- [Announcer 1] Production and distribution of City Club Forums on Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland, Incorporated.

(upbeat music) (music concludes) (people chattering) (bell dings) - Hello, and welcome to The City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Friday, December 16th, and I'm Dr. Kirsten Ellenbogen, President and CEO of the Great Lakes Science Center and moderator for today's conversation.

Today's forum is part of The City Club's "Local Heroes" series, which spotlights champions here in Northeast Ohio whose hard work changes the way we view ourselves and our community.

So it is my great honor to introduce Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells, Chief Executive Officer of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.

(audience member cheers) Yeah, right?

(audience applauding) So the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District was established in 1972, and it's been in the business of cleaning wastewater and managing stormwater for 50 years.

Today, the Sewer District is one of the largest clean water agencies in the state of Ohio.

Thanks to the work of more than 750 employees, the Sewer District treats 90 billion, with a B, gallons of water every year for Cleveland and 61 suburb communities in Northeast Ohio.

At its core, the Sewer District provides critical public health infrastructure.

With each day, with each toilet flush, and each sink full of dishes, it's easy to take our Sewer District for granted, yet the Sewer District is behind it all 24/7, 365 days a year.

As CEO, Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells oversees the operation of the agency.

This includes hundreds of miles of sewer and stream networks, a multi-billion dollar, 25-year Project Clean Lake program, and a regional wet weather strategy for the health of Lake Erie, and more than 1 million residents.

With major investments already underway and more opportunities forthcoming with the Infrastructure Act, what are the future plans for our region's clean water infrastructure?

If you have questions for our speaker, you can text it to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794.

You can also Tweet your question at "@TheCityClub," and City Club staff will try to work it in to the second half of the program.

Members and friends of The City Club, please join me in welcoming Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells.

(audience applauding) So I just rattled off a lot of facts- - Yes, yeah.

Right.

- About the Sewer District, but help us get a sense of what the Sewer District does on a day-to-day basis.

- Yeah, so thanks, Kirsten, for being here with me, and thanks, everybody, for coming today.

It's great to be part of this forum.

So we are the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.

We provide regional sanitary sewage treatment and stormwater management to the City of Cleveland and 61 communities across a really big area, 355 square miles.

So when the Sewer District was formed in 1972, we were given the mandate to solve inter-community drainage problems, both storm and sanitary, so that puts us into the wastewater treatment business, that puts us into the combined sewer overflow control business, and it puts us into the regional stormwater management business.

But on the daily basis, 750 people are treating wastewater and managing stormwater 24/7/365.

I mean, we don't sleep at the Sewer District.

(audience laughing) Quite often- - Thank goodness.

- Right?

I know.

No, you would not want us to sleep.

(audience laughing) Quite often, our wastewater plant operators will send pictures to John Gonzalez, who runs our Twitter account, which I know is why everyone's actually here... (audience laughing) - You just wanna talk about John.

- We're here for Kyle.

- Right, right, right.

So they'll send him pictures of a sunrise, or they'll send him pictures of a sunset.

They'll send him pictures of snow cover at Southerly, which is the largest wastewater treatment plant in the state of Ohio, and the 11th largest plant in the country.

And it's just phenomenal.

So the one thing I want folks to understand is the enormity of the task of treating wastewater for a million people, and then managing stormwater across 476 miles of streams.

- So give us a little sense of that, right?

I mean, we learn about the water cycle in sixth grade, but there's something so much larger in what you do.

Walk us through how that process happens.

How do we get that clean water in our tap?

- So it's a partnership between us and the City of Cleveland.

So the City of Cleveland Division of Water takes water from Lake Erie, and I believe it's five intake points...

I'm looking at my Board President, Darnell Brown... Five intake points across Lake Erie.

So right there, you've got innovation, because early on, Cleveland Division of Water realized that you can't have one intake point.

Because if you have one intake point, you can have one problem, and then you're Toledo, right?

No shade.

No shade on Toledo.

(audience laughing) So we have... Cleveland water takes water from five distribution points, it comes into their filtration plants, and then they send it out in their collection system.

And I believe their service area is a little bit bigger than ours.

I think it's 72 communities that get their drinking water from Cleveland water.

So then it comes into your homes and it comes into businesses, and we use it in all kinds of ways.

Washing dishes, drinking, toilets, manufacturing, businesses, everything.

We use potable water.

And that in and of itself, as my mother would say, is marvelous, right?

(Kirsten laughing) The fact that we have clean drinking water 24/7/365 forever.

So you use it, and then you send it to us through the collection system.

So then it comes into the local sewers, which local communities have responsibility for.

It comes to our 350 miles of inner community sewers, and then it comes to one of our three Wastewater Treatment Plants, where it spends a wonderful 24 hours with us.

(audience laughing) So it spends 24 hours with us.

And the process of wastewater treatment, at its simplest, is the separation of solids from liquid.

So we separate the solids, we at the Sewer District actually burn solids through our renewable energy facilities, and then we put clean water back out into Lake Erie, or the Cuyahoga River, which is eventually Lake Erie, and then we all collectively drink it again.

And that's what I love so much about it.

(audience laughing) - We are very grateful.

(audience laughing) So let me tell you, the other time that we have a bad habit of thinking about the Sewer District is probably that horrible moment when your basement floods, and that's part of a much larger project going on.

