Test finds stadium bathroom sewage could be going to river
(Published Wednesday, March 14, 2007 10:24:24 AM CST)
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Associated Press
MILWAUKEE - Testing Tuesday showed that sanitary sewage from Miller Park bathrooms is finding its way into a storm sewer emptying into a nearby river that flows into Lake Michigan.
The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District scheduled the testing after a genetic marker for bacteria from human waste was found in 12 samples of storm water from the pipe that discharges into the Menomonee River.
Waste from the ballpark's sanitary sewers is supposed to go to treatment plants, not into the storm sewer and the river.
Colored dye that was poured into sinks in the stadium showed up in a storm sewer, said Peter Topczewski, water quality protection manager with the district. Bathrooms inside a police office in the stadium's basement and a private suite on an upper level also had been tested.
The dye then was seen flowing from a storm sewer pipe that drains a stadium parking lot and flows into the river east of the stadium.
Miller Park opened in April 2001. The Milwaukee Brewers are scheduled to open the coming season there April 2.
Mike Duckett, executive director of the stadium district that oversees Miller Park, said officials hope to have the problem fixed by then.
"Our goal is to get it fixed before opening day in a permanent manner," Duckett said, but short of that, a temporary remedy will be found.
He predicted the repair could be simple once the problem is fully analyzed.
Duckett said plumbing work for Miller Park began as part of the construction process eight years ago, and the problem could even involve some remaining pipes from the old County Stadium, which opened in 1953 at an adjacent site and was demolished after the 2000 season.
"So the problem they discovered has been in existence for at least eight years and possibly more than 50," he said.
"Our suspicion is that it's a very small minute amount. That's why it's gone undetected for years, but it's still a problem we fully intend to fix."
He said the process of finding a remedy would continue Wednesday with meetings of the stadium's plumbing contractor and the sewerage district, likely leading to more testing.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Sunday about the testing program in the Milwaukee area that detected the bacteria from human waste in water from 27 of 45 storm sewer pipes that discharge into various waterways.
The testing has been done by Sandra McLellan's laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Great Lakes WATER Institute.
McLellan said the program is unique among U.S. cities in trying to identify whether routine storm-water discharges are being contaminated by human sewage.
"This is something we've suspected was happening because cross-connections between sanitary and storm sewers have been found in other cities," Lynn Broaddus, executive director of the Friends of Milwaukee's Rivers, told the Journal Sentinel.
"It's discouraging," Broaddus said, "but now we've got the public energy to start solving the problem."
