When I first heard about this problem I did not believe it. The idea that raw

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Cuthbert Augustus Dixon
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1 Phillip Stern STS Research Paper Sewer/Storm-water overflow problem When I first heard about this problem I did not believe it. The idea that raw sewage would regularly overflow into our city streets was beyond my word perspective. After all, we are living in the wealthiest country ever; surly we can keep primeval problems like sewage in the streets a thing of the past. Unfortunately this is not true, as I will discuss later a lot of people are not even aware of a sewer problem in Duluth. It is one of those unglamorous things that former mayor Doty put best, As a politician you probably don't want your legacy to be that I fixed your sewer. But it's something that had to be done... your infrastructure has to be in place, and it really wasn't. And still isn t. This is a problem that affects everyone in our city. We are caretakers of the world s largest source of freshwater and we need to take steps to protect it from ourselves. Last June the city sent out around nine hundred notices to residence in the lakeside neighborhoods telling them that the city would soon be sending an inspector around to check and disconnect clear water drain pipes that connect to the cities overworked sewer lines. The drains are used to protect a foundation or basement from flooding or structural damage by diverting water to the city sanitary sewer system. However, in the 1970s, pumping clear or clean water into the cities sewage system became illegal. It used to be a voluntary, honor system to drain your homes clean water into the storm sewer as opposed to the sewage sewer but due to overflows largely caused by excessive rain water beings forced into the cities sewage system the city council made has made it mandatory in one of Duluth s thirty sewage basin areas. Basin 6 is the first to be forced to disconnect their storm water drains from the cities sewer system. The Basin

2 6 border runs between 13th Avenue East on the west; Congdon Park Drive on the east; Woodland Avenue to the north; and London Road, South Street and Water Street to the south. The city council said they chose this as the starting place for the mandatory changes because the problems there are particularly severe and much of the basin ends directly at the lake. The city has a grant program in place to give qualifying households up to $1,250 to disconnect from the sewer and install a sump pump. Regrettably, the disconnection and sump pump installation varies from about $1,500 to $1,800 per property meaning the cities grant falls short by hundreds of dollars (Sewer Inspectors Head East Duluth News Tribune). If a household refuses an inspection, or fails to comply, a fifty dollar fine will be imposed on their utilities bill. Fifty dollars may sound like a lot but in fact it would take up to three years of intentional negligence before the fines imposed by the city would cost the household as much as the disconnection. Of the homes inspected, about 65 percent required new systems. Now, the pipes connecting the house s pluming to the cities are the responsibility of the home owner but I purpose that if the city were to get as serious as it needs to be on this issue the fines imposed would have to be much higher and the grant program more complete. Lakeside and east Duluth in general are better off financially than the rest of Duluth. When these mandatory changes make their way to some of the lower income districts of Duluth those who are lucky enough to own their own home may be hard pressed to afford them. Those costs don t include the fact that Western Lake Superior Sanitary District plans to spend about $107.2 million over the next 12 years to upgrade equipment, increase capacity, and build new lines and holding tanks. As a result, the average monthly Duluth residential sewer bill would go from $38.40 to $42 next year (Sewer Inspectors Head East Duluth News

3 Tribune). While sewage problems are a major concern to the city they are unfortunately not the only pollutant entering our great lake and waterways. Lake Superior continues to receive a daily dose of sediment and dirty water polluted with vehicle oils, pet feces, fertilizers and other pollution that's harming fish and aquatic ecosystems and rendering the water unsafe for people. Runoff from streets, parking lots and construction sites is causing up to 15 percent of the Great Lakes' most serious water quality problems (Groups criticize efforts to curb runoff into Great Lakes Duluth News Tribune). While the average citizen may not be able to do much cheaply beyond write their city councilor in regards to the sewer problem, there is a lot we as individuals can do to curb pollution running into Lake Superior. Marnie Lonsdale, storm water runoff coordinator for Duluth, says that "There are so many projects and so many other ways for things to get into the water, and we don't have that kind of staff [to monitor them all]. We're really dependent on people coming forward and telling us what they see going into the water. What we really need is for the public to make this a priority" (Groups criticize efforts to curb runoff into Great Lakes Duluth News Tribune). What she means is that we can all help by just keeping our eyes open and reporting to the authorities if we see anything that looks like it could be unsafe for ourselves or for our lake. What is really needed is more public education about what is appropriate and what is not in terms of runoff pollution. Classes like Science, Technology, and Society are a good start but if this is something that we value as a community education needs to start even sooner. Even a casual observer will see brown water flowing downhill toward the lake carrying with it cigarette butts and other garbage but seeing that does not directly

