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This tour will take IECA attendees to visit Green Infrasturce and construction highlights of the Kansas City Smart Sewer System.
Buried underneath the streets of Kansas City are nearly 2,800 miles of sewer pipes hidden from view but serving an important purpose: to move whatever goes down the drain or toilet away from our homes and businesses to the City’s six wastewater treatment plants. There, pollutants are removed from the water before it is put back into our local rivers. Our wastewater systems protect public health and our environment, and some of the pipes are 50, 100, even 150 years old — and still in use today. Two types of sewer systems support Kansas City: combined and separate. In the combined sewer system, stormwater and wastewater are collected in the same pipe and routed to a wastewater treatment plant for treatment. These are the oldest pipes in our system and are located in the older parts of our city. As technology advanced, it became best practice to use more than one pipe. In the separate sewer system, stormwater and wastewater are collected in two different pipes. Wastewater is collected and conveyed to a wastewater treatment plant for treatment, and stormwater flows directly to nearby rivers and streams without treatment.
When it rains, the combined sewer system that uses one pipe to convey both wastewater and rainfall can quickly fill up and reach its capacity — and even overflow at established outfall locations, discharging a mix of wastewater and stormwater directly into our local streams and rivers. KC Water’s Smart Sewer program – the City’s largest infrastructure investment – uses strategic, data-driven solutions and innovative, cost-effective overflow control technologies to address combined sewer overflow (CSO) challenges in a way that protects our community and ensures the improvements and investments made today will last for generations. The program is committed to capturing 85% of the combined sewer flows by 2040. In the current fiscal year 2023, KC Water is implementing 42 projects to comply with the Consent Decree. The City’s adaptive management approach allows for progressively increased levels of public health and environmental protections by implementing cost-effective green infrastructure for stormwater management within the combined sewer system in lieu of and in addition to CSO structural controls.
More information: https://www.kcsmartsewer.us
