We have two sewer systems. A Storm sewer system. And a sanitary sewer
system.
The sanitary sewer is a closed system that carries everything from your home
or business (toilet, bathtub, laundry, sinks, etc) to processing plants (the
largest, by far, in the Pigs Eye/Greycloud Island area south of South St
Paul) where it is treated before being released into the Mississippi.
The storm sewer system is really nothing more that a rerouting of the
streams, brooks, rills, (that would otherwise carry away rain water) into
underground tubes that then deposit the water into the nearest stream, lake,
river or wetland. As you walk along a lake, river, creek, stream or
wetland look for these concrete tubes and wonder about what has been flushed
off of the streets and is now coming out into our precious water bodies.
Roofs, parking lots, driveways and streets are really part of the storm
sewer system, for they collect and channel rain and snow melt into the storm
drains and thus into the concrete tubes and thus into our precious bodies of
water. (Unless, like the Green Institute, where the parking lot is
designed to channel all water to where it will sink into the ground.) In an
Urban area such a large percentage of the surface area is roofs, parking
lots, driveways and streets that lots and lots of rain just runs off into
the storm sewers and steams causing flooding while at the same time not
allowing enough water to sink into the earth, so as a result, we have a much
lower water table than before the urban build up.
Leaves that in years past fell at the base of a tree and decayed now fall
onto a driveway and are washed into the street and into the storm sewer and
into the nearest lake, steam, river or wetland.
Sincerely,
Dean Zimmermann
Commissioner Mpls Park Board. Dist 3
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
612-722-8768
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
Behalf Of Pam Blixt
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2000 6:25 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: storm water run-off
I have been out of town for several days and missed out on the leaf
discussion but...
Barb Lickness wrote:
> Can somebody out there talk about what areas of the
> city are connected to the sewer system and which ones
> are not. And maybe how when and why that happened?
>
and Greg Riedesel wrote:
>I know that St. Paul had interconnecitons between their run-off
>systems and their sewer systems, such that when it rained a heckovalot,
>raw sewage was ending up in the Mississippi. They've spent a heckovalot
>to remove the interconnections.
Mpls. spent the same gajillions to separate their sewer system and finished
several years ago. The storm sewer map for the City of Minneapolis is an
intricate and (only for those of us in water management) endlessly
fascinating thing. If you volunteer to spray paint your storm sewers with
the image "Don't Dump! Drains to ...) the city will give you a map of your
local area so you can spray paint the correct water body on the grate.
Various storm sewers drain to the Mississippi, Shingle, Minnehaha or Bassett
creeks, or the various lakes and ponds. It all depends on which watershed
you are in and it can change, depending on where the city needs to route
water due to flooding problems. The system is heavily dependent upon
gravity so if you follow your storm sewer down hill you will probably arrive
at its final destination.
Pam Blixt
Nokomis East
