Municipal Sewage: Three Communities Try to Cope

To meet federal clean water guidelines, New Hampshire’s Winnipesaukee River Basin, the City of San Francisco, and the City of Milwaukee have to upgrade their treatment to a consistent secondary level. New Hampshire is well on the way to completing its program, for a relatively low cost of $65 million. But it does not have the tremendous problems with overflows that the two cities have due to the joint problems of infiltration of sanitary sewers during wet weather and inundation of combined sewers. Construction of new collector sewers and rehabilitation of existing sewers, along with the cost of improvements to treatment facilities, will cost a projected $1.6 billion in Milwaukee and $2.3 billion in San Francisco. Milwaukee’s task is even greater due to a court decision forcing the city to upgrade its facilities in excess of federal standards. Case histories of the three projects are presented.