- Right, it is.

Well, so basement flooding in particular is part of a project that we're working on with our member communities.

So if your basement is flooding, it's because there's too much stormwater entering into the sanitary sewage system, or there's some kind of interplay between sanitary sewers and storm sewers, and that is a no-no.

So the basics of our business are to keep E coli bacteria, disease-causing bacteria, out of the environment.

So if someone's basement is flooding in Northeast Ohio, most likely, they're part of a common trench system, so you have storm and sanitary sewers in the same trench.

And at the time that that was built, folks thought that that was a great idea, probably 'cause it was easier to trench just a single trench, as opposed to having two trenches.

So if your basement is flooding, there's a problem on the local system.

And the Sewer District, since we were formed, we've had great partnerships with our member communities.

So we've done a series of sewer system evaluation studies, $40 million over our whole service area, to understand the problems on the local system.

And then we have a grant program, our Member Community Infrastructure Program, to help fund the solutions.

So if your basement is flooding, that's a local sewer issue, and we're helping.

If you're having a combined sewer overflow, that's a CSO, which is a big issue related to how our area developed with storm and sanitary actually in the same pipe, and that's a combined sewer.

And we're dealing with that through Project Clean Lake, which is our $3 billion, 25-year program to fix that legacy issue.

- Talk a bit...

I mean, I said that in the introduction also.

Why does it take 25 years?

What's going on with that?

- It takes 20... Are you the EPA?

(audience laughing) - Well, I do talk to them.

(Kyle laughing) - So, combined sewers, just to give a little education for folks that don't spend every day talking about sewers, which, I don't really know who that is...

But a combined sewer, again, was the way that certain communities developed, because at the time that those communities built out, that was the way it was done.

So stormwater leaves homes, or leaves the street, wastewater leaves homes and businesses, and they go into the same pipe.

It's a combined sewer.

And so when you get too much rainwater, you can overflow that system into the environment, and you get a discharge of untreated sewage to the environment, and that's a combined sewer overflow.

When the Sewer District was formed in 1972, there was 9 billion gallons of overflow in a typical year, so that was untreated sewage going to the environment.

Through the good work of the District from 1972 through 2011, we cut that down to 4.5 billion, and the $3 billion program that we're dealing now is to take that down really to a de minimis amount by 2036.

The reason it takes 25 years is it is a huge amount of construction.

So combined sewer overflow is a volume problem.

And if you have a volume problem, you need a volume solution, and our volume solution is the construction of deep tunnels, seven total deep tunnels.

- And these are not...

I mean, give a sense of the scale, because now I've seen some of these, and it's awe-inspiring.

- It is awe-inspiring.

It's awe-inspiring in terms of the construction, but it's also awe-inspiring in terms of the sophisticated management that it takes to do that.

The people that work for the Sewer District are really good at project management, and they're really good at construction documents and working with contractors, et cetera.

So it's seven tunnels.

The first three of those tunnels are complete.

And these are large diameter tunnels.

So they're a hundred feet below the surface of the earth, they're miles long, they're 24 feet in diameter, 23 feet in diameter.

You can put a Mack truck in these things.

You can also put 360 million gallons of annual CSO, which is what's going in there.

- We want that combined sewer overflow to go somewhere else, away from our clean water.

- That's right.

So the combined sewer overflow goes into the tunnels, it's stored in the tunnels.

Then we have a series of tunnel dewatering pump stations.

So these are these massive pump stations.

You can see the Easterly tunnel dewatering pump station as you go out east on 90.

You can see the Westerly tunnel dewatering pump station right by the Soap Box Derby location there, right by the Westinghouse area.

And then the Southerly tunnel dewatering pump station has yet to be constructed.

So these are massive pump stations that then pump the water from the tunnels and send it to our Wastewater Treatment Plants to be treated over a longer period of time.

And the Wastewater Treatment Plants have also all had their capacity increased.

And Cleveland's not alone in this, right?

So combined sewers are common across the country.

Really, if you're cool, you have a history of combined sewers.

(audience laughing) Washington, New York, Dayton, Lima, Toledo, Cincinnati, all have combined systems.

- So you're talking about these 25-year scale projects, but I have also seen your organization turn on a dime to address things.

And you stepped up as we were looking at how to monitor coronavirus, for example, right?

I mean, talk a bit about that, because it's extraordinary how you both have these long views, but also really respond quickly when it comes to like, how are we gonna track things?

- Yeah, and I appreciate you highlighting that, because I think... My focus is on public service for the public.

It's very important that those of us that are in public service work to the highest standards and make sure that what we do works for the people that we serve.

So because we're heavily regulated by Ohio EPA, the wastewater business is a heavily regulated business through the Clean Water Act, through the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit.

We have a very sophisticated lab.

So as soon as these issues come up, like the hazardous algal blooms that came up, looking at different kinds of E coli, we can actually take a sample and we can tell you if it's animal... Or, if it's human or if it's a different kind of animal.

Like, we know a lot.

(audience laughing) And then when it came to coronavirus, our folks were all over it.

And I have to say that the state of Ohio was also all over it, putting together networks so that we could get the data on what level of coronavirus we were seeing in the wastewater samples, and that they could filter it through a statewide system, coordinate data from across the state, and you could see the spikes coming, right?

