[MUSIC] [MUSIC] Hi, and welcome toInside Louisville, where we introduce you to the people,places and things that make up Kentucky's largestcity.

This week, we go inside Jefferson County's Metropolitan Sewer District, or MSD.

Now, before you say you take a minute and think about how much we rely on this public utility, every time you take a shower, flush a toilet, or even drive through a rainstorm, you are relying on the work MSD does every day.

It's one of those things youprobably don't even think about until somethinggoes wrong.

Sowe'll take a closer look at how it allworks.

The people who make it happen, and the process of repairing aging infrastructure.

But the story all starts with a single Christie Dutton.

>> What happens to a raindrop in Louisville?

Well, that all depends on where it lands.

Some rain falls on grass, trees and fields where it soaks into the ground.

Butrain that lands on streets, parking lots and rooftops often ends up in a storm drain.

And once it's underground, it begins a journey that's really surprisingly similar to the water use in Down every day, whether it's from your shower sink, washing machine, or even the toilet, that waste water travels through sewer pipes underground to a wastewater treatment plant.

And here, the first step is to take out the trash.

Wastewater passes through large metal bars that remove trash and debris like wipes, paper towels, plastic bags, sticks, even leaves.

Next, grit equipment takes out heavier material such as sand and gravel.

Everything removed in this stage is collected and hauled away for disposal.

Now it's time for millions of microscopic helpers to get to work.

Oxygen is added to the water, creating an environment where beneficial microorganisms can thrive.

These tiny organisms feed on organic waste and help remove pollutants from the water.

also helps control the smelly odors during that process.

The water then moves into large settling tanks.

Heavier solids sink to the bottom, forming what's known as sludge and mechanical scrapers.

Collect and remove all that material at the same time.

Grease, oil, soap and other floating materials rise to the surface wherethey're skimmed off as scum, with both removed.

This water significantly cleaner than when it arrived before it's released, though the water must go through one final safeguard it is disinfected using ultraviolet light or chemical treatments to destroy harmful bacteria, viruses and other disease causing microorganisms.

Thewater is thentested to ensure it meets environmental standards, and once it passes those tests, the treated water is returned to or nearby streams, completing its journey through Louisville's wastewater system.

And while most of us never think about what happens after we flush the toilet or watch rain disappear into a storm drain, this process is happening around the clock, protecting public health and keeping local waterways clean.

For inside Louisville.

I'm Christie Dutton.

>> Tony Parrott is executive director of MSD or the Metropolitan Sewer District, and this has been very fascinating for me because there was a lot I did not understand about MSD and how it does everything.

So you all say three utilities in one.

So explain what those are.

>> Well, we are three utilities in one.

We provide wastewater treatment, stormwater and drainage and flood protection for the people think of MSD as okay, well, they just take care of the sewers.Yeah.

But we do more than that.

Sowe're actually three separate utilities in Jefferson County.

We provide all three of those services, but we also provide wastewater services to Bullitt County and Oldham County.

So not only are we three utilities in one, but we're a regional utility as well.

>> Now, up this way.

In some places they're separate utilities.

So why are they combined here?

>> Well, we are a unicorn.

There's very, very rare that you find utilities that do all three that we do.

And I think in our situation, we've always been a wastewater utility.

Back in 1987, we actually signed a memorandum with the city of Louisville to manage and operate the stormwater and drainage and the flood protection system.

So it's really just kind of an opportunity for us to, to be a great partner, to be able to provide those services for our community.

>> Now, in a place like Louisville, though, stormwater drainage and flood protection, that's a big part of what happens here.

As we've seen here in the last couple of years.

Right?

>> Yeah.

You know, we lot of responsibility, particularly around flood protection.

We have flood protection system that runs along the Ohio River.

We have 16 major flood pump stations.

We have 27 miles of levee that we're responsible for.

And so whenever the river rises, we have hundreds of flood gates and different thingsthat we have toput in action to make sure that when the river rises, we make sure that downtown, a lot of areas West End, Churchill Downs, the University of Louisville, the hospital center here, the airport Ford, GE all those areas are protected by the flood protection system.

>> It.

And there's some areas of the city, like you mentioned, that flood.

And it's not just at the Ohio River.

So why is that?

And how do you all work that intoyour flood >> Well, the flood protection system is specifically for the Ohio River, but internal of that flood protection system, you have areas that are actually classified as floodplain areas.

For example, there are some areas along the Ohio River that are going to flood regardless, right.

