Let’s Solve Real Problems

I never saw anything like it. A lake over 15 feet deep spanning several acres between the next two houses north and into my backyard with a bay across our small road four feet deep, the tippy-top of the fire hydrant barely sticking out. Over seven inches of rain falling in a little over two hours. Unbelievable.

I calculated roughly how much untreated sewage would be discharged from MMSD this storm, a routine calculation for Milwaukeeans in recent years. Last week’s figures from the Wednesday night/Thursday morning storm of 4+ inches came out to be in excess of 500 million gallons. Yum! This discharge includes both raw sanitary sewage (poop) and land runoff. My estimated calculation gets me to a figure in excess of 2 BILLION gallons. Will the final numbers ever be released? We’ll see.

The MMSD situation, intolerable and inconceivable as it is, exemplifies a true ongoing pollution source that continues to threaten our most precious city resource, Lake Michigan, and to be perpetuated through government inaction. This situation was not caused by Tom Barrett or Jim Doyle, both Democratic politicians that have done plenty to destroy the business climate in their respective jurisdictions. The root of the situation stems from a decision made by long-time former Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Henry Maier. Due to cost concerns, when the city executed a plan to revamp it’s sewer system in the mid 1980s, Maier decided to go with the deep tunnel proposal which included the fatal mistake of uniting the storm and sanitary sewer into one combined system.

This colossal blunder we continue to pay for both financially and environmentally each time the area receives even moderate rainfall. Besides the gigantic plume of fouled water closing our beaches and engulfing the lakefront in that sweet sewage perfume, the residents along the sewer lines are presented with the periodic gift of raw sewage backing up into their basements. How thoughtful! What fun to rummage through old boxes of absorbed sewer water followed by massive trips to the curb with water-soaked carpeting and other garbage. Then you get to mop and wipe down everything with bleach to disinfect and kill the odor. I was honored in assisting my mother-in-law with her little gift from the city this past Saturday morning. But now you’ve cleaned your basement and purged the clutter from your life. Until next time.

While Tom Barrett and Jim Doyle are not responsible for creating the MMSD nightmare, neither one has done anything to implement any tangible steps to a permanent solution. Public relations monetary allocation has been the response. Instead, these two progressive liberal politicians continue to pursue the imaginary problems of man-made global warming, environmental damage from the use of coal and petroleum, and mass transportation voids caused by the lack of commuter and high speed rail systems. The completely useless and unnecessary not-very-highspeed rail system touted by Doyle and supported by Barrett will suck up over 800 million dollars as currently projected (we know the actual amount will be orders of magnitude more). Billions of dollars go to “renewable” energy subsidies for wind and ethanol to combat some phantom energy problem of carbon-dioxide induced climate change, environmental destruction from “dirty” energy sources like “fossil“ fuels or some sinister threat from nuclear power. Examination of facts show these “clean” energies actually produce more carbon dioxide, have much greater and graver environmental impacts, and cost everyone much, much more money. Doyle’s “Green Jobs” bill and Tom Barrett’s downtown trolley proposal provide two scathing examples of how these two elected executives prioritize the resources they amass through their massive tax increases and are entrusted by the public to use wisely.

The MMSD discharge issue can never be solved until the root cause of the problem actually gets addressed. A combined storm and sanitary sewer system will always produce this result regardless of how deep the deep tunnel becomes or how much capacity it is capable of holding. The limiting factor, water treatment capability and throughput, can NEVER account for all volumes of sewage from a storm sewage system. See, the sanitary sewer component does not change significantly from day to day, so you can easily design a treatment process to deal with this continually and systematically. The sanitary sewer requires more effort and cost to treat but the relatively constant and small volume keeps this situation completely manageable. The storm sewer volume is a complete unknown. As we have seen, this volume can be almost zero for months during droughts and immeasurably large during storms like we’ve experienced in the last two weeks and many times over the last two decades. However, the tiny contamination content of storm sewer allows it to be easily and quickly treated and can be discharged directly to the watershed during times of volume crisis with much, much less environmental impact than what we currently discharge. UNTIL THE STORM SEWER IS SEPARATED FROM THE SANITARY SEWER THIS PROBLEM WILL NEVER GO AWAY.

What would it cost to make this separation? How long would it take? I don’t have these answers. But I can say for certain giant pools of money currently exist for completely useless allocations like train and renewable energy subsidies that could be put to use immediately to solve this problem. And the sooner we begin on the road to a real solution to the MMSD debacle, the sooner we will see the day when a big rainstorm does not mean big, brown sewage plumes into Lake Michigan or fecal matter deposited in our basements.

We know what needs to be done. The resources are available to get this solution started. An executive politician willing to provide the leadership needed to embark on this pathway remains the sole obstacle to a true solution to this intolerable situation. Tom Barrett and Jim Doyle have showed no interest up to this point in providing this leadership. With Doyle being a lame duck in addition to his eight-year record of paying off political allies while ignoring real world problems, we need to insist that the new Governor takes on this problem directly. Tom Barrett, as current Milwaukee Mayor, has been in a position to provide this leadership for the last six years. He has not done so. Why would he suddenly start to provide this leadership if elected Governor?

aLet’s stop the nonsense of man-made global warming, green jobs, running out of petroleum, environmental pollution that does not exist, Bisphenol A residuals in packaging and all the other imaginary emergencies constantly being touted by the leftists, progressives and liberals. Let’s instead deal with the real world problems of MMSD discharges, an antiquated and inadequate freeway system in the Milwaukee metroplex, the Milwaukee Public School System, and the impending fiscal disaster caused by the unsustainable benefits and retirement packages of the Teacher’s Union and other State employees. These problems have real world implications and real world solutions. We must address these issues now if we have any hope for a brighter future for Wisconsin.