This was buried, ten paragraphs down, in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article about Wednesday's heavy rain:
And the heavy rain prompted Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District officials to take the emergency step of blending treated wastewater from the Jones Island plant with a mix of sewage and storm water from the deep tunnel that had been disinfected only.
The blended flows are being discharged into Lake Michigan.
Blending is being done to increase the volume of wastewater pumped out of the tunnel and free up additional storage space in advance of Wednesday afternoon rain, district Executive Director Kevin Shafer said.
The district is authorized to blend up to 60 million gallons a day of untreated wastewater during a storm. Blending began at Jones Island at 5:15 a.m.
The emergency measure enabled the district to avoid overflows of combined sanitary and storm sewers in central Milwaukee and eastern Shorewood Wednesday morning, Shafer said.
As of 7:30 a.m., the tunnels were filled to 55% of capacity and Jones Island was treating at a rate of 348 million gallons a day. The plant can fully treat up to 300 million gallons a day and the additional volume included the amount of wastewater being disinfected only.
"We're still taking flow from the combined sewer area into the tunnels," Shafer said Wednesday morning. "But more storms are forecast this afternoon and evening."
"We're not going to be able to take much more flow from the combined sewers later today," he said.
Gates connecting combined sewers to the deep tunnel might be closed later Wednesday if tunnel space is needed to store rain-swollen flows from communities with separate sanitary sewers and prevent basement backups. Closing the gates would cause combined sewer overflows to local rivers and Lake Michigan.
As of 7 a.m. Wednesday, MMSD rain gauges had measured rainfall totals of 2.1 inches at Hales Corners, 1.88 inches at Mitchell International Airport, 1.76 inches at the 300 block of S. 84th St. in Milwaukee near Wauwatosa, and 1.69 inches at the 5300 block of N. Teutonia Ave. in Milwaukee near Glendale.
So if you go to Summerfest and you find a shady spot along the lake to eat your fried eggplant, look out at the beautiful lake and know that it contains sewage. It's a dumping ground.
Try not to lose your appetite.
If you go to a beach in Milwaukee, check to see if the water is safe before you swim.
Thank God BP isn't drilling in Lake Michigan. We wouldn't want to harm our "pristine shoreline."
Isn't that right, Mr. Mayor Tom Barrett?
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