So we could see things a little bit higher at Southerly, and then you would know that there was gonna be an uptick in the virus.

- It's been an extremely useful tool.

I mean, I still use it.

- Good.

Oh, good.

Good.

- Yeah.

Well, and thinking about that innovation, I wanna take us back to the... We open our mail, we have our bill.

What's behind that?

Connect all of this grand infrastructure and work that you've just talked about to the bill that we're paid on a regular basis as people who use the Sewer District?

- Yeah, so if you're a customer of the District, you get a bill for wastewater, which is based on your water usage.

The MCF water usage is how the wastewater bill is calculated.

- I've been meaning to talk to my teenagers about that.

(audience laughing) - Yeah, yeah.

Right.

- Right.

- For sure, yeah.

If you wanna reduce your wastewater bill, you can reduce your water usage, and you'll see a remarkable correlation- - On it.

- Between those.

And then folks also receive a stormwater bill, which funds our other program, which is our Regional Stormwater Management Program, which is based on the impervious surface on your property.

So that's driveways, rooftops, parking lots, anything that doesn't absorb water.

It's that impervious surface which causes the flooding and erosion issues that we see in our rivers and streams.

So we've measured the impervious surface on every parcel in our service area.

You can actually go onto our website at NEORSD.org, you can go under "find my fee," and you can see your parcel digitized.

You can also see your neighbor's parcel digitized.

(audience laughing) And if you think that there's any impervious surface that we've missed, there's Sewer District folks here that you can let them know that address.

(audience laughing) And so when you get that bill, it's those two fees.

And I know we're having a lot of conversation about the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, but at the end of the day, infrastructure, sewer and water infrastructure, is paid for at the local level.

And it will continue to be paid for at the local level until we reinstate the federal construction grants, which funded so much of the infrastructure improvements in the '70s and '80s, and are completely gone now.

So you are paying for the people, the electricity.

$9 million was our electricity bill in 2022.

$3 million is our chemical bill.

So you're paying for the people, the electricity, the preventative maintenance, all these things that we do to manage wastewater and manage stormwater.

- Yeah, we're paying you to stay up all night so that we can sleep sound late, knowing everything's gonna be fine.

- Right, and I was thinking about it when we were coming in today.

Imagine those times when you turn the tap on and there's nothing there.

I mean, for me... Well, I mean for me, it's a big, big deal, but for me, I think, "That house is not habitable."

- Sure.

- Yeah, right?

So you can't flush your toilet.

Something doesn't come out of your tap.

That's fundamental.

And so I think it's important to understand how much it costs.

So our average customer pays about $70 a month for clean drinking water and sewage treatment, 24/7/365, and stormwater management.

And as Ken Duplay, our CFO, who's sitting right there...

He loves to say that we're here forever.

And so, this is going on forever.

- Well, and you did talk about impervious services.

And I know you're pretty passionate about this, and the Sewer District in general can really help organizations advocate, think about this.

Say more about that.

I mean, what do you mean by that?

How do large scale organizations work on that, and how do, just, people even around their house think in a different way about runoff around our houses?

- Yeah, so there's only three places that water can never go.

It can infiltrate into the ground, it can evapotranspirate into the air, and it can run off.

And when we add impervious surfaces to the ground, driveways, parking lots, rooftops, we essentially mess with that pathway.

We cut off the infiltration, we mess with evapotranspiration, and we increase runoff.

And from that increased runoff comes all the problems, because you're sending more water to streams faster.

They erode, you lose habitat, you lose floodplain, et cetera.

And then at the same time, when we develop, we also take away the sinks that are in the landscape.

We fill in wetlands, we remove floodplains, we dam streams, all these kind of things which lead to increased runoff.

So what we're doing with our Regional Stormwater Management Program is essentially knitting that system back together.

And so you as a homeowner, look around your property.

Are my downspouts hard-piped into my storm sewer?

If your city allows...

I'm looking at my mayor.

If your city allows, (audience laughing) you can disconnect those downspouts.

You can have your downspouts run over your lawn or run to a rain garden.

If you look at the Dreyfuss-Wells house, we have a gigantic meadow in the front yard.

All of our downspouts go to rain gardens and to the meadow.

There's an 1100 gallon cistern in the front yard.

There's a lot of things so that we control the runoff that comes from our property.

And then businesses, the time to put in stormwater control measures is when you are developing a business, and when you're developing a site.

So put in your stormwater control measures.

The cheapest, best thing to do is, those landscape islands that are in parking lots, turn those into bioretention cells.

It's a good time.

- That's great advice.

(people laughing) Great advice.

Well, this is the "Local Heroes" series, and I'm in awe and really enjoying this.

And I have to say, you didn't, as a child, think, "I'm gonna grow up and run "our regional sewer district," so- - How do you know I didn't think that?

(audience laughing) - 'Cause we've talked about this.

(audience laughing) I mean, talk a bit about your pathway.

Tell us how you got to where you are.

- Yeah, so I grew up in Shaker Heights.

I was actually born in upstate New York.

My dad was in a rock band called McKendree Spring.

So it was a pretty odd upbringing, but I have to say it was very good.

My father, Michael Dreyfuss, was a musician.

My mother, Elisabeth Dreyfuss, was an attorney.

She ran the Street Law Program at Cleveland-Marshall for many years.