4 transfer into citizen action. What we need now is to get the message out about what can and should be done about it. One thing Minnesotans can do is write our legislators and let them know that the current system of testing a beach for four or five positive tests for fecal coliform, the bacteria that acts as an indicator for other harmful germs is not good enough. While Minnesota is among the few states that follow U.S. Enviormental Protection Agency standards that advise that fecal coliform counts should not exceed 200 counts per 100 milliliters of water it is still not enough (Swim At Your Own Risk Conscious Choice; July 1995). Due to an insufficient work force we are not able to check the beaches as often as we would like, and all but the most popular beaches are not checked everyday. Federal guidelines advise that less popular beaches require less monitoring, as fewer people are exposed to potential hazards than on crowded beaches. And while this makes sense, this attitude does not really show a committed desire from the government or public to make all our beaches safe to swim in. The arguments surrounding this issue are not ones of whether or not something should be done but of how much and how quickly we should act. For example our Canadian neighbors, who are often considered more environmentally minded, issue beach closings with just positive test of one hundred or more counts of the indicator bacterium. Compare that to the Illinois Department of Public Health who issue closing after two consecutive tests with a high limit of five hundred counts of the fecal bacteria. That is two and half times what their own Environmental Protection Agency says is safe for humans to be around (Swim At Your Own Risk Conscious Choice; July 1995). When presented with the information I had thirteen of the seventeen people I surveyed said they would like to increase the man

5 power and funding for testing at beaches. However, only two of them wanted to make it a top priority for the state to do its part in cleaning up our lake shore. My survey subjects may have been skewed because we had a friend just the night before get back from Iraq and the night of the survey everyone s mind was on that so it s not suppressing what twelve of them said Iraq should be the top priority of our state; two of them said school funding should be a top priority with one holding out for a better economy. It was unanimous though when asked if they minded swimming in the sewage overflow and other pollutants flowing from our fair city and making their way into the lake they all minded a great deal. With millions of dollars being spent to deal with this problem and untold man hours spent at council meetings and public forums put on by WLSSD we, as a group and voice for change, arrived a little late to this particular party. With that said it is important to keep the spotlight on this problem. As I said at the start of this paper it is an unglamorous and literally dirty topic, which is exactly why we need to make sure that the programs that have been developed over the past few years to curb this problem stay in place and continue to get funding. The pumping station at 52nd Avenue East and Dodge Street had twenty to thirty overflows a year before the sump pump program was launched, according to sanitary district records. Last year, six or seven overflows occurred at the station. There have been two more this year. Clearly, we are on the right track we just need to make sure we stay on it.

6 Hamilton, C. (2004, June 4). City inspectors to head east. The Duluth News Tribune Lauhn-Jensen, K. (1995, July). Mostly Water : Swim at your own risk. Conscious Choice. Meyers, J. (2004, October 1). Groups criticize efforts to curb runoff into Great Lakes. The Duluth News Tribune

Where does our drinking water come from in WNY? (here)

1 Page Where does our drinking water come from in WNY? (here) What are Combined Sewers? (Lake Erie) Combined sewer systems (CSS) are designed to collect storm water runoff, sewage, and industrial wastewater