Sewers. We all need them, but are we taking care of them? And what are they doing to our natural water systems? I have talked about some of the issues that are facing us with Cleveland’s sewer systems. This problem, however, is not limited to Cleveland or NE Ohio. It is a fundamental problem with the infrastructure in America that need to be addressed. The damage to our ecological system could be devastating.
America has over one million sewer systems. They handle 900 billion gallons of waste every year. Unfortunately, many of the most important are inadequate to handle the population and development that have been added to them. Unlike water pipes, sewer systems are not pressurized, so tree roots and other outside destructive forces can damage sewer pipelines easier. Add to that the fact that sewage has a high acid content that erodes and breaks down concrete, and you have a recipe for disaster. While we continue to add development we rarely add the infrastructure needed to keep up. What elected official wants to be the one to spend a few million dollars to fix pipes underground that no one sees, especially if it means tearing up streets and snarling traffic that everyone sees? I wanted to add a little video, to illustrate the problems we are facing with our sewer systems. This one seems to be the least disgusting, but there are plenty on You Tube that illuminate the problem quite clearly.
Many older cities, like Cleveland, have combined sewer and stormwater systems. That means that our taxed sewers also handle the rainwater as it runs off the streets. Whenever we have a huge downpour, and we have plenty in Cleveland, this rain can overflow the entire system. Overflows mean raw sewage flows into the river and lake, where people swim and even fish. We have a delicate ecosystem. It was created to handle human and animal waste and break it down. Unfortunately, it cannot handle the huge amounts of waste created by our large cities and huge amounts of waste from our growing populations. And stormwater runoff is dirty enough on its own. Loaded with the oil, litter, chemicals, weed killer, and other toxins that we dump onto our concrete every single minute, stormwater is becoming more increasingly a toxic soup that threatens the environment. Cleveland is by no means alone in having this problem. Some 700 cities across the country experience overflow problems every year.
In addition to addressing the problems by renovating and throwing money at them, we need to also think about changing how we look at these issues moving forward. We need to increase green spaces, bio swales, porous concrete and other innovations to handle rainwater. Any reduction in stormwater runoff will decrease our need for infrastructure. We need to stop paving America and start greening it. We need to do start implementing plans to revamp and renew our aging sewer systems, and remove storm drains from the sewage lines. In our own homes, we can reduce our use of water and disconnect our downspouts by adding rain barrels to ease demand on the system. Lastly, we need to address future challenges as we build developments, rather than waiting for them to become problems of their own. I wonder how much the sewer system was revamped in Tremont to handle all the new development going on there. Was there a strategy developed, or was it simply piled on top of the problems the city already faced?
Tags: infrastructure, sewers, waste, water
Our city has recently been testing every sewer system in the area for connection of waste water to storm sewers and think they have managed to separate the two finally, it has cost millions and has been a long process. We have started to see more farmers developing ways to harness the excess water to use on farms, more people opening their minds to using rain water and exploring ways to do that.
While I don’t see improvement everywhere, I’ve actually started to see more and more of that in the new construction going on around here…what little there is.