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MWRD outlines stormwater programs, urges Berwyn to apply for green infrastructure and flood grants
Summary
At a Berwyn Committee of the Whole meeting, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District officials described how combined sewers, deep tunnels and reservoirs work together to reduce flooding and water pollution and urged municipalities to apply for partnership grants, green schoolyard pilots and downspout-disconnection programs.
Kevin Fitzpatrick, assistant director of engineering for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, told the Berwyn Committee of the Whole that the district’s long-term mission began in 1889 to protect Lake Michigan and the region’s drinking water and now includes countywide stormwater management authority since 2004.
“The Water Reclamation District was created a long time ago, back in 1889,” Fitzpatrick said, summarizing the agency’s history and role in wastewater treatment and stormwater programs. He described how older municipalities such as Berwyn have combined sewer systems that carry sanitary waste and stormwater in the same pipes, which can cause combined sewer overflows and basement backups in large storms.
Fitzpatrick reviewed the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP), a deep-tunnel system constructed after a 1972 board decision to capture excess combined sewer flow…
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