The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) is a regional government agency that provides water reclamation and flood management services for about 1.1 million people in 28 communities in the Greater Milwaukee Area. A recipient of the U.S. Water Prize and many other awards, the District has a record of 98.4 percent, since 1994, for capturing and cleaning wastewater from 28 communities in a area. The national goal is 85 percent of all the rain and wastewater that enters their sewer systems.
With headquarters and a central laboratory along the Menomonee River near downtown Milwaukee, it has two wastewater treatment plants: the Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility, which is located at Jones Island () in Milwaukee, and a second facility at the South Shore () in Oak Creek. These facilities were operated by United Water under a 10-year agreement ending March 1, 2008. Veolia Water is the current operator.
"The world’s first large scale wastewater treatment plant was constructed on Jones Island, near the shore of Lake Michigan." The primary wastewater treatment plant at Jones Island was one of the first of its kind when the original activated sludge plant was constructed in 1925. MMSD was the first to market biosolids created through this process as a fertilizer under the name "Milorganite." The Jones Island Plant was among the first sewage treatment plants in the United States to succeed in using the activated sludge treatment process. "It was the first treatment facility to economically dispose of the recovered sludge by producing an organic fertilizer." In the early 1980s the plant needed extensive reworking, "this does not detract from its historic significance as a pioneering facility in the field of pollution control technology." It had the largest capacity of any plant in the world when constructed. Its present treatment capacity is 390 million gallons per day, but average flow was only 105 million gallons per day between 2015 and 2019. The 1925 plant has been designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers. MMSD has maintained an inline storage system (ISS) based on tunnels to store and convey wet weather flows, including combined sewage, since 1994. The ISS tunnels have a total capacity of and a combined length of over . Since 1994, the ISS tunnels have prevented more than of combined sewer overflows (CSOs) and sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) from entering area waterways, including Lake Michigan. Between 1994 and 2000, CSOs decreased from 40 to 60 events per year to an average of 2.5 events per year (WDNR 2001).
MMSD Initiatives
Flood Management
Flooding and erosion of the watersheds in the greater Milwaukee area threaten public health and private property. Watersheds boundaries do not necessarily follow municipal boundaries, reducing the risk of flooding requires looking at the watershed as a whole, including the complete river system and its tributaries. The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District has discretionary authority to maintain the watersheds in the Greater Milwaukee Area and authority to reduce the risk of flooding is in Wisconsin Statutes, Section 200.31(1). In the past, work has included: rehabilitation and removal of concrete, removal of sediment and flow-impeding objects, and widening floodplains for flood management purposes.
Fresh Coast Guardians Resource Center - Green Infrastructure
The Fresh Coast Resource Center (FCRC) helps southeastern Wisconsin improve the health of Lake Michigan through smart use of green infrastructure. The FCRC assists the community by providing the inspiration, education, and tools needed to create successful green infrastructure projects.
In 2017, MMSD opened the FCRC to empower people, homeowners, businesses, nonprofits, and government to take an active role in protecting the most precious natural resource: water. By helping the community to protect area rivers and Lake Michigan, MMSD works to achieve its goal of capturing the first of rainfall in its service area. By capturing the first of rain, of water will stay out of sewers, helping to prevent sewer overflows and reducing runoff pollution.