TRAFFIC: West 11th to close for construction July 9

Starting July 9, West 11th Street will close for about a week to complete a sewer relining project. The street will be closed to all traffic besides local residents.

The relining process, known as cured in place pipe, uses a resin which yields odors. Embedded below are a brief project description and frequently asked questions regarding the resin.

RADIO, part II: "That's a significant drop." Yes, he is.

So when a caller to the WMMS 100.7 Alan Cox Show during Wednesday drivetime reacted to the hosts' conversation about Lake Erie's poor beachwater quality, he rightfully touched on the Sewer District's multi-billion-dollar program to fix some of the problems plaguing the lakefront.

We heard about the call yesterday morning, and our own Jean Chapman sent Alan Cox an email to clarify a few points the caller made. Why not, right? With that, we also used her email as a blog post, embedded a clip from the show's podcast, and added a few points for good measure. In good fun, our spokesdrop Wally tweeted @alancoxshow to let him know he gave us good material and an opportunity to share information.

Then came Thursday's show. Check it out.

RADIO: I'm not sure we can use that in a headline.

The phrase "t_rd reduction" might be awkward in a headline, but it's the way yesterday's beach report and our efforts to monitor and improve water quality came up in drive-time talk radio yesterday. Hear for yourself:

WMMS's Alan Cox Show spent a few segments on the topic yesterday afternoon. And while Lake Erie and its water quality are the punchline for easy jokes [insert burning-river humor here], we have reduced many pollution sources affecting our lake in the last 40 years.

Yet we are the first to admit we have a long way to go. There are many factors involved in the bacteria and pollution along the lakefront, and we're tackling them.

PUP: Picking up waste, dropping some knowledge

Photo by J. Quinn

Summer days and dog walking go hand in hand. On your walks, have you seen any of our PUP signs? The requests for them continue coming in, but so do the questions about the real motivators behind this successful campaign.

Our Pick Up Poop! (PUP) program comes down to two things: Water quality, and common courtesy.

The bac facts: Bacteria Tallahassee (Florida)'s "Think About Personal Pollution (TAPP)" runs a similar pet campaign, and they offer a helpful comparison between the amounts of bacteria in various animal wastes.

TAPP goes on to explain:

Dogs present a special problem. Built to eat almost anything, dogs have as especially large number of intestinal bacteria to digest that wide variety of food, about 23 million bacteria per gram of waste.

Due to dogs' high-protein diets, their waste is highly acidic. It is not a fertilizer and can contain 10 times as much fecal coliform bacteria as cow manure, and also a whole lot of nasty stuff like e. coli, salmonella, and giardia.

BEACHES: Sewer District partners with NRDC in press conference on beach quality

Villa Angela Beach in Cleveland, Ohio. Photo by Michael Uva.

Updated 2012 06/27—This morning, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) held a 10:00 press conference at the Great Lakes Science Center to release its annual report on national beaches—including several in Greater Cleveland—and the Sewer District has partnered with them at the release event.

You can follow tweets from the conference on our @wallywaterdrop Twitter stream or using hashtag #2012beach

PROFILE: Students travel the ins and outs of Cleveland's water cycle

Assistant superintendent Dan Smith speaks to a group of Sewer District summer students and co-ops from a point high atop a trickling filter at the Westerly plant in Cleveland.

Think of it as a water-cycle/career-prep roadtrip. The Sewer District calls it success@work.

The District recently dedicated a day to providing its summer students with insight on how to be more successful in the workplace. With that came a closer look into the work of the Sewer District, the urban water cycle, and related career opportunities present in the Greater Cleveland community.

“I didn’t expect too much, but I really got a lot out of it,” said Ryan Stroud, a student at Case Western Reserve University working in a summer position in Building Maintenance. “We got a lot of information about the (treatment) plants and how the water cycle in Cleveland works, but we also got a lot about personal development.”

PHOTOS: Where's Wally? Austria. Sort of.

