Sunday, March 20, 2011

Government projects and government inefficiency

Feds probe chronic sewage overflows into lake, streams


By Michael Hawthorne, Tribune reporter




Billed as an engineering marvel and national model, Chicago's Deep Tunnel was designed to protect Lake Michigan from sewage overflows and put an end to the once-frequent practice of dumping human and industrial waste into local rivers.

But nearly four decades after taxpayers started paying for one of the nation's most expensive public works projects, billions of gallons of bacteria-laden sewage and storm runoff still routinely pour into the Chicago River and suburban waterways during and after storms, according to records obtained by the Tribune.

Lake Michigan, long considered the sewage outlet of last resort, has been hit harder during the past four years than it was in the previous two decades combined.

Between 2007 and 2010, records show, the agency in charge of Deep Tunnel dumped nearly 19 billion gallons of storm water teeming with disease-causing and fish-killing waste into the Great Lake, the source of drinking water for 7 million people in Chicago and its suburbs. By contrast, 12 billion gallons poured out between 1985 and 2006.

Most of the recent overflows into the lake came during two monsoon-like storms in 2008 and 2010 that were among the most intense downpours in Chicago history. Yet even a rainfall as small as two-thirds of an inch can force sewage-tainted runoff into the Chicago River and other waterways.

By now, this pollution was supposed to be an unsavory part of Chicago's sewage-choked past. When they broke ground on Deep Tunnel in 1975, officials at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (known then as the Sanitary District) vowed that their subterranean labyrinth of tunnels would "bottle rainstorms," clean up local waterways and enable the region to meet federal and state water-quality standards. The district also said the project would reduce flooding in Chicago, a city built on a swamp.

The tunnels, nine to 35 feet in diameter and up to 300 feet below city streets, have been fully operational since 2006. But the system's final element, a giant flood-control reservoir, now isn't expected to be complete until 2029 — more than half a century after construction began. Taxpayers have spent $3 billion on the project, and the meter is still running.

Though there is no question that the completed tunnels have kept billions of gallons of polluted water out of the lake and area waterways, the ongoing sewage overflows are prompting an investigation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Agency officials described chronic sewage overflows as threats to human health and wildlife but declined to answer specific questions, citing potential legal action. The agency brokered settlements last year with nine other Midwestern cities that demand more aggressive sewer upgrades.

"Addressing this problem is one of my top priorities," Susan Hedman, the Obama administration's top EPA official in the region, told the Tribune.

In a series of interviews, district officials said they are doing the best they can with the sprawling plumbing system that winds beneath Chicago and its Cook County suburbs.

"There may have been some optimistic statements made when the district started this project," said Thomas Granato, the agency's acting director of monitoring and research. "We face a monumental challenge to deal with all of this water. It's not as good as we want it to be."

Like many older cities, Chicago long ago built sewers that combine waste from homes and factories with storm runoff. When it rains, sewers quickly fill up and spill into local streams through overflow pipes. If waterways are saturated to capacity, locks and gates to Lake Michigan are opened to prevent flooding of streets and basements.

Deep Tunnel was intended to prevent those overflows. Most of the project has been funded by federal grants awarded under the 1972 Clean Water Act, the landmark law that called for all of the nation's lakes, rivers and streams to be clean enough for fishing and swimming. The first phase, digging 130 miles of geological ductwork, was intended specifically to "eliminate waterway pollution," according to district records.

Today, thanks to four decades of improvements including the completed portions of the Deep Tunnel, stretches of the Chicago River are pleasant enough that restaurants and housing developments are rising along its banks and kayakers paddle its waters.

But the river system still isn't clean enough to meet water-quality standards and remains among the nation's dirtiest waterways.

Last year alone, sewage overflows into local streams contained an estimated 335 million pounds of suspended solids, a technical term for human and industrial waste and debris contaminating the water. Signs caution that the waterways are "not suitable for any human body contact" and "may contain bacteria that can cause illness."

District officials now say that while building the tunnels, engineers realized that they would need to rely more on the second phase of the project — the flood-control reservoirs — to reduce pollution. Another complicating factor is that the district was forced early on to limit how fast water drained into the system. Shortly after the first tunnels were opened, rapid changes in water pressure shot geysers of sewage out of ventilation shafts along city streets, in one case flooding the car of a 61-year-old Bridgeport woman who had stopped above a manhole grate.

Despite those issues, the district says the tunnel system is working. It estimates that in a small area near O'Hare International Airport, the fully completed tunnels and reservoir helped prevent about 97 percent of sewage overflows into surrounding streams between 2005 and 2009. That compares with 64 percent in the much larger region between Wilmette and Western Springs, where tunnels are built but a reservoir in McCook is still under construction.

"The only reason we're at the point we are now is because (Deep Tunnel) has been so successful," Granato said. "It's sort of misled people into looking at the waterways as a natural system, something that with a little more effort can become … pristine."

However, a state rule-making panel last year designated stretches of the river system as suitable for "limited-contact recreation," a legal term for activities other than swimming. That likely means the district will need to disinfect wastewater from three big treatment plants, a germ-killing step that every other major U.S. city already is required to take.

The ultimate legal authority on the river, the U.S. EPA, thinks the district needs to make waterways even cleaner. Among other things, sewage overflows will finally need to be eliminated, the agency has written in letters to the Illinois Pollution Control Board.

Environmental groups also are threatening to file their own lawsuit to nudge federal and state officials to crack down on the district.

"These sewage overflows violate federal law," said Ann Alexander, senior attorney in the Midwest office of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "They shouldn't get to say 'we're working on it' to make their legal problems go away."

For more than four decades, district officials have defended the Deep Tunnel as the best way to protect their top priority: Lake Michigan. Before the project, they have noted, the district had been forced to dump sewage into the lake 21 times between 1948 and 1978.

"It's my job to clean up our water and keep pollution out of Lake Michigan," Terrence O'Brien, the longtime president of the district's elected board, said last year in a TV commercial aired during his unsuccessful bid for Cook County Board president.

What O'Brien and others don't mention is today that record is even worse, even though a great deal of the Deep Tunnel project has been built. By the end of 2010, records show, the district had allowed sewage to flow into the lake 24 times since 1985, the year the first tunnel went into operation.

It's unclear what it would take to prevent the sewer system from polluting the lake and area waterways, or how much it would cost.

In other Midwestern cities, including Cincinnati, Cleveland and Indianapolis, legal settlements require local officials to build more effective sewers during the next two decades. Many of the projects are modeled in part after Deep Tunnel but are required to be effective enough to limit sewage overflows to twice a year.

Some communities also are embracing solutions that rely on more small-scale projects, many of which are similar to ideas that Deep Tunnel critics proposed decades ago.

As part of Mayor Richard Daley's efforts to promote Chicago as a green mecca, the city has repaved 140 alleys with porous pavers or pervious concrete that allows rainwater to seep into the ground rather than drain into sewers. The mayor also has pushed for green roofs that help sop up storm water, including one atop McCormick Place that returns about 50 million gallons to Lake Michigan every year.

Studies show the initiatives are effective, but they remain small in scope. Cleveland is turning vacant properties into storm-water sponges that each year will soak up 44 million gallons of rainwater. New sewers in the Ohio city, estimated to cost $3 billion, will capture more than 4 billion gallons.

"It's time for a different way of doing business that treats our freshwater as an asset," said Scott Bernstein, co-founder of the Center for Neighborhood Technology and an early proponent of what is known today as "green infrastructure." "Add up more and more of these small, locally oriented projects and you'll get a big bang for your buck."

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