A tale of two cities: Similar levels of funding don’t guarantee equal outcomes
When it comes to combined sewer overflows, many cities face similar issues. During adverse storm conditions, the unusually large influx of rainwater into storm drains overwhelms combined sewer systems — which treat both wastewater and storm water together. This can lead to sewer backups, unsanitary untreated overflow discharged into public waters, and flooding in streets and basements.
Take Kansas City, MO, and Baltimore, MD, as examples. Both entered into consent decrees with the EPA as a result of unsanitary overflow violations. (Kansas City in 2010; Baltimore initially in 2002, then again in 2017 because of a missed deadline.) Both city’s plans are multi-decade, multi-billion dollar investments funded by an increase in service costs to their ratepayers [1, 2]. But the two cities seem to be on very different management tracks. While Kansas City is expected to recover an estimated $1 billion due to improved efficiencies and has implemented electro-scan leak-detection technology as an improvement over CCTV and visual pipe inspections, Baltimore is mired in controversy. They recently released a near-live map of sewage overflows, but then stopped issuing notifications for the public as required for overflows above 10,000 gallons. And the Baltimore Department of Public Works has recently been accused of a sewer deficiency-related cover-up related to a new property development.
The takeaway? Innovative technology and large amounts of funding can only go so far if management is poor.
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