By Heather Graves
Editor

GREEN BAY – In the midst of the Great Depression, while much was focused on the country’s financial uncertainty, a group of concerned citizens recognized the need to address the area’s uncontrolled pollution of area waterways.

“Our history is not that much different from a lot of utilities around that time,” NEW Water Executive Director Tom Sigmund said. “There was a lot of industry in Green Bay – whether it was food processing, meat packaging, paper production. Back in the 1920s, we produced a lot of stuff, and it was intended to be discharged directly to either Fox River or East River, and the pollution just became so bad that in around the 20s, they started saying ‘we need to do something.’ The water wasn’t anything anybody wanted to be around.”

NEW Water, the brand of the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District (GBMSD), was formed Dec. 4, 1931, with the first treatment plant operational in early 1935.

Sigmund said the person considered to be the “father of GBMSD” was a local attorney named Meyer Cohen.

“He realized that we were just not on a sustainable path,” he said. “He had seen that this concept about a metropolitan sewer district could be formed instead of just each community doing their own thing… But, Meyer thought a metropolitan sewerage district could be a lot more effective and efficient at providing the services. So, Meyer kind of drafted up the language and pulled together the city leaders at the time, and basically formed the district in 1931.”

Sigmund said when NEW Water started, it would just serve as a covenant to pipe the material, so it didn’t go into the East River and went to the Fox River where it had a larger flow.”

“Very quickly after that it was realized that we needed to start treating that waste water to remove the pollutants instead of just dumping them into the rivers, which were being overloaded,” he said. “Normally, the rivers can handle some amount of pollutants, and it will just naturally get treated, but we were way, way over that.”

NEW Water was originally a regional entity, Sigmund said, with three initial municipalities – City of Green Bay, Village of Allouez and the Town of Preble.

Sigmund said the first facility had a capacity of 10 million gallons per day, and included two primary clarifiers and chlorination for treatment of the wastewater.

“It has grown from there, as the Greater Green Bay metro area grew, we continued to provide services to those of that growing community,” he said.

Continued growth

NEW Water underwent several plant expansions from 1935 through the 1950s.

In 1955, Sigmund said a secondary treatment system was installed to biologically treat the water and remove wastes more extensively.

It was during this time NEW Water began separating storm and sanitary sewers.

That way, storm water wouldn’t be filling up the system, and treatment could focus on the more concentrated wastes, something Sigmund said is still a struggle.

Anticipating future federal clean water regulations, which came in the 1970s, NEW Water underwent a $72 million expansion project, becoming the first plant in the country to simultaneously treat municipal and pulp mill wastewater, which Sigmund said set a precedent in the fight against water pollution.

The 1990s brought another expansion, adding two aeration basins, two clarifiers and an improved solids handling system to improve the plant’s ammonia removal efficiency.

In 2008, NEW Water took over operations of the De Pere treatment facility, linking them through interplant pipelines.

Built in 1976, the De Pere facility was upgraded over the years to best meet the needs of the community. 

It uses an ultraviolet light disinfection system to treat, on average, eight million gallons per day.

In 2018, the Green Bay facility underwent a $169 million Resource Recovery and Electrical Energy, dubbed R2E2, expansion, which replaced 40-year-old equipment at the Green Bay plant near the mouth of the Fox River.

Sigmund said what was once seen as just waste, is now being viewed as potential resources.

“In the past five or six years, we’ve moved to being a resource recovery facility, where we try to remove things of value that still remain in the water when our customers are done with it, such as phosphorus, and we produce digester gas, we we use generate electricity,” he said. “We generate about 40% of the electricity we use in our Green Bay facility. So we generate that onsite from the digester gas that comes from the wastewater.”

The heat generated by the new incinerator is also used for building heat or electricity production. 

Sigmund said what was once seen as just waste is now being viewed as potential resources.

Watershed program

Earlier this year, NEW Water launched its watershed program in Ashwaubenon Creek and Dutchman Creek.

Sigmund said it covers roughly 40,000 acres, and is a long-term adaptive management strategy to address area water quality concerns while providing a cost-effective, alternative compliance option for NEW Water’s wastewater discharge permit with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

He said the goal is to reduce 3.9 million pounds of sediment and 19,000 pounds of phosphorus from reaching the Bay of Green Bay each year.

The program, Sigmund said, is a collaboration of several stakeholders of governmental and non-governmental entities.

“To see long-term improvement in water quality we need to work together to prevent these pollutants from entering our waterways, starting in the watersheds,” he said.

Service area

NEW Water serves more than 230,000 residents, in a 285-square-mile area in 15 municipalities including, Green Bay, De Pere, Allouez, Ashwaubenon, Bellevue, Hobart, Howard, Luxemburg, Pulaski, Suamico, Ledgeview, Lawrence, Pittsfield, Scott and Dyckesville.

