Scott Detrow, host:
There is something that does not go with plumbing in Cincinnati. Billion gallons of raw wastewater are found in the sailors each year. And for some people in the city, these raw wastewater are very close to their homes, as in their real houses. From Cincinnati Public Radio comes the sustained podcast. Animator Becca Costello and producer Ella Rowen deeply plunge into one of the most complex parts of our infrastructure.
Becca Costello, Byline: We are talking about sewers. For most of us, once we have rinsed the toilet …
(Soundbite of Flushing toilet)
Costello: … this is the problem of someone else.
Ella Rowen, byline: that is to say until everything you rinse.
Costello: This is the first great mystery. Wastewater is found in places that do not belong much more than it should in Cincinnati and many other cities. So why?
Rowen: Should we bring the Babillard?
Costello: Let’s do it.
Rowen: Very well, so if the films and television taught me about the resolution of mysteries, it is that we must put all our proofs on a babbleman.
Costello: Imagine a dark piece without window. A congested table is located under a void wicked bulb. Ella pours a tenth cup of coffee while I steal press clippings and suspect photos at the Babillard.
Rowen: We connect the points with the common thread, trying to decode dozens of acronyms related to sewers.
Unidentified person N ° 1: EPA.
Unidentified person n ° 2: CSO.
Unidentified person # 3: MSD.
Unidentified person N ° 4: CCF.
Unidentified person # 5: MSD.
(Diaphony)
Rowen: Ok, so here’s what we know. I put a cincinnati card just on the Ohio river. This is where we live.
Costello: The sewer system is therefore managed by the Metropolitan sewer district of the Grand Cincinnati. And in the future, we will just say MSD instead of all this. MSD also covers most of the county of Hamilton.
Rowen: MSD is a wastewater utility. They collect dirty wastewater, such as what happens in the toilet, industrial waste, such as what comes from factories and many rainwater. It comes from the clouds.
Costello: They treat him, then release him, who spread, back in the navigable channels like Mill Creek and the Ohio river. Here’s how they describe their work.
(Soundbit of archived registration)
Unidentified person N ° 6: The Metropolitan Sewer district of the Grand Cincinnati maintains more than 3,000 miles of public drain. During a typical dry day of dry time, the wastewater of our homes, companies and schools cross the public sewer without problem at one of the seven main MSD wastewater treatment plants. But what’s going on when it rains?
(Soundbite of Music)
Costello: When it rains, the system cannot manage the sudden influx of rainwater.
(Soundbit of archived registration)
Unidentified nobody 6: When it rains louder, even more rainwater can enter the sewers, which can lead to an overcoming system more than it can have.
Costello: submerged by more flows than it can transport – it means that when it rains a lot, suddenly, untreated wastewater are saved …
(Soundbit of archived registration)
Unidentified person # 7: Hey, this is the name of the show.
Costello: … through the pipes in people’s basements. This is called a backup of sewer, or SBU.
Rowen: Draft backups.
Costello: right.
Rowen: Ok, so let’s start there. It seems to be a kind of urgent problem.
(Soundbite to strike)
Costello: Hi, I’m becca. Here is Ella.
Rowen: Hi, delighted to meet you.
Florence Miller: Happy to meet you.
Costello: Thank you very much for having us.
Florence Miller lived in Cincinnati all her life. This house just on the edge of Clifton and North Avondale was built in 1922, and it has been living here for more than 50 years, at the moment with one of its sisters.
Miller: I have been retired since 2016 – and before that, I was a programmer analyst, you know, like, 1968, and I have two sisters and a brother, and I am the oldest of the four. I have traveled about the world. I went to 25 countries …
Costello: oh, wow.
Miller: … mounted on the Trans -Siberian railway and has traveled the large wall of China, was in the Galapagos Islands, Iceland. So yes, I was lucky to be able to do that.
Costello: But you have always stayed in Cincinnati as a attachment base. So why is it? What do you like about Cincinnati who kept you here?
Miller: It was family. You know, we are all here for less than 10 miles from each other, so …
Costello: It’s really the best definition of the house, right?
Miller: right. RIGHT. Like “The Wizard of Oz”. There is no place like the house, right?
(Soundbite of Film, “The Wizard of Oz”)
Unidentified actor: (as a character) it is a twister. It’s a Twister.
Costello: In fact, it was a thunderstorm by a rainy August night in 2016.
