TERRE HAUTE — Many people probably don’t realize it, but dozens of times each year, raw sewage from the city of Terre Haute flows directly into the Wabash River.

Because of the size of the city’s sewer system, parts of which dates back to the Civil War, anytime it rains at least a quarter of an inch, sewage spills over from the sewer system into the river.

“Right now all that stuff is going in the river,” said Mayor Duke Bennett, who is working with state and federal environmental officials to reduce the city’s contribution to pollution in the Wabash.

City officials, facing mandates from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, want to help clean up the river at a price the city’s residents and businesses can bear. “We want to find the most cost-effective solution,” Bennett said.

Terre Haute is not alone. All across the Midwest, cities with 100-plus year-old sewer systems, are trying to find ways to clean up their nearby rivers and streams by keeping sewage out. In Indiana, 107 communities are facing this problem, said Amber Finkelstein, public information officer for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

“This is a national problem,” Finkelstein said. The total bill for dealing with the problem in Indiana will be about $2.7 billion, she said. The plan to keep excess sewage out of the White River in Indianapolis is $1.7 billion. Terre Haute’s total price tag is expected to be around $130 million, Bennett said.

From Outhouses to Bathrooms

The problem dates back to the days before indoor plumbing. Cities, such as Terre Haute, built rain water drainage systems under city streets in the late 1800s. In Terre Haute, these drains took the form of large brick tunnels several feet in diameter. These big underground tunnels, which are often large enough to walk in, were designed to drain storm water from city streets into the Wabash River.

Then, years after these systems were built, indoor plumbing started being introduced in many homes. As a result, residential sewer lines started being routinely connected to the big underground drains.

“The invention of indoor plumbing meets the invention of storm drains,” said Chuck Ennis, Terre Haute’s city engineer. The result was a “combined sewer system” that directly deposited rain water and raw sewage into the Wabash River for about 100 years until the city modified the system by building its sewage treatment plant south of the city.

When the city built the sewage treatment plant in the 1960s, it also built a large tunnel connecting the existing combined sewer lines to the plant. As a result, much of the city’s sewage could then be diverted through a large tunnel — called an “interceptor” — away from the river.

But the new plant and the interceptor did not solve the whole problem. On sunny days, the system works fine, but when it rains, the system is overloaded and raw sewage again finds its way directly into the river.

“It doesn’t take much of a storm to cause an overflow into the river,” Ennis said. Quite simply, the combined sewer system is not large enough to hold all the water generated by even a moderate rain.

On the banks of the Wabash

Today it’s possible to see where Terre Haute’s sewer system overflows into the Wabash. Two of the nine combined sewer drains dump their overflows into the river at Fairbanks Park and the other seven outflows are scattered between the park and Chestnut Street, where the farthest-north outflow is located. The outflows are fenced-in and signs warm potential swimmers that these drains contain “sewage or wastewater pollutants.”

When sewage and wastewater flows directly into the river through the big pipes, its called a “combined sewer overflow,” or CSO. Stopping CSOs or reducing them dramatically — is the goal of the current effort being mandated by the U.S. EPA and IDEM. Terre Haute has no choice in this matter, the mandate is from the federal government and saying no is not an option.

“We have no choice,” Bennett said, adding this is also an “unfunded mandate” from the federal government. The EPA and IDEM call the tune, but Terre Haute must find a way to pay for it.

“This is the biggest [unfunded mandate] I know of,” Bennett said.

Where to put the Stuff

“It’s all about storage,” Ennis said referring to ways to solve the CSO problem. If sewage and storm water can’t be allowed to overflow into the Wabash, it has to go someplace for temporary holding until it can be pumped more slowly to the sewage treatment plant, he said.

But finding places to store the CSO is no easy task. One idea the city seems determined to try is the use of “lagoons” formerly owned by International Paper before that company closed its Terre Haute operations in 2007.

Late Friday, city officials announced the Terre Haute Sanitary District had reached a “purchase agreement” with International Paper to buy 283 acres of land on the east side of the Wabash, including about 37 acres of lagoons. International Paper formerly used the lagoons for its own wastewater disposal system. Assuming the sale is finalized, the city hopes to convert those lagoons for use in its CSO problem.

