By Bruce Geiselman
Cleveland.com
LAKEWOOD, Ohio – City officials are testing a new technology at the Lakewood Wastewater Treatment Plant to reduce sanitary and combined sewer overflows during heavy rain.
Lakewood, like many communities with aging sewer systems, is struggling to eliminate discharges of untreated sewage. The Clean Water Act of 1972 calls for an end to those discharges. Parts of Lakewood have a combined sanitary and storm sewer system, and other sections have sanitary sewers that allow storm water to enter through manholes or leaks. The result during heavy rainfalls is the city’s sewers send more water to the plant than it can treat, resulting in untreated discharges of sewage into the Rocky River and Lake Erie.
Lakewood and the Ohio EPA have agreed to an eight-year plan to find solutions. As part of that agreement, the city has started a pilot study of a high-rate treatment system used only during storms when flows exceed the sewage plant’s 40-million gallon per day capacity. The study will run through mid-July.
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