And then you have some areas in the south part of Jefferson County that are going to flood regardless, because most land is in a floodplain.

And so when it rains, most of those waters or most of those lands are there to kind of hold water, just like a marshland or a swamp, if.

>> You will.

Yeah.

>> And so there's really not much you can do with, with those withthose properties.

But we also have an internal drainage system where everything inside the flood wall does drain from the city through our combined sewer system.

And one thing that we try to do is to make sure that we make sure that Beargrass, Creek and some of those areas are not flooding the city.

And then when we activate our flood protection system, our flood pump stations, we actually pump water out of the city during a flood event.

So the flood walls go up and then in service.

And then when the creeks rise, we actually pump those over the flood wall out into the Ohio River.

That's how we protect the city.

I think we'vewitnessed that this summer where we've had very intense rain events.

There's been a lot of flooding in the region, andit's because of the intensity and the duration of those of the rainfall.

Most of the systems that we have are not designed to take in 6 or 7in of rain an hour.

>> Yeah.

>> And so when you get those intense rain events, you do have street flooding.

You have other things.

And so, and it's really moreabout the water can'tget into the system.

But we're fortunate inside the Watterson Expressway in Louisville, we have a combined sewer system, and those generally have very large pipes.

Those pipes date back to like the put stormwater and waste from homes and businesses in the same pipe.

And so all of that is captured and it's transferred to our wastewater treatment system.

Originally, thecombined sewer system was they were designed to overflow when the sewers got full.

And so more recently, in the last 20 years, we've actually, because of the federal Clean Water to reduce the amount of overflows that are happening in our combined sewer system.

And so that leads to the discussion about the consent decree.

I'm pretty sure everybody's heard that term.

Yeah.

But it's usually something that is required by either state law or federal law.

And currently we are under a federal consent decree to mitigate the volume of overflow that comes the combined sewer system, and to completely eliminate any overflows from the sanitary sewer system, which is a newer part of our system outsideof the Watterson.

>> Yeah.

And I want to get more into that, but justto kind of give everybody an idea of that combined sewer system, I think this is so interesting because there are some cities that have a combined sewer system.

There are some cities that And Louisville kind of has both.

Right.

But that goes to the history here.

And so explain why it's different inside the Watterson and outside the Watterson.

>> Most of the development in the early part of the development of our city was right here along the Ohio River.

And so back then, you didn't have sewer systems to begin with.

Everything really went straight to the Ohio right.

But as you know, time went on.

We started developing pipe systems to make sure we could get waste away from homes and also water out of communities directly into the Ohio River.

So the original design, back in the early 1800s was how do we get water?

How do we get waste away from homes?

And so you had these big concrete or brick sewers.

Most of inside the Waterson are large ten foot diameter brick sewers or larger huge.

And it's really fascinating to see most of thosebrick sewers are still intact here.

150 years later.

And but you use those systems to convey stormwater and waste away from homes, probably in the early 1900s was when we really started developing wastewater treatment systems, more treatment systems to capture those flows, to make sure we could treat them before we go, before it goes back into the Ohio River.

>> Let's go back to the infrastructure.You mentioned some of those huge ten foot pipes made of bricks from the 1800s, and that brings us to this infrastructure is some in some cases, more than 100 years old.

Absolutely.

that is being repaired, replaced.

What is that process like?

And where do we stand as far as what still needs to happen?

>> Sure.

Well, we have a lot of lot of infrastructurethat datesback to the 1860s.

And, and I'll just start with the combined sewer system.

The large brick sewers.

You mentioned when those sewers fail, they're right under our streets.

opportunities or times when there may be a street cave in.

That's because a sewer has caved in and the streetjust fallsin.

And so we call those large diameter pipes.

And part of our critical infrastructure.

So we prioritize those as emergency projects that we deal with.

But we've also identified 20 years of work, whether it's in wastewater, stormwater or flood protection, that we need to do that 20 year plan is about $4 billion.

And so obviously, we can't do it all at once.

So we have to prioritize through what we call a asset management program to determine which ones are, you know, at failure or which ones are at high risk of failure.

And we try to get them into our annual capital improvement program.

The challenge that we have our federal consent decree, we have to prioritize the federal regulations first.

And so an example would be our annual capital improvement program may be $300 million, 87% of that is to deal with the consent decree first.

And so it doesn't leave a lot ofdollars left to deal with what we need todo or what we want to do.