- And had a role here.

- And she interacted with The City Club on a regular basis.

She was a president of the club for many years.

- There we go.

- So the Dreyfuss family definitely grew up in the public space.

And I think a foundational thing for me is that I'm dyslexic.

And as a dyslexic, and I was diagnosed very early, they told my mother that I would never learn to read, which, if you knew my mother, and I'm looking at John Moss and Karen Moss, who knew my mother well, that was not gonna fly with Elisabeth Dreyfuss, particularly to have a guy tell her that her daughter will never read.

So they sent me to Ratner Day School.

Sally Brown, a teacher there, taught me to read.

And since that time, that dyslexia has really informed me, because it influences how I see the world and how I try to connect things as a way to work around not really understanding the English language.

And I have always thought that it was funny that the word for a disability where you have trouble reading is "dyslexia."

Like, I can't spell "dyslexia."

I don't know any dyslexic (audience laughing) that can spell "dyslexia."

And it's got the hooky letter, and then it's got this letter.

I mean, so, it's crazy.

- Who came up with that?

- Who came up with that?

It should be called "the," or something like that.

(audience laughing) So there's always been a thing that has come through my mother of public service.

So, I mean, it is actually true that I always wanted to go into the problem solving side, and I really like the public space.

I love when people work together on things, when systems work for folks, when Wastewater Treatment Plants work, and bureaucracies are doing the best that they can do to work for people.

Like, that is really important to me.

- Well, and you came into the Sewer District to be one of those problem solvers, right?

I mean, you were running a very particular project, and you've been there for some time now.

- Yeah, so I was the Executive Director of the Chagrin River Watershed Partners, which is a watershed organization on the East Side, one of the very strong friends of Euclid Creek, one of the very strong watershed organizations that we have in Northeast Ohio.

I think folks should pause and understand the strength of organization and advocacy that we have in Northeast Ohio.

Only a third of the state of Ohio drains to Lake Erie.

The rest of it drains to the Ohio River.

And I don't understand that watershed at all, but Lake Erie and the Great Lakes, very nice.

And as a dyslexic, "homes" is terrific.

- Yes.

(audience laughing) Very helpful.

- Right, it's very helpful.

So it drains to Lake Erie.

We've got these great watersheds, the Rocky River, the Cuyahoga River, Doan Brook.

You could create these beautiful watersheds and these amazing water resources.

So the Chagrin River is one of Ohio's really scenic rivers, and the local officials that drain into the Chagrin River came together and formed the Chagrin River Watershed Partners to help them deal with the land use challenges and the stormwater management challenges that they were working on.

So very early on, I learned that you need to take technical information and translate it so elected officials can use it to serve their constituents.

So I was at the Chagrin River Watershed Partners, and then I came to the Sewer District to work on the Regional Stormwater Management Program, which is groundbreaking from the beginning, because it's a watershed-based approach to stormwater management.

It's actually looking at the problems and putting in solutions that solve those problems, as opposed to moving them from one community to the next.

And then I worked on that for some time.

And then when Julius Ciaccia, who's a former CEO of the Sewer District, retired, I became the CEO.

- Oh, that's fantastic.

Well, and talk a bit about, then... You've got this great story of how you got here.

If you were to say something to a young girl, a woman who's thinking about a career in STEM, talk a little bit more about, what's your advice?

What's your advice to that child?

- Yeah, I think about that a lot.

And to any woman who's interested in STEM, go for it.

Totally support and appreciate that.

My path is pretty non-traditional.

So I actually have a Master's in Environmental Science and a Master's in Public Affairs, and so I would say I'm an example of someone who's come into the STEM profession in a non-traditional way, and people need to be open and embrace that.

If you can write, if you can articulate concepts, there's huge space for you in engineering, in any of the technical fields.

We have amazing engineers that work at the District, and they also are great explainers of things, and great communicators.

So if you can understand technical concepts and explain those to folks, you can come into STEM fields from all different pathways.

But my primary advice, as my mother said to me, is, "She who controls the agenda controls the meeting."

(Kirsten laughs) And so, control the agenda.

Show up, don't say no to things, learn from things as you go forward, ask questions, and try to be in rooms where there's people that are smarter than you.

- And I love that advice.

And you talk about your staff all the time as, "I work with these smart people."

You're so proud of...

I mean, talk a bit more about the people of the Sewer District.

- So, 750 employees at the Sewer District, all kinds of jobs.

I think that's the other thing that's really interesting about the District is we have wastewater plant operators, instrument technicians, HVAC technicians.

We have engineers, we have legal folks, finance, communication specialists, watershed management folks.

There is a range of jobs that it takes to continue this work of managing stormwater and treating wastewater.

There's policy questions, there's zoning questions, there's all sorts of really interesting environmental questions.

We're implementing the Clean Water Act.

I mean, we are living and breathing the Clean Water Act.

We're also implementing portions of the Clean Air Act.

I mean, we have incinerators and generators and all sorts of really interesting things.

So the folks at the Sewer District are dedicated to the work that they do, and I think they think it's fun.

I mean, there's some of 'em here, you can ask.

(Kirsten laughing) I think they think it's fun because we are very focused on a communication approach which is timely, truthful, and two-way.

And I think that two-way is so important, 'cause you have to listen to folks.

