Each year, approximately 9 billion gallons of wastewater overflow into our region’s waterways. Because of that, ALCOSAN is not in compliance with the federal Clean Water Act.

To fix this, ALCOSAN has started a $2 billion, long-term, Clean Water Plan that will reduce the amount of combined sewage overflow by 7 billion gallons per year and eliminate sanitary sewage overflows. To achieve this, ALCOSAN’s plan involves four major components:

• Regionalization - ALCOSAN is working with municipalities to take ownership of trunk sewers and related facilities to create a streamlined collection system.
• Plant Expansion - The Clean Water Plan calls for ALCOSAN's Northside plant to expand. This additional capacity will help reduce the number of overflows caused by excess stormwater.
• Regional Tunnel System -ALCOSAN will construct a new regional tunnel system, and related infrastructure, to transport more wastewater flows during rain events to the treatment plant. This will help reduce overflows.
• GROW/Source Control - ALCOSAN created the Green Revitalization of Our Waterways (GROW) program in an effort to reduce excess water from entering an already overloaded sewer collection system.