Abstract:
Most of Chicago has a combined sewer system, which means that sewage from homes, offices, and businesses flows into the same pipes as rainwater. These combined sewers were built before wastewater treatment technology existed, so they were designed to empty the sewage straight into the river.
In the early 20th century, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) built big intercepting sewers to redirect the sewage to new wastewater treatment plants. Our treatment plants clean sewage and release clean water to the river. This system works great in dry weather, but when it rains heavily, the intercepting sewers and treatment plants can get overloaded and sewage follows the original path of the sewers and overflows into the river. These combined sewer overflows pollute the water and also increase the danger of flooding.
As development spread through the Chicago area in the early 20th century, paved surfaces sent more and more amounts of stormwater runoff into the combined sewer system. By the 1960s, Chicago area sewers were overflowing to the river more than 100 days a year and flooding had become an ongoing problem. After years of studying the problem, in 1972 the MWRDGC adopted the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan, also known as TARP or “The Deep Tunnel” to solve the pollution and flood control problem plaguing the Chicagoland area. TARP is a system of deep, large diameter tunnels and vast reservoirs designed to reduce flooding, improve water quality in Chicago area waterways and protect Lake Michigan from pollution caused by sewer overflows.
Bio:
Kevin Fitzpatrick has been a professional engineer working in the water resources field for 25 over years. He has a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois and a Master of Science in Environmental Engineering from the University of North Carolina. Mr. Fitzpatrick spent 3 years as a consulting engineer, designing drinking water and wastewater treatment facilities, before joining the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago in 1999.
Since joining the District, Mr. Fitzpatrick spent two years in the Maintenance and Operations Department before moving to the Engineering Department as a project engineer and then project manager for large infrastructure projects. In his current job as Assistant Director of Engineering, Mr. Fitzpatrick manages the work of approximately 100 engineers and technical staff in the Infrastructure and Management Division of the Engineering Department. This work includes stormwater management projects, collection systems projects including the $3.8 billion Tunnel and Reservoir Plan along with intercepting sewer rehabilitation, and administering the Watershed Management Ordinance to regulate development and local sewer construction.