Crystal Davis with the Alliance for the Great Lakes ran this great campaign called "Shut Up and Listen."

I'm allowed to say "shut up" at The City Club, aren't I?

(audience laughing) And I just love it, because often, we talk too much, and we don't listen to the concerns of the neighborhoods that we're in.

And so it's a big thing, and we live that at the District.

- Well, with all of that great staff behind you, as you're looking ahead... And I know you're thinking about climate change all the time at the Sewer District.

Before we get into Q&A, talk a bit... Help us see ahead.

How is the Sewer District playing that role in climate change for our region?

- Yeah, so climate change for Northeast Ohio is wetter, warmer, wilder weather.

That's the deal.

And if Mike Foley's in the room, from the County, he's the first one I heard that from.

I definitely didn't make it up, but I love it, because it's exactly right.

There's gonna be more rain more often for longer periods of time.

And if you're in the infrastructure business, what that means is your infrastructure will be working harder for longer periods of time.

So it will require more to maintain those systems.

And I think that's something that we all need to be very straight up and honest about, is that maintenance is essential.

If you look at places like Benton Harbor, you look at places like Jackson, Mississippi, total lack of maintenance.

And maintenance is essential to maintain the water quality gains that we've made, and climate change is just gonna stress those systems.

What it's also gonna do, unfortunately, is turn every street into a potential floodplain.

And so if your catch basins aren't clean, if your local sewer system's not working, your street can flood in a smaller storm, more intense storm, and so we're gonna continue to have these conversations.

- Well, we are- - We're ready.

- You sound ready.

(Kyle laughs) And I am looking forward to looking deep into the future with our partners at the Sewer District.

We're about to begin the audience Q&A.

I'm Dr. Kirsten Ellenbogen, President and CEO of Great Lakes Science Center and moderator for today's conversation.

We are joined by Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells, CEO of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.

We welcome questions from everyone.

City Club members, guests, students, and those joining us via our livestream at CityClub.org or radio broadcast at 89.7 Ideastream Public Media.

If you'd like to Tweet a question for our speaker, please Tweet it at "@TheCityClub."

You can also text it to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794, and City Club staff will try to work it into the program.

May we have the first question, please?

- Thank you.

I don't know brownwater from greywater from anything.

I just know clear water's good.

- Yeah.

Okay.

- Okay?

Why is there nothing going on in Northeast Ohio to use those other colors of water for toilets, for watering yards, for doing all the things where we don't need clean water?

- Mhm, mhm.

So I'll talk on the... On one side of that, there is a lot going on in terms of using stormwater that folks collect on their properties for irrigation on their properties.

So just on that one note, in terms of folks that have rain barrels on their properties, which is a tool that you can use to get a credit on your stormwater fee... Folks that have rain barrels, they might have a cistern, like we have on our property... And so a lot of people do like to use that to irrigate their gardens.

Apparently my neighbor and his wife fight over the rain barrel water to wash the car.

I think that's a thing.

So that is one place where people in Northeast Ohio are using that non-potable water.

But the other question that you raise I think is in terms of having purple pipes in buildings where it might be non-potable water that would be used for toilet flushing.

There is a lot of conversation around that under the LEED building standards in the green building world.

I think really, it's just a question of, we have an abundant supply of clean, fresh water, and it's that scarcity which leads to the innovation.

So you see that non-potable water reuse in California.

San Francisco has a whole program for non-potable reuse.

It just hasn't...

It's been on the list, but there hasn't been a sense of urgency.

And then there are concerns that come up with that, because that's a system that has to be maintained for long periods of time, and you have to make sure that people aren't drinking water that is non-potable, 'cause that's straight up disease.

So there's a downside to it.

Yeah.

- Hi, I'm James (indistinct) I live in Cleveland.

My question is, what is being done to correct water quality issues at Wildwood, Euclid Beach, Villa Angela, and Edgewater?

- Okay, so we got the Friends of Euclid Creek right there, so I'll answer a couple of those.

So in terms of...

I know at Wildwood, we have some bioretention cells that have gone in, some green infrastructure, to try to intercept that stormwater before it gets into Lake Erie.

So the point that you're highlighting is we have the issue of combined sewer overflow, which is a sanitary sewer issue, but the bigger, larger ongoing issue is this issue of non-point, right?

Stormwater runoff.

So, parking lots that run through landscaped areas where that water can slow down and soak into the ground, those bioretention cells are a big benefit for water quality, and I know that there are some that are going in there.

At Edgewater, I think our friends from Cleveland Metroparks have done some stormwater control measures at the Edgewater Park.

And then also, there is a combined sewer overflow at Edgewater, CSO 069.

There's lots of these CSOs, and it's important to know all the numbers.

(audience laughing) So CSO 069 is the CSO that overflows at Edgewater.

And so we are very focused on making sure that that overflow does not go off, except when there's a huge amount of flow.

So it's good people trying to implement practices to intercept stormwater before it gets into the lake.

- When you leave the Sewer District, would you get into... Can you get into standup comedy, please?

(audience laughing) My question is, could you put the way that we have treated... Have addressed our sewer and water system in the context of...

In an international context?

So let me be more specific.

The idea of a combined fresh and storm sewer is not unusual to us, and I presume that they use that in 300-year old Europe cities, European cities.

