Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District

Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District
Sewage treatment overview
Formed1982 (1982)
JurisdictionMilwaukee, Ozaukee and Racine counties
Headquarters260 W. Seeboth Street
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Websitemmsd.com
Main Headquarters

The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) is a regional government agency that provides water reclamation and flood management services for about 1.1 million people in 28 communities in the Greater Milwaukee Area. A recipient of the U.S. Water Prize[1] and many other awards, the District has a record of 98.4 percent, since 1994, for capturing and cleaning wastewater from 28 communities in a 411-square-mile (1,060 km2) area. The national goal is 85 percent of all the rain and wastewater that enters their sewer systems.

With headquarters and a central laboratory along the Menomonee River near downtown Milwaukee, it has two wastewater treatment plants: the Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility, which is located at Jones Island (43°01′23.5″N 87°53′58″W / 43.023194°N 87.89944°W / 43.023194; -87.89944) in Milwaukee, and a second facility at the South Shore (42°53′16″N 87°50′44″W / 42.88778°N 87.84556°W / 42.88778; -87.84556) in Oak Creek. These facilities were operated by United Water under a 10-year agreement ending March 1, 2008. Veolia Water is the current operator.

"The world’s first large scale wastewater treatment plant was constructed on Jones Island, near the shore of Lake Michigan."[2] The primary wastewater treatment plant at Jones Island was one of the first of its kind when the original activated sludge plant was constructed in 1925. MMSD was the first to market biosolids created through this process as a fertilizer under the name "Milorganite."[3][4] The Jones Island Plant was among the first sewage treatment plants in the United States to succeed in using the activated sludge treatment process. "It was the first treatment facility to economically dispose of the recovered sludge by producing an organic fertilizer." In the early 1980s the plant needed extensive reworking, "this does not detract from its historic significance as a pioneering facility in the field of pollution control technology."[4] It had the largest capacity of any plant in the world when constructed.[3][5] Its present treatment capacity is 390 million gallons per day, but average flow was only 105 million gallons per day between 2015 and 2019.[6] The 1925 plant has been designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.[4][7][8] MMSD has maintained an inline storage system (ISS) based on tunnels to store and convey wet weather flows, including combined sewage, since 1994. The ISS tunnels have a total capacity of 400 million US gallons (1.5×109 L) and a combined length of over 20 miles (32 km). Since 1994, the ISS tunnels have prevented more than 37 billion US gallons (1.4×1011 L) of combined sewer overflows (CSOs)[9] and sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) from entering area waterways, including Lake Michigan. Between 1994 and 2000, CSOs decreased from 40 to 60 events per year to an average of 2.5 events per year (WDNR 2001).

  1. ^ "City of Milwaukee - US Water Prize".
  2. ^ Stephens, Odin L.; Mengak, Michael T.; Osborn, David; Miller, Karl V. (March 2005). "Using Milorganite to temporarily repel white-tailed deer from food plots" (PDF). Wildlife Management Series. WSFR. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-05-30.
  3. ^ a b Program Management Office, Milwaukee Water Pollution Abatement Program; CH2M HILL, INC.; Donohue & Associates, Inc.; Howard Needles Tammen & Bergendoff; Graef, Anhalt, Schloemer and Associates, Inc.; Poly tech, Inc.; J.C. Zimmerman Engineering Corp.; Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc. (April 1982). Historic Documentation of the Jones Island West Plant (PDF). Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. Retrieved August 8, 2015. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ a b c Merritt, Raymond H. (1982). "Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage Treatment Plant" (PDF). Historic American Engineering Record. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress. Retrieved October 14, 2021.
  5. ^ Freese, Simon W., P.E.; Sizemore, Deborah Lightfoot. A Century in the Works: 100 Years of Progress in Civil and Environmental Engineering; Freese and Nichols Consulting Engineers 1894-1994 (PDF). p. 44. Retrieved April 2, 2014.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. ^ "2021 Proposed Operations and Maintenance and Capital Budgets" (PDF). Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
  7. ^ American Society of Civil Engineers (August 13, 1974). "Regarding designation of the Jones Island plant as a national engineering landmark" (Press release).
  8. ^ "Environmental Draft Impact Statement: Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District; Water Pollution Abatement Program, No. E1S801072DB". Environmental Protection Agency. November 1980. p. V-100. Retrieved April 1, 2014.
  9. ^ "EPA Report to Congress Combined Sewer Overflows to the Lake Michigan Basin" (PDF).