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Benefits to Our Community
Project Groundwork is designed to make our communities cleaner, healthier, and more environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable.
Here are some of the many ways this major initiative will benefit our communities.
Environmental and Public Health Benefits:
- Reduces combined sewer overflows (CSOs) into local rivers and streams;
- Eliminates sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) in a typical year;
- Eliminates sewage backups into basements caused by MSD's public sewer system;
- Reduces sewage debris and sewage odors in local waterways; and
- Decreases human exposure to pathogens and pollutants, such as E. Coli bacteria.
Economic Benefits:
- Creates jobs and business revenues for local contractors and tradesmen working on sewer improvement projects;
- Promotes the use of small, woman-owned, and minority businesses on sewer improvement projects;
- Increases property values in homes that previously experienced chronic sewage backups requiring disclosure to prospective buyers;
- Increases property values in areas that previously experienced chronic overflows resulting in poor water quality after rains, odors, and sewer debris; and
- Promotes business growth - new business development or existing business expansions - in the MSD service area through the creation of sewer connection credits.
Social Benefits:
- Encourages more recreational use of waterways;
- Enhances natural habitats for people, plants, and wildlife;
- Improves aesthetic appeal of creeks and streams;
- Creates more green space or effective use of green space through development of green infrastructure (e.g., pervious paving, rain gardens, green roofs, bioswales, daylighting creeks, controlling hillside runoff) to control storm water; and
- Helps facilitate urban renewal and community development through the integration of sewer improvement projects with environmental, social, and economic benefits such as creek restorations, creation of urban waterways, parks or gardens, and the renovation or reuse of buildings, etc.
Sustainable Solutions
What are Sustainable Solutions?
At MSD, sustainable solutions are sewer improvements that provide economic, social, and environmental benefits to our communities, now and in the future.
Here are three levels at which MSD is implementing sustainable solutions:
- Going Green - Locally
- Going Green - Regionally
- Communities of the Future
Sustainable infrastructure can be "gray" infrastructure, "green" infrastructure, or a blend of the two.
Gray infrastructure, such as new sewers, upgraded treatment plants, and storm water storage structures, helps manage or control the volume of sewage and storm water in our sewers.
Green infrastructure, such as pervious paving, bioretention basins, and stream separations, helps keep storm water out of the sewers.
MSD Green Projects in the News
One of MSD's green projects is underway at the Cincinnati Zoo. MSD is working to remove the Africa exhibit's stormwater runoff from the sewer system. For more on the project, see this Zoo project article at soapboxmedia.com.
MSD is also working with the Civic Garden Center on a LEED-certified Learning Station on the site of a former gas station in Cincinnati's Avondale neighborhood. The Garden Center project was recently profiled at Cincinnati.com.
Going Green - Locally
MSD is currently partnering with numerous local organizations to design and construct dozens of green demonstration projects.
Examples include green roofs, bioswales, rain barrels, pervious paving, and other smaller-scale projects designed to capture storm water from a specific area.
The purpose of this three-year study (2009-2011) is to identify which of these "green practices" are most effective at controlling storm water flows in combined sewer areas.
Going Green - Regionally
MSD is exploring ways to remove large volumes of storm water from the combined sewer system. Examples include controlling runoff from hillsides, separating or "daylighting" streams that were turned into combined sewers, and bioretention basins.
Much of this effort is focusing on the Lower Mill Creek watershed area, which is slated for a $244 million special tunnel project mandated under Phase 1 of Project Groundwork.
The deep tunnel (about 1.2 miles long and 30 feet in diameter), along with an enhanced high-rate treatment facility, would be used to store and treat excess sewage and storm water during high-flow periods, preventing about two billion gallons of annual combined sewer overflows.
MSD hopes to replace or supplement the tunnel with less expensive and potentially more sustainable solutions such as stream daylighting or a more comprehensive "Communities of the Future" approach.
Communities of the Future
Communities of the Future is a unique framework for combining sustainable sewer improvements with urban renewal in areas which experience frequent CSOs.
MSD is partnering with local communities to identify solutions to sewer overflows that simultaneously address community issues such as brownfields redevelopment, urban blight, vacancy, and property abandonment.
This approach can provide tangible community benefits such as improved housing and transportation, increased safety, lower crime, and enhanced parks and recreation.
MSD is currently pursuing potential opportunities in Carthage and South Fairmount, both located in the Lower Mill Creek watershed.
The focus of Communities of the Future is to provide the biggest public benefit for the financial investment made in sewer improvements.
For more information about this approach, please contact MaryLynn Lodor at (513) 244-5535.