e-Newsletter | 07/23/2012

Remember July 22-23, 2010?

It's a memory drenched in sharp contrast to the extreme drought we're living with on July 23, 2012. We should take a minute to remember the devastation of 2010, the monsoon rains, flooded basements, swollen rivers, sinkholes, and impassable streets that left us all wondering how we could cope.It's also a good time to talk about the intense work and millions of dollars in improvements we've made to reduce the risk of damage in this region when Mother Nature unleashes extreme storms on our homes and neighborhoods.

This pictures below may not look like anything special, but it's a new overflow pump station that will help keep water and wastewater out of people's basements during extreme storms. This overflow pump station is one of our last defenses against basement backups.

MMSD also initiated a $56 million private property program that will slowly, over time, help this region fix leaking pipes from homes and businesses, keeping more rainwater and groundwater out of sanitary sewers – water that shouldn't be there in the first place. Check out this video to see what we're talking about:

Reducing the Risk of Basement Backups

While we continue to expand, operate, and maintain our system as the recipient of the 2012 US Water Prize should, it's also vitally important that each of us understand how we impact the sewer system and our rivers and Lake Michigan. There is a lot you can do to reduce the amount of water that comes from your yard and the sewer pipe you own at home. Here are a couple of web sites we've developed packed with useful information:

So while you are baking through the dry, hot summer of 2012, just remember that terrible rainstorm two years ago and look up some of this helpful information. We need to work on all this together to reduce the impact of future storms on our homes and Lake Michigan.

Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District

260 W. Seeboth Street | Milwaukee, WI 53204