Water Pollution: How to Help
We have an opportunity here make an positive impact on our waterways, so I’m happy you clicked in to read more. This post is stop #3 of 3 on the stormwater pollution education train. For some context, here’s a digestible dose of water science and a bit on how water technology supports our water systems (and your health).
Green infrastructure
Milwaukee’s Jones Island and South Shore Water Reclamation Facilities have made vast improvements to Milwaukee’s freshwater bodies, but there’s a lot more work to be done. Both the Milwaukee River Basin and Kinnickinnic River Watershed have received below average grades on total water health, with more than half of each’s total miles being impaired.
After establishing operations at the two wastewater treatment facilities and Deep Tunnel later in the 20th century, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District expanded its priorities from increasing sewer water capacity to decreasing the amount of water that reaches the sewers by launching green infrastructure initiatives.
The EPA says that when rain falls in urban areas where impervious infrastructure is common, as much as 55% of the water is unable to soak into the ground. Luckily, a lot of this can be mitigated by green infrastructure, which is becoming an increasingly popular way for regular people like you and me to support our region’s water pollution. (The scale of water pollution, of course, varies across the globe, but I can guarantee there is room for improvement regardless of your locale.)
Green infrastructure is a type of stormwater management meant to mimic natural ecosystem processes by capturing, absorbing, and storing rain and snowmelt. In other words, this infrastructure manages water where it falls. It works with with nature, rather than against it, and consequently, limits both stormwater runoff contamination in our lakes and rivers as well as flooding and overflows in basements and sewers.
Its numerous forms include rain barrels, rain gardens, green roofs, bioswales, native landscaping, trees, and porous pavement parking lots, driveways, and sidewalks. Green infrastructure is more cost-effective than gray infrastructure alternatives (like asphalt roads), more accessible for residents to install (rain barrels and rain gardens specifically), and lends itself well to densely populated cities and developed urban landscapes. Also, green infrastructure can beautify an otherwise dull, gray urban landscape.
The NRDC found that porous natural landscapes, such as meadows and forests, can soak up as much as 90% of the rain or snowmelt they receive. Conversely, the average city block with gray infrastructure (aka asphalt roads) can generate more than five times as much runoff as a forested area of equal size. Installing green infrastructure was also more cost effective than all-gray infrastructure alternatives.
The storm drain project
I learned such an immense amount about stormwater management when I worked at Program Manager for ArtWorks for Milwaukee and would have never in my dreams expected to become so interested in it. I had no idea this was an area of expertise in a profession, or even an educational degree, but I’ve met so many people in Milwaukee who have super impressive backgrounds in the field. I’m very thankful to those folks for leading me along this interesting and unexpected path!
To address stormwater management in the environmental arts program I developed with ArtWorks, I solidified partnerships with the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) and WaterMarks, the latter being an initiative out of NYC to help people better understand their relationships to water in Milwaukee.
We collaboratively chose to promote a national initiative developed by the U.S. Water Alliance called “One Water, Our Water.” MMSD had adopted the approach in 2021 to work towards its mission in Milwaukee. The One Water approach “envisions managing all water in an integrated, inclusive, and sustainable manner to secure a bright, prosperous future for our children, our communities, and our country.” It’s built on the belief that water – in all its forms – is cyclical and fundamentally vital to our livelihoods and present where we live, work, and play. OWOW’s message is straightforward, inclusive, and universal – perfect for public art on a pretty similarly straightforward everyday thing: storm drains.
We would identify storm drains for this project based on our partner WaterMarks’ work areas throughout the city, beginning with a pilot project for drains near the KK River (which has its own long history of contamination) on Milwaukee’s South Side. Before I left ArtWorks, we held a workshop at a nearby park, during which residents could paint their own “storm drains” to show us what subject matters were important to them, in the context of the natural health of their environments. Following the pilot project along the KK River, the project’s next installment would head back to the 30th Street Corridor where WaterMarks was installing another marker.
The primary goal of the storm drain art was to educate the public about stormwater pollutants, helping them understand how storm drains connect to and affect our local bodies of water, and down the line, the water where we live, work, and play. We hoped it would raise awareness of the damage that storm drain pollution can cause to the city’s lakes and rivers, provide resources and messaging to the public that inspire them to be ambassadors for a sustainable environment and catalysts for change, and ultimately promote the mission of our program partners and OWOW.
I had embarked into my own venture by the time the storm drain project was on the program docket at ArtWorks, so I unfortunately don’t have stories to share about the project creation itself. But you can head to ArtWorks’ Instagram to see how the completed storm drains turned out in the KK River neighborhood.
A parting note…about toilets and flushing
I served on MMSD’s Community Advisory Team last year and had the pleasure of getting a tour of the Jones Island facility. The scale and complexity of the system was absolutely incredible and I learned a ton about how Milwaukee’s water systems work (and after developing the environmental arts program I’ve shared, I thought I already had a relatively good understanding of it). Something a little less complex that I learned and is worth sharing:
Just because something can physically be flushed down the toilet or is marketed as being “flushable” does not mean it should be flushed.
Only flush the 3 P's: pee, poo, and paper (toilet paper)!
Toilet paper is specifically designed to break down in the water, unlike paper towels, Kleenex, and napkins.
Anything that is not meant to be flushed — anything outside the 3 P’s — can result in costly clogs in home pipes, community sewer pipes, and water reclamation facilities.
(A note: “flushable” wipes are a good example of greenwashing. I plan to share more about this topic in a forthcoming post, but a quick definition… greenwashing refers to a style of advertising/marketing that deceptively leads customers to believe they are purchasing an eco-friendly product, from a company with seemingly sustainable policies. It’s a way for companies to capitalize on the sustainable living “trend” and well-intentioned consumers’ desire to adopt that lifestyle.)
