Louisville Prepares For More Sewage Spills Amid Climate Change

The experience of water managers in Kentucky demonstrates a difficult infrastructure challenge many cities are facing: Climate change is causing a rise in sewage spills.

“Changing local weather threatens to undercut Louisville's big investment in cleaner waterways,” according to The Courier-Journal.

The Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) is in the midst of a 19-year plan to make sewer system improvements required by the U.S. EPA. The improvements “are largely based on accommodating rainfall patterns in the year 2001 — deemed typical based on the historical record,” the report said.

But by 2024, when the improvements will be complete, rainfall is expected to be more intense and more frequent, the report said. That could mean the federal agency will impose even tougher requirements to accommodate new conditions.

“MSD's planned network of seven giant underground storage basins and a 2.5-mile-long tunnel is designed to temporarily hold that mixture of rain and sewage for treatment later. But will all that storage be enough to handle the storms of the future?” the report said.

Brian Bingham, MSD's operations chief, said that as storms get bigger, there may be related challenges with Clean Water Act compliance, the report said.

Kenneth Kunkel, a scientist with a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) program, described the challenge like this, per the report: "Based on our climate science, we expect (extreme rain) to go up. You better prepare for bigger rain events and more frequent heavy rain events."

David Easterling, an NOAA climate scientist, added: "Communities are investing a lot of money on infrastructure, and they are going to want it to work. But the statistical models they use now for rain may not be taking into account these new trends."

Kentucky is not the only place this pattern is playing out. The EPA notes that extreme weather events “are becoming more frequent and/or severe around the world. This is consistent with what we expect with a warming planet.”

A report from the environmental group Climate Central found major vulnerabilities for sewage plants as a result of climate change, according to CityLab.

“When a storm surge arrives, the plants have little choice but to re-route sewage — untreated or only partially treated — directly into the water to avoid flooding. Otherwise the facilities are at risk of flooding from the inside, too, if water builds up in the discharge pipes. That's on top of the general problems of power outages, not to mention damage that could occur to pumps and holding tanks,” the news report said.

To read more about preparing for emergencies visit Water Online’s Resiliency Solutions Center.