Are there cities or metropolitan areas that have perhaps taken a different approach or have take... Or are they at a place that you would like to be?

Do you look to Amsterdam or Venice and say, "I wish we could go where they're going," or is it the opposite?

- I definitely don't look at Venice.

(audience laughing) But... - [Audience Member] I know.

- But it's a great question, 'cause it brings up so many points.

So combined sewers were built at a time that folks thought it was the best idea, right?

And you can see why they thought that was a good idea, because the stormwater would come in and flush any of the sanitary sewage out of the sanitary system and clean it so you wouldn't have odors in that system.

And it worked until we had increased population, increased impervious surface, which sent more water to that system.

And our combined sewer system can actually handle a little bit of extra flow.

We send it to the Wastewater Treatment Plants, we treat it, and we discharge it.

So there's two ways that you can address combined systems.

You can do what we're doing, which is building capacity with the deep tunnels, or you can separate the whole system.

And cities like Grand Rapids have gone through a process of separating.

The issue is that you're disturbing every street in that process, and then you have stormwater that is completely untreated, and you need to send it through bioretention or other things like that.

So there's two approaches.

The District looked at sewer separation very early on, and I think that clocked in at 5 billion versus 3 billion.

Plus, we don't control the streets, and we have a really large service area.

So our approach is the right approach for our area.

We also have a lot of green infrastructure in our combined sewer overflow control where we're trying to intercept stormwater before it gets into the combined system.

So that's us, and that's the way it's done in the US.

If you look internationally, I don't know everything about those other cities.

I've been to a lot of those cities, and I would say three things.

A lot of those systems in Europe are actually privately run.

So Thames Water, for example, which runs the system in London... And our folks that are listening from the UK, if I have any of this wrong, correct me, but that's a private system.

And it's a whole question about privatization.

I'm not a fan, because I like benefits to accrue to the public, but that's a smaller system.

They have less regulated entities there.

The one thing that I think we could really learn from our European counterparts is an embrace of maintenance, and funding maintenance.

Green infrastructure is fabulous, but bioretention cells, landscaped areas, have to be maintained, and it's really important that we do that.

And it's a whole field for job growth and for climate change resiliency.

So in terms of what we can learn from those other cities, it's an embrace of quality public spaces.

Thanks.

- Hello, I'm Penny Allen from Cleveland Heights.

I had a question about plans for Horseshoe Lake and your survey, the survey that was done at an event at the lake.

The results showed that a top concern was permanent destruction of the lake.

Shouldn't your designers consider how to address that?

- Thanks for your question.

So, the survey that Ms. Allen's referring to is this great survey that I think we had 849... 850 people respond to.

LAND Studio did that survey for us, and the results are available on our website.

Folks can see the outcome of that survey.

And really, that survey showed that folks wanted to see a natural restoration of Doan Brook, as it runs through the Horseshoe Lake Park area.

So for folks who aren't familiar with the issue that we have at Doan Brook, which I can't imagine that you're not (audience laughing) familiar with the issue.

So Doan Brook is one of these great Lake Erie Direct Tributaries that we have in Northeast Ohio.

It starts in Beachwood, and it runs through Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights, runs into the City of Cleveland.

And the mouth of Doan Brook is actually Dike 14.

That is the buried mouth of Doan Brook.

And so there are a series of dams on Doan Brook, one of which is Horseshoe Lake Dam.

And those dams were put in there 170, 180 years ago by the Shakers.

They weren't built to any standard.

And Horseshoe Lake Dam is a 170-year-old earthen dam with holes in it.

And so that dam has to be removed, and the question is, what do you put back?

And dams on streams are bad ideas, and the only reason you would ever dam a stream is if you need it for power or flood control or water source, and none of those things apply to Horseshoe Lake Dam.

So we, together with the cities of Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights, are removing Horseshoe Lake Dam...

The dam itself is breached as it stands now, because it was such a risk to public safety... And restoring Doan Brook, which is really an amazing project to build back this ecosystem function into that area.

- You emphasize the need for maintenance.

We have these giant storage tunnels.

When water sits in those tunnels for however many days before they can be pumped out, sediment drops out.

Would you tell us what is being done to see that that sediment just does not accumulate and impact the capacity of those tunnels?

- Oh my God, I love that question.

(audience laughing) That is such a great question.

I sense a kinship.

So it's a great question, because the deep tunnels, as I said, are a hundred feet below ground, 200 feet below ground, and it's not like you're gonna access those things on a daily basis and maintain those.

So there's a whole bunch of infrastructure before the water drops into the tunnel.

There's a lot of baffles and grates and filters before the water drops into the tunnel to make sure that that sediment that is... All water is gonna be carrying sediment, and you wanna slow it down, let that sediment drop out at a place that our sewer system maintenance folks can grab it top side, and then they do that, and we minimize that sediment buildup in the tunnels.

But to your question, we actually are experiencing a really interesting problem right now at our Easterly tunnel dewatering pump station where we have seen a buildup of sediment around one of the deep pumps.

And so that's a mistake, and we're realizing that that's a design flaw, because the water slows down, and the pumps don't get up to a high enough speed to re-suspend the solids.

And those are the kind of issues that we deal with.

And anytime you have problems like that, it's multimillion dollars to do the fixes.

So we try to catch the sediment before it gets into the tunnel.

- Good afternoon.

