal plants, including gulls and pleasure craft putting garbage into the lake. I repeat Raw sewage is Never dumped into Lake Michigan.

[torgy1962]

Interesting bi product of dredging the basin in Milwaukee the fertilizer Milogranite is sold in many retail outlets. It is made from the dredging of the basin processed locally. I sold loads of it at Meijers quite potent stuff but really effective

Milorganite is made from wastewater/sewage. Don't know about dredging spoils. By the way, the Milorganite tour is great, so take it if you can!

[tugboat 1947]

I recall when I worked for JWW there is a 72 inch sewage outlet at the dock right to the rear of where the mailboat ties up. When a big rain came the flow of road dirt, garbage raw sewage and a lot of really bad stuff would come straight into the river smell was awful. although that never deterred the fisherman I thing the carp catfish and silver bass loved it s improved there diet(that's a joke)
One day while servicing the George A Stinson at the GLS dock I tied of the JWWll and they opened a bilge pump and poured raw slew on me the deck crew saw it and had the engineer turn off the pump. I smelled like bilge for two days my wife wouldn't let me in the house. Needless to say I became good friends with Captain Deleski and got preferential treatment from that time Would get onboard when we made truck deliveries and free meals and goodies I sure miss it....

3long 2short

[Guest]

Hamilton has several overflow tanks to hold storm water during severe storms until it can be treated and released. They also have a pretty good network of separate storm sewers. These features have greatly reduced the dumping of raw sewage during storms.

[wlbblw]

Buffalo is currently installing holding tanks under parts of the city along with other items due to the interconnected run off/storm sewer/sanitary sewer problems.

http://www.buffalonews.com/opinion/buff ... r-20140420

[tugboat 1947]

Interesting bi product of dredging the basin in Milwaukee the fertilizer Milogranite is sold in many retail outlets. It is made from the dredging of the basin processed locally. I sold loads of it at Meijers quite potent stuff but really effective

[Guest]

The problem is that there is so much concrete/paved areas in a city that excess rainfall runs off instead of being absorbed by the soil. Also the sewer system and storm sewer system are connected together, so that in a storm, the excess rainfall inundates the treatment plants. Cities need to have additional holding tanks to take the excess runoff, until it can be treated, as well as separate sewage/storm systems. This will cost billions.

[Guest II]

A very common practice in Milwaukee and other eastern shore cities is dumping raw sewage into the lake. The South Shore beach in Milwaukee is closed due to high amounts] of bacteria resulting from sewage dumping. At times the sewage is "blended" with rainwater to make it all 'nicer'. We have a deep tunnel in Milwaukee that helps but doesn't eliminate the problem. There is now a new plane to dump excess water into the basements of abandoned, foreclosed and abandoned homes in Milwaukee. I can't imagine anybody living in those areas being ecstatic about the plan.
We certainly are ruining our beautiful lake.

[mike0329]

In todays "News" section there was an article about the City of Toronto dumping raw sewage into Lake Ontario. The City of St. Catharines at Port Dalhousie also does it. It seems every year when we visit the Welland Canal and walk down the pier at the port theres sewage visible and people actually are swimming not far away...Yuck!