[Shop-talk] plumping question

[pethier at comcast.net]

From: Steven Trovato <strovato at optonline.net>
> This is interesting, because New York City's system is still 
> combined.  A heavy rain routinely overloads the system and discharges 
> raw sewage into the environment.
> 
> http://riverkeeper.org/campaign.php/pollution/the_facts/986

Yes, this is what Saint Paul was doing before we separating our sewers.  Sewage crossed dams called "regulators" or "diversions" from combined sewers to storm sewers when the sewers were overcharged in a rain event.   Also, the treatment plant itself became overwhelmed and was forced to divert combined flow directly to the river.  A suit was brought in Federal Court by communities downstream on the Mississippi River.  The Court ordered the Cities of  Saint Paul, Minneapolis, and South Saint Paul to cease and desist.  Our solution was separation.  It took about a decade.  One fly in the ointment was that thousands of houses and buildings had reainleaders connected to their sewer lines.  They were directed, first by carrot and then by stick, to disconnect these rainleaders and dump rainwater either to ground or to storm sewers.  Having to run a downspout extension across a private sidewalk was not accepted as an excuse unless there was a handicapped person in the home, and then they 
were required to pay an annual water-treatment charge.  This was interesting when I would come up against a person who was alive when his father built the house in the 1930s and we REQUIRED him to connect rainleaders to sewer.  All I could say was that the folks in charge then had no crystal ball, and there was no grandfather clause.

It worked well.  With our efforts and that of others in Minnesota, the river is now cleaner here than it had been in generations.  The fish are back and the eagles are back to eat the fish.  I have seen eagles over my own neighborhood. (There are also peregrine falcons which nest on tall buildings and eat pigeons, but we can't take credit for them.)

Apparently, New York is planning on following the "store and treat" scheme so they don't have to rip up streets to lay new sewer pipe.  I am told that Milwaukee does this, storing all the city combined sewage in underground caverns, then pumping it up to the treatment plant when possible.   This is hearsay, as I have not seen Milwaukee's system.