“It’s now a true regional entity serving 15 municipalities in the Greater Green Bay area,” Sigmund said.

On average per day, he said 38 million gallons of wastewater is collected, treated and returned clean back to the natural environment. 

Sigmund, who has served as executive director since 2007, said NEW Water views the material sent to its facilities as valuable resources to be recovered and reused and a commitment to protecting its most valuable resource, water.

He said NEW Water takes care of this, so residents of Greater Green Bay don’t have to worry.

“Most people don’t think about us, and that’s probably OK,” Sigmund said. “Because if they worry about us, then we aren’t doing our job. We provide the ability for this community to grow, and I don’t think a lot of people think about that. It is really just as important as roads, and electricity – we provide that ability, along with the local utilities for each of the communities, for our customers to be able to live their best lives and not have to worry about their waste product contaminating the water or the air. We take care of that for them.”

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Excessive amounts of lead were again found in a recent survey of Boston’s tap water, the city’s water utility said Thursday.

The Boston Water and Sewer Commission is required to collect samples of tap water from homes around Boston, and the latest round found lead levels at higher than 17.4 parts per billion, the threshold set by federal and state environmental agencies, the commission said.

That means the utility will increase monitoring, remove lead service lines in its system and reach out to the public about the danger that lead presents to people.

Excessive lead was found in Boston homes last year as well.

The metal can cause damage to the brain, kidneys and red blood cells, and is especially risky for children and, through pregnant mothers, fetuses, whose physical and mental development can be stunted.

Lead enters tap water through service pipes and household plumbing that may contain it — there’s none in the water system from the reservoirs through the state and city water mains, the Boston Water and Sewer Commission.

The agency recommends that anyone who gets drinking water from faucets that come from lead-containing pipes flush the water for 30 seconds to 2 minutes if it’s gone unused for several hours. The agency also offers up to $4,000 to help property owners remove their lead service lines — it’s helped swap out more than 400 lines so far already.

You can see if your home is known or suspected to have a lead line by visiting this website, or call 617-989-7888 for more information.

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On Saturday morning, Sally Sherman sat on the porch of a house that the Watershed Management Group uses as an office. Next to a garden of fruit trees in front of her were about ten people sitting in the shade and listening. Some had notepads.

“Oh, here comes rainwater. Yeah, and everybody should test this because it’s really so nice,” Sherman told the crowd.

Tour participants then filled mason jars and water bottles with rainwater that the group had collected and filtered on site.

Sherman is a docent, and she was midway through giving a tour of the organization’s rainwater harvesting system. The roofs and the yard around the organization’s buildings were outfitted with the landscaping, cisterns and filters the group guides residents to install in their own yards.

Sherman explained how to repurpose the greywater that comes from doing dishes or laundry.

“Depending on how many loads you do in a week, shame to just let that water go down into the sewer,” She said.

The group ranged from homeowners with yards to renters and someone just passing through town, looking to learn more about desert living.

And that’s who the tours are designed for.

Luis Delgado, who heads the organization’s green infrastructure work, said the group hosts interactive tours so participants can swap ideas and take in the information in a way that is more digestible than just reading from the website.

“They always want some ideas, or want some advice, on what they could do to save on their water bill, reduce their water usage and have some thriving plant life in their home landscape,” Delagado said.

He also said the system they promote reduces the amount of city water a house uses.

“One of the tools here that we use for water harvesting is a way to build a little bit more sovereignty and a little bit more independence from both the system and those prices,” Delgado said.

Even though installing a rainwater harvesting system reduces water bills, it also can cost a lot up front. On average, the price can range from $3,500 to $6,000. The rain tanks are the most expensive element and have gotten pricier due to shortages in the last ten months.

That is why the group also helps locals navigate rebates and grants from the city and the county.

Tucson Water has offered these for over a decade. Its conservation manager, Candice Rupprecht, said the city offers homeowners up to $2,000 to install a system, whether its an active one including tanks, or a passive one across their lawn.

“You’re moving your earth around in your landscape, creating berms and basins to keep that water on your property and letting it infiltrate and soak into the ground,” Rupprecht said.

Tucson also offers grants for low-income residents.

The city rebates and grants have helped cover the cost of about three-thousand systems so far, and estimates they’ve saved about 82 million gallons of water.

Rupprecht also said rainwater is better than tap for gardening.

“It doesn’t have as many salts in it,” Rupprecht said, “So plants really love that pure water that comes from the sky.”

Back at the Watershed Management Group tour, local resident Jack Conn said the estimates tour guide Sally Sherman gave for how much water they could harvest were actually pretty high.

“When I heard that number during this tour, it made me understand that we would save a whole lot more or we could save a whole lot more water than I initially thought,” Conn said.

He also said he and his wife are now thinking about installing one before the next monsoon season to get more water to their fruit trees.

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Originally Appeared Here