It was not immediately announced how much the city agreed to pay for the IP property, but city officials had said earlier buying the property would save the city from the cost of spending $9 million to build lagoons from scratch. In an interview Thursday, Bennett said the purchase would save the city more than $8 million of that $9 million.

An additional idea for storing CSO is to build a giant underground holding tank in the vicinity of First and Chestnut streets — an area where Indiana State University hopes to expand. City officials say such a tank, which would be the size of a city block, is needed on the city’s north side even if lagoons are used in the south. This is because the outflow from two CSO drains in that area is tremendous, Ennis said. The two CSO drains that spill into the Wabash near Chestnut Street handle all of the CSO for the north side of Terre Haute, he said.

Not so Fast

Not everyone is in favor of the idea of using lagoons and a big underground storage tank for CSO storage. The most vocal objections are coming from the Wabash River Development and Beautification, Inc., better known as “Riverscape.”

Riverscape is a not-for-profit, private group working on a plan to develop the east and west sides of the Wabash River from U.S. 63 to Interstate 70. The group — working with design engineers at HTNB under a local government contract — has drawn up plans for riverfront development, including areas for recreation, business and wildlife.

“We’re not trying to be obstructionists” or drive up sewer rates, said John Mutchner, president of the Riverscape group. “But we do have a vision for the future of that area and we are holding to that vision.”

Basically, people involved with Riverscape are concerned that lagoons would smell bad and look bad. Earlier Riverscape development plans had called for placing a marina where the lagoons would be, Mutchner said. CSO lagoons could “severely impact our plans for Riverscape in that area,” he said. The city is looking for the most inexpensive way to meet the federal mandates, but “cheapest is not always best,” he said.

Bennett, in an October presentation, tried to reassure Riverscape committee members by noting that the city of Fort Wayne uses a lagoon system to help with its CSO problem and, he was told, there is no smell. In fact, communities have developed along side the lagoons since they were built, Ennis said. The lagoons would also feature cat tails and other natural growth to make the appearance blend with their surroundings, he said. And the CSO would be filtered and treated before entering the lagoons themselves, Bennett said.

Meanwhile, the idea of a large storage tank near First and Chestnut streets is no more welcome.

Indiana State University president Dan Bradley, who is also a member of the Riverscape committee, said ISU is “very much opposed to that idea.” In fact, the university is looking to expand toward the river in that area and the idea of a large, underground CSO tank is not appealing, he said.

The university is concerned that the tank would involve truck traffic at certain times of year and would possibly have an odor, Bradley said, adding he would like the city to rethink the whole CSO problem starting with a “clean piece of paper.”

What’s this going to Cost?

Whatever the city does, the CSO plan is expected to cost around $130 million over the next 20 years, Bennett said. In addition to the lagoon and underground storage tank ideas, several other ideas have been considered. One idea, to basically rebuild all of the city’s sewers into a separated storm water and sewage disposal system, would cost about $300 million, Ennis said.

To put all this in some perspective, the city’s spends about $100 million annually to pay for everything it currently does, including police and fire protection, wastewater treatment, parks, street repairs, courts and more.

To pay the bill for whatever it does, the city will need to raise sewer rates. In fact, Bennett said there is no question sewer rates, which average $15 per month in the city now, will need to increase next year. Years down the road, to cover the CSO improvements, rates will reach about $55 per month, Ennis said.

In the spring, the city is expecting to hand over its “long term control plan” to IDEM for approval. In the meantime, city officials are working closely with IDEM to make sure there are no surprises, Ennis said.

“They are on track,” IDEM’s Finkelstein said of Terre Haute’s progress in drafting a new CSO plan. IDEM is expected to approve or reject the city’s plan next September, city officials said.

If the city does not adopt a plan agreeable to state and federal officials, it can be fined, Bennett said. He also worries that if sewer rates increase too much, residents and businesses currently in the city will move into the county or away from the area completely, he said.

Yet others, especially those in the Riverscape group, are concerned that by doing things the least expensive way now, the city may be sacrificing its best chance for long term growth and improvement. The Riverscape plan is potentially “transformative,” Bradley said, adding it deserves a “high level” of importance in future plans for the city.

Mutchner agrees. “The mayor is in a tough situation. We appreciate that,” he said. The mayor is concerned about sewer rates and affordability, he added. “That’s his job. Our job is to plan for the future and in the process improve Terre Haute’s image. We’re talking about quality of life.”



Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.