Zero Discharge: Minneapolis avoids discharging any sewage into Mississippi in 2007

Minneapolis officials announced last week that 2007 will be the first year on record in which the City will not discharge any raw sewage into the Mississippi River. For more than two decades the City has been working to disconnect its storm sewers from its sanitary sewer network to avoid what is known as combined sewer overflow — when high volumes of stormwater runoff would cause untreated sewage to overflow into the storm sewer system and then into the Mississippi River. This is excellent news. Clearly years of investment in sewer separation are now paying real dividends for the Mississippi River and those of us who use and love it said FMR executive director Whitney Clark.

Read the story in the Star Tribune.