My name is Corby Roberts, I'm a Shaker Heights resident, and I just wanted to let you all know that in 1895, great philanthropists of the City of Cleveland all got together, and they reserved the Doan Brook Park land for the people in perpetuity to save a green oasis space in the urban built-up environment so we would have a place along the natural brook.

They reserved the brookland and also the Shaker Lakes, which they considered the gem and the most beautiful inland lakes of the Forest City.

And they deeded that to the City of Cleveland on the agreement that the parkland and those lakes would be maintained in perpetuity for all the future generations, and also because it was a great asset to Cleveland.

The Shaker Lakes were not only a cultural resource, but they were also an... Yeah, an economic resource.

And so it was understood that they needed to be reserved.

Now we fast forward to 1960, and Albert Porter...

They tried to put, as you know, the highway through the Shaker Lakes.

So now we come to the current time, and the Sewer District is...

Although they use that parkland for their stormwater management, the parkland is first, 120 years, reserved for the people as a parkland.

So the citizens of Cleveland Heights got together- - Is that your question?

- And Shaker- I am coming right to it.

- Thank you.

- Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights and all the citizens of the regions, when they found out that there were plans to remove the upper Horseshoe Lake, they paid money to have a dam, to have a dam engineer reconfigure a dam that will put a dam back at the lake for under what the Sewer District has budgeted for that site.

(indistinct) Okay.

- Ask the question.

- Okay.

So that plan was forwarded onto the Sewer District... (people laughing) And we would like to know if you would- - Yeah, let me hear it.

- Work with the people, as is your mission, to consider that lake as a cultural asset and a promised park is the agreement, and consider the engineering plans that show that that lake can still be helpful for flood control, and also stay there as a cultural asset and an economic asset for the area, which really, in itself, is its own merit.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you very much.

So the question, I think, relates to an engineering plan that was provided to us by the Friends of Horseshoe Lake to look at a way to maintain the dam on Doan Brook at that location.

Two things, there's no justification for a dam on Doan Brook at that location, as I have talked about, so Regional Stormwater Management Program money is not gonna be used for that.

So the Regional Stormwater Management Program was set up to solve problems with flooding, erosion, and water quality that are caused by impervious surface, and there are dams on streams all across our service area that are no longer providing any of the functions that they were originally constructed for.

And so we are working in communities across our service area to remove unnecessary dams and restore stream functions.

And if folks wanna get into the details of this proposal that has been put forward, there is a six-page detailed memo highlighting our response to that engineering plan, and it is not a viable plan.

- We have a question in the way of a text.

"How is the Sewer District managing microplastics?

"How bad of a problem is it, please?"

- So it's a great question, and it goes into this whole area of emerging contaminants, right?

And that's why wastewater treatment is a heavily regulated business, coming from the Clean Water Act to Ohio EPA to us through our NPDES permit.

And US EPA and Ohio EPA are always looking at, what are the next threats to water quality and to public health?

And so this conversation around microplastics is a big conversation.

We currently don't have any permit limits as it relates to microplastics.

There's no water quality standards as it relates to microplastics.

I'm looking over at my folks.

So far, have I said anything inaccurate?

Okay, good.

Thanks very much.

(audience laughing) But it is something that we watch.

And so there are academic folks that do research studies, and we participate in those studies.

The one thing, as we bring up the conversation around microplastics, I also wanna give a big plug for not drinking bottled water.

You wanna talk about microplastics?

(audience applauding) (Kyle laughing) I mean, take a thing of water that's been sitting in a bottle for God knows how long... And remember, that's not regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Now I'm way outside my lane, but drink from the tap.

(audience laughing) We have the best tap water in the world, and I love it.

So, thanks for that question.

(audience applauding) - Thank you.

We have another text question, a futuristic one.

"Kyle said that her CFO says there will be... "That you guys will be here forever.

Will you?

"Has anyone thought about the technological advances "that could change that?"

- Ooh, wow.

(audience laughing) That's an interesting question.

And so I love that question, actually, 'cause it brings up all the automation work that we've done at our plants.

And so wastewater treatment is incredibly complicated, right?

So we have influent that comes in, and it's got all sorts of different flow characteristics.

It can have different chemical compositions.

So throughout our plants, we have a series of sensors, we have human-machine interfaces, we have a lot of automation so that our wastewater plant operators can know what's going on every minute of the day at those plants.

So it's a highly automated process, but it will always require humans to be part of that, because it is quick decision makings, particularly during wet weather.

When it is raining, our plant operators are all over the place.

They're turning valves, they're doing this, they're doing that, 'cause the influent goes up and down, and the system can be quite flashy.

If you look at our Easterly Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is a hundred years old and is an amazing wastewater treatment plant, it has interceptors coming in from Collinwood, it has interceptors coming in from throughout the East Side.

And that flow changes, and they have to know what's coming in, so- - I just want you to repeat part of that.

Someone is literally standing there and adjusting as they're seeing what's happening with the rainwater coming in and- - They have a screen, and they're seeing the flow that's coming into the plant, and they're making real time decisions.

- Amazing.

- Yeah, it's a pretty sophisticated job.

- Yeah.

- What does the Sewer District do for public education?

And I think sometimes I go and clear out the leaves and debris from the sewer on my street.

That doesn't happen everywhere.

