Wisconsin sewage draws ire in Chicago
CHICAGO -- Drenched by heavy spring rains, Milwaukee has dumped nearly 5 billion gallons of storm water and raw sewage into Lake Michigan, angering leaders in Chicago who blasted their northern neighbor for being a poor steward of the great lake and contributing to dozens of swimming bans along the Illinois shoreline.
The most vocal critics in this border water fight have been Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and US Representative Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican who chided Milwaukee for polluting the lake with "cheesehead sewer water."
"It's very frustrating," said Kirk. "Their system cannot handle a heavy rainfall."
Daley has also lashed out recently, telling reporters, "Wisconsin has to change. Milwaukee has to change. That's why you see the beach closings. That's unfair."
Milwaukee officials dismissed the accusations, saying the city has invested heavily in its storm infrastructure. The cost of the projects to date -- including a deep tunnel to capture storm water and the upgrading of treatment plants -- totals about $2.3 billion, and another $900 million is earmarked for further improvements, said Bill Graffin, spokesman for the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.
Lake Michigan currents flow south, but Milwaukee officials say Chicago officials have no proof that the beach closings were the fault of the Wisconsin city's sewer system.
"This is putting the politics before the science," said Patrick Curley, chief of staff to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.
Curley said beaches in Racine and Kenosha, two Wisconsin towns between Milwaukee and Chicago, remained open after the discharge. "I don't think our sewage is smart enough to bypass Racine and Kenosha and make a hard right to the beaches of Chicago," he said.
The recent dumping was caused by storms that dumped about a foot of rain in some areas of Greater Milwaukee between May 7 and May 27, Graffin said. "If you take an average of 8.89 inches [of rain] over our entire 420-square-mile district, it comes out to about 65 billion gallons of water that dropped from the sky," Graffin said. About 14.5 billion flowed into the sewer system, and 10 billion gallons were captured and treated, he said. "Regrettably, 4.6 billion overflowed."
There have been no major discharges in June.
The dispute has caught the attention of the Environmental Protection Agency. In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Thomas Skinner, head of EPA enforcement, said, "Almost every city on the Great Lakes has problems, but Milwaukee's are of a level that are significantly greater than many other cities."
He predicted the city would need to implement "complex, expensive, and time-consuming" solutions, perhaps increasing the capacity of the deep tunnel and treatment plants. The EPA has said there is no proof that Milwaukee's sewage was the cause of Chicago's swimming bans.
Beach closures or swimming bans are tied to high levels of E. coli, created mostly by human and animal waste. As of Monday, there had been 43 swimming bans at Chicago beaches since the Memorial Day weekend. There were 130 in total between Memorial Day and Labor Day last year, said Julian Green, spokesman for the Chicago Park District.
