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As I understand it a large amount of sewer overflow in the US comes from old combined sewers. Replacing them is already in action but it's a slow and expensive
by lordgilman 13y ago
As I understand it a large amount of sewer overflow in the US comes from old combined sewers. Replacing them is already in action but it's a slow and expensive process as many of the sewers built before the 60s/70s were combined. My point is that I don't think it's fair to group the US in with Dubai and India as the US faces sewer problems of a different sort entirely. Our overflow comes from rainwater overwhelming the system and not from excessive human use.
- Spooky23 13y agoYou're 100% right. In the US, the problems are about handling the days where the top 5% of storm waterflow overwhelms the system. Another thing to think about is that many sewer systems were built before big suburban buildouts, and typically the original urban areas are located near rivers or the ocean... so the suburban systems often connect to the older urban infrastructure. Many of the changes in development patterns in the last 50-75 years have increased stormwater flows. Roads, shopping centers and other landscape features are either impermeable or are designed to divert water "away". And... there are fewer wetlands or other areas to absorb the water, so you're hammering these systems with massive amounts of water that were really rare 100 years ago. "Fixing" things in the US is tough depending on the location. Many places are implementing strategies to reduce peak storm waterflow, like mandating swales or ponds for big sprawl-ly development projects and building big stormwater tanks/basins under roadways in more densely developed areas.