How can we get more education and activism to take care of the sewers ourself as well?

- Yeah, it's a great question.

So we work really hard to go where people are and talk about our work, as opposed to asking folks to come to us.

I think that that's kind of old school to have meeting at six o'clock at night and expect folks to show up and listen to what you have to say, so we try to go where folks are.

I talk to folks at the grocery store all the time (audience laughing) about the work that we do.

And then we have, as you know, really active social media, but it's important to keep in mind that the majority of our customers are not on social media.

So we need to reach out to them in all kinds of different ways.

So, we partner.

We partner with folks that are reaching out in events where folks are more likely to come.

We're great partners with the Metroparks, Watershed Stewardship Center at West Creek, trying to get the word out all the time.

We have watershed team leaders that will go out and work with interested residents that want to talk about what's going on at their properties.

We support the watershed organizations, which folks are more likely to come in contact with, soil and water conservation districts, et cetera.

So we're open to all kinds of suggestions on how to get the word out.

I think also making it fun and making it interesting and accessible.

It's not complicated work.

I mean, water runs downhill, right?

That's the beauty of it.

And if it's too complicated, you're not explaining it well enough.

That's my feeling.

And so I just wanna close with your cleaning out of the catch basins in your street.

That is top notch, particularly when it's raining.

So my husband's sitting over there, and he'll be out there with the raincoat and the rake cleaning the catch basins when it's raining to make sure that your street doesn't flood.

So, that's great.

Thanks.

- My name's Christine Heggie.

I'm from Cleveland Heights, and I have a rather specific question about the Horseshoe Lake project.

We've heard a lot of somewhat unsubstantiated talk before about the Horseshoe Lake project, particularly concerning the costs related to the proposed park and amenities that is planned for the area by the Sewer District.

So my question is basically, what if philanthropy doesn't fund that?

What if we can't get money from grants and so forth that you've talked about?

Won't that cost come back to the taxpayers, and won't they be held... Won't they be on the hook for that if we don't get the philanthrop... Philanthrope... Philanthropic (laughs) funds that we need?

- Yeah, so that's a great question.

So the amazing thing about the Doan Brook restoration near Horseshoe Lake Park is, currently, Horseshoe Lake Park is about six acres.

And once the dam is removed and the stream is restored, that's 60 acres between Lee Road and Park Avenue, it's called.

And that's a huge opportunity, a huge open space opportunity, in terms of connecting to the Nature Center and opening up all of that area.

So we're early days in the pre-design of that park space.

Obviously the Sewer District is in the stream restoration business.

We're supporting the cities as they talk about that park space and the long-term plan for that park space.

We just went through an amazing exercise.

December 3rd and 4th, we had 120 folks come and actually give time where they sat with maps, looking at different stream alignments, looking at sediment management questions, looking at wetland placement, and really a great working conversation about what that space could look like.

Early days, and I will be very clear, when we design projects, we design them forever.

So anything that the Sewer District builds, we maintain.

Anything that we plant, we maintain.

And we do not design and construct projects that don't last for the long term.

- Do we have time for another question?

(indistinct) Okay.

Okay, I think we- (indistinct) I think we go over to the mic over here.

(indistinct) Okay, great.

Thank you.

- Sure.

I'm sorry, yeah.

Hi.

I'm gonna ask a policy question.

Do you have... Can you talk about whether... What is the impact of plastic bags like Walmart and all those others on the sewer... On the water system?

- Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, any kind of trash or debris, anything, plastic bags, bottles, et cetera, it can come into our system, particularly in a combined system, and it can cause havoc in the system.

So if you come into Southerly, Easterly, Westerly, at the headworks of the plant, you'll see all kind of fakakta stuff.

And so any of that trash can cause problems in the system.

It can jam up pumps, it can break down in the system.

So, it's better to keep that stuff out of the system.

Either don't use the plastic bags, or make sure that you're not throwing 'em away.

- Well, I appreciate you're ending us on something that every- - Plastic bags.

- No, every single one of us can play a role in that, so that's a powerful way to end.

Thank you.

(audience applauding) Well, thank you, Kyle, for joining us- - Thank you, Kirsten.

- At The City Club today.

Today's forum is part of our "Local Heroes" series in partnership with Citizens Bank and Dominion Energy.

The City Club is grateful for your continued support.

We would also like to welcome guests at tables hosted by Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Metroparks, Cleveland Water Alliance, Friends of Euclid Creek, Friends of Horseshoe Lake, Incorporated, Great Lakes Science Center, MC Squared STEM High School, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, and Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District fans.

- That's my husband.

(audience laughing) (Kyle laughing) (audience applauding) - Thank you all for being here today.

The City Club will be off for the holidays, and will return in the new year on Friday, January 6th with the fantastic Kristin Warzocha, President and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank.

On Friday, January 13th, Emily Flitter, journalist with the New York Times, will speak about her new book, "The White Wall: How Big Finance Bankrupts Black America."

You can learn about these two forums and others at CityClub.org.

And that brings us to the end of today's forum.

Thank you once again, Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells, and thank you, members and friends of The City Club.

I'm Dr. Kirsten Ellenbogen, and this forum is now adjourned.

(bell dings) (audience applauding) - [Announcer 2] For information on upcoming speakers, or for podcasts of The City Club, go to CityClub.org.

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