So we're hoping that a lot of the federal consent by 2035, and that would give us more revenue to deal with aging infrastructure in our system.

And even spending more money to support future economic development.

>> Yeah.

2035 sounds still sounds like a long timeaway.

>> It is.

It's to, to the, to the community.

It soundslike a long time away.

But to us, we already have projects that are already in design wrapping up the consent decree.

People may remember maybe 4 or 5 years ago, we did a deep tunnel along the Ohio River that was a 20 foot diameter tunnel.

That's about 200ft deep and ran from downtown Louisville up to Lexington Road.

That project was a part of our consent decree.

We have other large projects that are planned in the future, which is another big the St.

Matthews area, and it's going tobe probably only about 12 foot in diameter, but it's going to be a six mile long tunnel.

So a lot of times people don't see the infrastructure, but it's being put in and it's very costly.

>> Yes.

And which brings us to the revenue side of things.

Rates just went up.

Yes.

So tell us about that.

And what that money is going to.

>> Well, it is we are funded by our rates primarily right now.

We've we don't get a whole lot of what I would call free money or grant money.

Our operations is solely funded by rates.

Back in the 1970s and 80s, there was federal grants that helped utilities pay for capital improvements that are required by the regulations.

So you could get a regulatory project.

Right now, we are averaging less than 7% of our capital is paid by grants from the federal government or state government, so that means right now, the real cost of service is falling on the back of local ratepayers.

So we try to look at the concern about rates going up, the affordability issues that people are so concerned about, and can to bevery efficient.

But while addressing the regulatory priorities that we have to address this year for fiscal year 27, our rate increase was 3.9%, which averages about $3.20.

And for a month increase.

And so we know that some people that impacts our rate increase this fiscal year, as well as last fiscal year, came in about 3.9%.

And it's increase that we've actually had in Louisville for 20 years.

So we're very cognizant of the rates not going up, but we do have the responsibility of doing the federally mandated projects and what we're trying to do not only is to control rates, but make sure that we can identify those residents, those communities that may need rate assistance.

>> It sounds likethe government is asking do things, but not giving you the money or resources in order to do them.

Right?

Right.

And so you have to lookto rate increases.

>> We have to look at rate increases.

We we are very active at the state level and the federal level.

Lobbying for grant assistance.

We have great partnerships with Senator McConnell's office.

We have great partnerships with Representative office.

And before him, Yarmouth's office.

And we also have great relationship with Congressman Guthrie, who's working on behalf of local residents in Louisville, Bullitt and Jefferson County, to make sure we can go after monies for those areas that need improvements.

And so we're also in partnership with the Army Corps of Engineer, and we are working withthem to go after what funds available throughwhat we call the Water Resources Development Act and those programs support flood protection systems.

So we spend a lot of time in Washington trying to lobby for revenue to help with those capital improvements.

And so when people, you know, when we do get those funds that really relieves the local ratepayers.

However, back to your question about where does the when we look at our dollar bill, we know that 38% of what we do is to pay off outstanding debt, and then we know about 35 to $0.37 of that dollar goes to operating the system.

But less than 5% goes to what we call administrative cost.

A lot of times people think that, you know, maybe there's a waste of funds, but we, we, we, we spend very little money on administrative means our overhead, our salaries, all those type of things, our benefits, most of the money that we take in goes into addressing our operations, our maintenance of those assets, our making sure that we can pay our electric bills, pay for chemicals that we need to treat the wastewater and, and then we also havesome funds that we setaside for rehabbing the system.

And so when, when, when we get every opportunity we can, we try totalk about where does themoney go?

And when we have those conversations with folks, I think itopens up more room for them to understand the challenge that we have as a utility.

And why we need to do what we need to do.

>> Going back to something that youmentioned was about the emergency funds that you all use.

And I know here in the past year had to dip into that quite a bit.

>> Absolutely.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

You know, itis, it is so challenging for us because as our budgets get tighter, as our rates go lower, it leaves less money for what we call emergencies or contingencies.

And so generally, what happens then is, is that when an emergency happens and we have to tap an emergency those emergency funds get low and we have a catastrophe or a catastrophic issue, for example, after the last flood event in April of 2025, we had $13 million of work that we needed to do to get the flood protection ready.

Again, those dollars were not budgeted.

And so what we have to do is projects that we were going to do.

We have to defer them and free with emergencies.

So it's aging infrastructure is a big challenge for us here in Louisville.

And it's going to continue to be a challenge for us.

And the more intense rain events we get.

