West Side goes green to fix sewer problems

By Amanda O'Leary and Sametra Polkah-Toe
Bengal News reporters
 Buffalo is known for its winters, and residents become accustomed to the typical winter activities: shoveling snow, building snowmen and playing the rain. For those on the West Side, however, there’s an even more fun element involved: flooded basements and bacteria-filled sewage overflows.
 Having been a publicly documented problem for years, the city of Buffalo’s weak sewage infrastructure has allowed for the combination of large quantities of sewage and storm water runoff that backs up the pipes and drains, which eventually spills the untreated wastewater into neighborhoods and basements. This has been especially problematic for the West Side, which sits at the lowest point in the city and therefore receives the bulk of all polluted water that flows into the Niagara River all the way from Cheektowaga and the East Side. It also does not help that the West Side is so populated, because there are not many vacant lots that can absorb the rainwater, as is the case for the East Side.

Buffalo's sewer system allows for sewage to spill untreated into the waterways. (Environmental Protection Agency diagram)

 

 Partially because of its problems regarding sewage, the West Side has been chosen to participate in a series of Mayor Byron Brown’s “Green Rain Water Management” pilot projects starting this fall. The program, in conjunction with Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper, aims to study the use of green rainwater techniques to reduce rainwater flow to the city’s combined sewage systems. Specific to the West Side, “green streets” will be created featuring rain barrels that collect and preserve rainwater.
 There will also be rain gardens to absorb storm water instead of letting it flow into sewer drains, and ultimately, sewer separation operations which will create one pipe for sanitary waste and another pipe for storm water.
 Niagara Riverkeeper executive director Julie O’Neill has expressed her delight at the partnership and insists that the project is necessary for the protection of the West Side community.
 “People really have not been paying attention to the ways sewer overflowage has been affecting our communities,” O’Neill said. “Not only does it introduce ...bacteria to our waterways, making them unsafe, but it also leads to trash and odor problems, and not to mention, its contribution to bird and wildlife problems along the creek. People just don’t think of these things.”
 O’Neill also said that the “green” aspect of the project is a smart move for the city of Buffalo both health-wise and financially.
 “Green is the way to go for the future,” she said. “It beautifies our neighborhoods, returns water back into the ground and its cost-effectiveness ensures that green projects can be implemented during my lifetime.”

Premium Services's Dave Majewski and a green drainage project

 Dave Majewski, president of Premium Services, Inc., is a long-time project collaborator with Niagara Riverkeeper. So far this year, Majewski and his company have constructed a “green” driveway for a church on Lafayette Avenue that has absorbed over 9,000 gallons of water so far. Majewski and his company have planted trees in West Side parks and streets and installed green roofs, which also absorb rainwater and prevent it from flooding the drains. Majewski’s latest project has been a plant bed at the end of a parking lot with native plants that not only absorb the water but also break down the oils from cars, thereby keeping these chemicals out of the city’s sewers.
 “There should be more focus over here on the West Side to address that runoff and the cause of it,” Majewski said. “I can recall a Saturday where three and a half inches of rain fell and all the sewers were backed up going into the lakes and into the streets. That didn’t happen on the East Side or in South Buffalo, but it happened here.”
 Although the pilot sites are still undisclosed and no construction has begun yet, Majewski insists that the city will be successful in turning its infrastructure into a more environmentally friendly system.

Edited by Melissa Kania and Paul Kasprzak