Water Sector News
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Stopping raw sewage from reaching Cleveland’s waterways: 10 spots where changes are working
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Project Clean Lake has reduced combined sewer overflows in the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District coverage area by 1.7 billion gallons annually over the last decade - greatly reducing the amount of raw sewage making its way into streams and lakes at several locations.
The sewer district has essentially eliminated a number of “relief points” where those overflows were being discharged into local waterways to reduce pressure on the system in order to prevent backups into homes and businesses.
Cleveland, because of its age, still relies on many combined sewers that transport sanitary sewage and stormwater in the same pipe. It all flows to a water treatment plant when the weather is dry, but heavy rains can overwhelm the system, prompting the need to discharge some of the combined flow into the environment. That combined flow includes raw sewage.