(Soundbite of Thunder Cracking)
Miller: It was a Sunday evening. I think it was a Sunday evening.
(Soundbit of archived registration)
Unidentified reporter: rain torrents falling from the sky, collecting on concrete and asphalt, creating the perfect flash flood storm.
Costello: Florence had just retired. She was sitting at home, looking at what she thought was a typical Midwest storm. But when she went down the stairs of the basement to check her cat Gabriel, she realized that this storm was different.
Did you know it was wastewater?
Miller: Oh, yeah. When it comes out of the drain there, it is the wastewater.
Costello: Did it feel?
Miller: Oh, yeah. The stench was terrible.
Rowen: dirty water gushed through the drains of the ground, and it rose quickly.
(Flow of flowing water)
Miller: I mean, it was our size, and we waded it. It is as if we had fallen, we would have drowned. I have never seen anything like this in my life.
Costello: Yes.
Miller: I am in the late 1970s, so …
Costello: Florence showed us lots of photos that she had saved from the storm day.
Miller: We have a lot, but it’s the one in the newspaper. It’s my car.
Rowen: Oh, my God. This photo was wild. The water almost covered the hood with his car.
Costello: The title, by the way, above that …
Miller: Oh, storm of the century, right, because here is the backyard. It’s the backyard.
Costello: It’s just a pond.
Miller: Yeah. And I’m just happy that Gabriel was not in the basement at the time because he would have died.
(Soundbite of Music)
Rowen: Gabriel The Cat was fortunately not in the basement that night. But Florence stored many significant things there, like family memories.
Miller: We lost the Trenza of my big aunt there. We lost this and we lost my mother’s wicker needle basket. And we have lost personal Christmas ornaments, you know, because everything was just overthrown.
(Soundbite of Music)
Costello: The list of damage was long.
Miller: Oh, yes, it was the dryer.
Costello: Was it ruined?
Miller: Oh, yes, the dryer and the washer and the water heater, the oven, the air conditioner, the dehumidifier-Yes, there are photos of Gazillion.
Costello: oh, wow. It looks almost like a tornado, like tornado damage.
Miller: But then, the gas was fleeing, you know, from the furnace. Everything was destroyed.
Costello: Was you aware of problems with the sewer system or anything before it happens to you?
Miller: No. I mean, it would really be the most distant thing from the spirit of anyone. Yeah.
Rowen: Florence said that the water had dropped in a few hours, but that the damage remained.
Costello: In the morning after the storm, she saw some MSD workers in the street.
(Soundbite of Music)
Miller: And I thought they are coming here, and they will see this, and they will say that it is, you know, a backup of wastewater, and they will give me a workbooks.
Costello: She walked there and just waited for them to end and then asked for an inspection. And it worked. They came and took responsibility.
(Soundbite of Music)
Miller: It was draining to do it, you know, because we try to clean everything, you know, detach everything and put it in a spreadsheet that you could submit to them. I mean, it took months.
Rowen: When MSD causes a drain backup, they are supposed to cover cleaning costs.
Miller: You know, so I submitted the complaint for cleaning because it was a mediation of mold and mold, then the fans who dry. Oh, then the MSD did not pay it. And then he came a Saturday and said I will put a privilege on your property. I said, oh, no, you’re not. You know, it’s like, it’s not my problem. You should deal with MSD.
Costello: So, when you submitted your detailed complaint for the first time, what was the total amount you ended up by paying?
Miller: It was $ 22,000, something like that (pH).
(Soundbite of Music)
Miller: It was quite lump sum, you know, and as people could not afford to finance this kind of thing either. Fortunately, I could, you know, but it took more than a year to reimburse everything.
(Flow of flowing water)
Rowen: I continue to imagine Florence Pauche in all this water in her basement, in search of her cat. And that – Oh, I hate that.
Costello: right. And think about what wastewater really means. We are talking about bacteria, other dangerous substances that can be dangerous enough to get in touch.
Rowen: And as, she did not swallow any water, but imagine if she had done it easily, she could have stumbled and fall.
Costello: And Florence was not the only one to have a flooded basement that night. The 2016 storm ended up being one of the worst for decades. There were backups of sewers and floods throughout the city.
(Soundbite of Music)
Detrow: MSD reimbursed Florence for the money she spent. It was the host Becca Costello and the producer Ella Rowen for the Cincinnati Public Radio podcast. Find it wherever you get your podcasts.
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