Caring for public health and protecting water resources has been a matter of conscience in Milwaukee for decades. But early Milwaukeeans for the first half century only met immediate wastewater needs. Harder choices were set aside.

A glimpse back helps in appreciating today's water pollution problems and the first achievements by the City of Milwaukee, which was chartered in 1846.

 The first city sewers were built more than 130 years ago to carry wastewater to the rivers and Lake Michigan. Wild rice, sensitive to water pollution, flourished at the mouths of the Kinnickinnic, Menomonee and Milwaukee Rivers. But nearly all sewage was reaching surface water.

So the rivers were flushed as a stopgap measure. Starting in 1888, a flushing tunnel pumped huge volumes of Lake Michigan water into the stagnant Milwaukee River below the North Avenue Dam. In 1907, another flushing tunnel was built on the Kinnickinnic River.

Conditions in both rivers, and the Menomonee, worsened. The wild rice died. Nearshore Lake Michigan, a source of drinking water, bordered on contamination. And there was a typhoid scare in 1909.

The public was upset and stopped believing that dilution of their wastes was a solution for pollution. Politicians debated possible solutions, and nonpartisan support for a more lasting remedy grew. The Sewerage Commission of the City of Milwaukee was established in 1913, and the arduous job of designing and building a complete disposal system began.

The Commission experimented in 1914 with a new approach for secondary treatment of wastewater - the activated sludge method. In 1925, the first part of the Jones Island Wastewater Treatment Plant was opened and used the waste activated sludge process. It was the largest facility in the nation to harness nature in order to clean wastewater, by having microorganisms feed on pollutants. Some metropolitan wastewater plants still are without secondary treatment today, relying only on primary treatment for major pollution control problems that demand better methods.

Population expansion, development, industrial growth and increased wastewater volume led to the formation in 1921 of a suburban Sewerage Commission. The Jones Island plant was expanded in 1934 and 1952. A second plant, the South Shore Wastewater Plant in the City of Oak Creek, was opened in 1968 and expanded in 1974. There was talk about more work to be done for area wastewater problems.

MMSD initiated studies of its solids handling program and of improvements to reduce combined sewer overflows to determine how it could best address the 1972 Clean Water Act initiatives. In addition, MMSD launched work on a facility plan to upgrade treatment systems in order to meet the new regulatory requirements.

In 1977, in a watershed event, the District's Commission voted to create the Milwaukee Water Pollution Abatement Program (WPAP) to begin to repair and expand the entire metropolitan area wastewater conveyance and treatment system. Work began for the planning and construction of what would become the cornerstone of the WPAP - Milwaukee's Deep Tunnel System - over 19.4 miles of Deep Tunnels dug 300 feet underground that would trap sewer overflows.

1916 sewer construction in Milwaukee at Water Street and Grand Avenue.



1924 construction of sewer near Brady Street in Milwaukee.



Sewer work in 1919.



Sewer work in 1919.



Trenching along St. Paul Street in Milwaukee for a new sewer line in 1920.



Prior to construction, cast iron sewer pipe is stored on Erie Street in Milwaukee in 1917.



Construction begins on the Jones Island Wastewater Treatment Plant in 1917.



New sewer construction in 1924 along Milwaukee Street north of Mason Street in Milwaukee.




The Jones Island fishing village before it was cleared to make way for wastewater
treatment and the Port of Milwaukee.



Workers begin clearing the island for the wastewater treatment plant.