A lot of people don't like to talk about climate change, but I'm here to tell you froma utility perspective, itis real.

And so it's really impacting wastewater and stormwater utilities.

>> And are going to be needed more and more in the future.

>> Absolutely, absolutely.

It's it's, it's, it's, it's either you pay me now oryou pay me later.

And, and so the risk are getting bigger.

And as we kick things down the road, we call it the rusty bucket.

You know, you can Band-Aid it so many times, but eventually you're goingto have acatastrophic failure.

And the more you defer, the higher the risk are going to beand the higher the cost are going to be in the future.

>> What is the future of MSD?

What do you see?

You know, this utility becoming in ten, 20 years?

>> Well, I think MSD so far has always been a strong advocate for the environment and making sure that we protect our waterways and protect our communities.

So I think that portfolio is always going to be there.

And I think also we because of a change in state law, several years ago, we are looked at as more of a regional partner in those areas that may need wastewater treatment.

We signed a interlocal agreement with Oldham County and Bullock County in the last 5 or 6 years, andthose partnerships are going very well.

So when other communities decide they may need our assistance, respond and try to assist them in any way that we can.

I think that MSD isgoing to be a very, very important utility as it relates to the revitalization of some of our communities that have had a lot of disinvestment historically, and I think MSD is going to be a principal player in future economic development to support areas that are not developed.

So far or inside a lot of redevelopment that may be happening.

And so MSD has to be there tomake sure we supportthat.

So we are an anchor institution and we are three utilities in one.

And I think we are going to continue to do the best we can to provide the cost effective, cost effective service, but also to make sure that we're providingsafe, clean waterways for our community >> Christie Dutton here with Monica Hardin.

>> From Louisville.

>> MSD here to bust some myths and answer some.

>> Frequently askedquestions.

Okay, number one, let's talk about flushable wipes.

You get those wipes and they say flushable on them.

That's right.

What is that about?

Is that okay?

>> No, it's not okay.

Never flush a wipe.

No no no.

>> Okay.

>> Why?

Well, because they don't break down and they'll clog the drain system.

So don't do it.

>> Even if it says flushable.

Yeah.

Okay.

Whatabout what about medication?

You see that all thetime on TV shows.

They dump the medication down the toilet.

Is that okay?

>> No no no no.

>> And why not?

>> Don't flush them.

We want to keep our waterways safe and clean.

So when you're putting medications down, they can go directly into our waterways.

So there's a properway to dispose of your medications.

You can go to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.

And they a process that you can go through.

>> Okay, so what goes down the toilet then?

>> The only thing that goes down the toilet, okay, the three P's.

>> Okay.

>> P poo and toilet paper.

>> Okay.

Got it.

Yeah.

That's simple.

Let's move from the bathroom to the kitchen.

Okay.

You're frying up some bacon.

Is that bacon grease?

Okay.

To pour down the drain or the disposal?

>> Don't do it.

>> Really?

>> Yes.

Yes, yes.

We cannot put any call it fog.

>> Okay.

>> Fog does notgo down the drain.

Soany sort of fats, bacon, grease, oils, grease, even ice cream.

>> Ice cream.

Because the fat.

Yes.

Okay.

What if you havea disposal though?

Does that make a difference?

>> Well, we really don'twant to think of our, our, our disposal or our sinks or even our toilets.

Right.

They're not trash cans.

So anything mightneed to go into the trash, put in the trash can, and I would avoid putting it in the garbage disposal.

>> Okay, okay.

>> Cause clogs.

>> Yes.

Good to know.

Okay, now let's move outside.

We both have kids.

Kids love to play in the parks.

Is that okay, or is that water safe?

>> Well, we want to make sure there are signs all over the Louisville area thatsay do not swim in creeks or streams, especially 48 hoursafter a big rain event.

>> Okay.

>> So the water justneeds to needs time to the big rain events.

And so we just say, don't do that.

Be safe.

Pay attention to the signs.

>> Okay, so look for the signs.

Wait a couple of days after a bigrain.

Got it.

Monica Hardin from Louisville.

MSD.Thank you so much for helpingus bust these myths.

>> Thank you.

Anytime.

>> You can stream and share this episode anytime.

You can find it online at ket.org/insidelouisville.Plus, follow us learn more about Underground Louisville.

Youcan findus on Instagramat KET N Lou.

Thanks for spending a little time getting to know Louisville.

I hope we'll see you here next time.

Until then, make it a great week.