Former Sewer District summer student Robert Nedrich sent us a few photos of his time in Vienna, Austria. A true validation of the impact we had on Robert, he was quick to see the resemblance between a Vienna water treatment facility mascot and our own Wally Waterdrop, our official spokesdrop.

Here is an example of one of the information panels they had on display:

The panel illustrates one step in the treatment process, the likely equivalent of aeration tanks like these at our Easterly plant in Cleveland where good bacteria feed on germs in the wastewater. The text, translated from German via Google, reads:

This pool is called a revival pool. Quite a lot of bacteria live here and these need lots of air to breathe. Therefore, air is constantly blown. Bacteria purify the water and eat the dirt.

"Revival pool." Great term.

STORMWATER: District attempts to settle program dispute with opposing parties

On June 7, 2012, the Sewer District filed a Report to the Court in the case of Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District vs. Bath Township, Ohio, et al. (CV-10-714945). In this report, the Sewer District officially responded and agreed to amend its Stormwater Management Code to make changes to the Regional Stormwater Management Program as requested by Judge Thomas J. Pokorny in his February 15 ruling. At the June 7 Board Meeting, the Sewer District’s Board of Trustees approved issuing the proposed Stormwater Management Code changes to all Member Communities for a 30-day comment period.

The most notable proposed change to the Regional Stormwater Management Program is the Community Cost-Share provision, which has been increased from 7.5 percent of fees collected annually from each member community to “no less than 25 percent.” Member communities can apply for these funds from the Sewer District and use the funds for local stormwater-related projects including construction, operation and maintenance of their local stormwater systems; projects that assist communities with EPA requirements; equipment purchases; and projects necessary to mitigate separate sanitary sewer overflow problems.

STORMWATER: Proposed stormwater-code revisions open for comment through July 10

The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District is proposing modifications to Title V, the section of the District’s Code of Regulations addressing the Regional Stormwater Management Program. These changes are made to bring Title V in compliance with Judge Pokorny’s Opinion dated February 15, 2012, to comply with the terms of settlement agreements and to address, in some instances, concerns raised by various opposition parties in post-trial discussions.

[Download Title V with proposed changes]

If you have any comments on the proposed changes, please provide written comments by July 10, 2012 by following the instructions on page 2 of the proposal.

CONSTRUCTION: Sewer project to close two lanes on Lakeshore Blvd.

Beginning this week, the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District will begin installation of a new sewer along Lakeshore Boulevard. This relief sewer, designed to reduce flooding in the area, will require temporary closure of two westbound lanes along Lakeshore Boulevard between East 156 Street and Sycamore Street. Drivers should anticipate delays.

To minimize traffic interruptions, this sewer work will be performed in small sections at a time, working west to east along Lakeshore Boulevard. During construction along each segment, the northernmost two lanes of Lakeshore Boulevard will be closed to vehicular traffic. Construction is expected to last three months.

BY THE NUMBERS: Mackenzie's a machine that's anything but boring

Mackenzie is the name of the huge tunnel digger that will burrow the route of the Euclid Creek Tunnel, a major piece of our Project Clean Lake efforts. Here are some of the stats about the project and the equipment.

About the Euclid Creek Tunnel

The Euclid Creek Tunnel is a $197 million project that will capture combined sewage (a mixture of wastewater and stormwater) and store it until it can be pumped out and treated at the Easterly Wastewater Treatment Plant. The Euclid Creek Tunnel—located approximately 200 feet below ground—will be 24 feet in diameter and nearly three miles long when complete. It will hold 52 million gallons of combined sewage at a time.

What is the purpose of the tunnel boring machine?

A tunnel boring machine, or TBM, cuts through rock. This is the piece of equipment used to excavate the 18,000-foot long tunnel. This TBM is “single pass,” which means that after it cuts through the bedrock, it also places lining segments into place so that the tunnel is fully lined and watertight. It will cut a path 27 feet in diameter and, when the lining segments are in place and grouted, the finished diameter of the tunnel will be 24 feet.