Measuring when and how much raw sewage and stormwater flows into area streams, creeks and rivers during a heavy rain fall or snow melt is its own challenge – aside from the major construction projects designed to prevent these combined sewer overflows from happening in the first place.
Overflows in the Buffalo sewer system aren’t measured by actual meters at each of the 52 outfall locations. Instead, the Buffalo Sewer Authority relies on what it calls a “modeled year” in estimating combined sewer overflows for the Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
The modeled year uses historical precipitation data to arrive at overflow numbers – giving a more accurate reading on whether an overflow has happened and at what volume, according to Rosaleen B. Nogle, principal sanitary engineer for the Buffalo Sewer Authority.
BSA has installed some meters, but the data from them so far has been unreliable, said Nogle.
Such meters are expensive to buy and maintain, and more than 200 of them would be needed to monitor the system, she said. They sometimes are difficult to calibrate correctly or have battery issues. They also don’t decipher from which direction water is moving and often get fouled with debris such as flushable wipes that prevents them from making an accurate reading, said Nogle.
“It becomes millions of dollars spent trying to measure the issue instead of correct the issue,” she said.
But clean water advocates such as Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper Executive Director Jill Spisiak Jedlicka said they want to see better data spelling out more precisely when a combined sewer overflow happens, how much sewage overflows into waterways, and the changes in those numbers over time.
“They should be able to tell you with some numbers and with some volumes, not just say, ‘Yeah, it’s getting better,’” said Jedlicka. “We have asked for that kind of information, but we get the…
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