Flush this, not that: The items constantly causing problems at Madison’s wastewater treatment plant – WKOW

MADISON (WKOW) -- When water goes down the drain, either in our homes or on our streets, it's really the start of a new journey; a trip that can be quite costly for taxpayers.

The Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) says it treats about 36 million gallons of wastewater every day. That's enough water to fill the lower bowl at Camp Randall Stadium.

Before water reaches MMSD's stunning array of large outdoor tanks, solids - the kind that do not break down - must be removed.

Eric Dundee, MMSD's director of wastewater operations, says that often includes diapers, plastic bags, clothes and flushable wipes. Dundee, and other wastewater treatment professionals, say the wipes might be marketed as safe for flushing, but are actually a disaster for treatment plants.

The wipes don't break down quickly enough, and therefore must be filtered out at the plant with all the other junk that doesn't belong. As a rule of thumb, Dundee says the only things people should flush are toilet paper and their own waste.

While those items are commonplace, MMSD also has a display preserving the most bizarre items that have been fished out of the sewage system. The case includes car keys, a horseshoe, and a wide variety of toys.

Dundee, however, keeps his favorite souvenir in his own office. He's still not sure how a bowling ball got stuck in a pipe, but it happened.

"Somehow, somebody was able to open a manhole, and they must've had a bad day at the bowling league," Dundee said. "It made it all the way to one of our pump stations and got clogged in one of our pumps."

Crews had to remove the pump, then break the ball in half to dislodge it.

While bowling balls and horseshoes are rare, the more mundane items get stuck frequently enough to cause daily disruptions. After all, there are a lot of places where objects can get stuck in MMSD's network, which runs from Sun Prairie to Verona, and from Waunakee down to Stoughton.

All that water ends up at the district's plant south of the Beltline highway, south of the West Broadway exit.

"We have our staff responding to pump stations, and different issues in the treatment plant, every single day," Dundee said. "Because something has been flushed, or more than one thing has been flushed or gotten down the drain into some of our pumps or screens that shouldn't be there."

MMSD estimates annual responses and repairs caused by items that shouldn't have gotten in the sewage costs taxpayers an additional $500,000 each year.

"That includes cleaning pumps, that includes cleaning our equipment," Dundee said. "Staff time, actual damage."

While that's a drop in the bucket for an agency whose 2021 operations and maintenance budget was $45.4 million, Dundee said that money would be better served going to other projects, including long-term investments.

The costs of wayward waste go beyond dollars. When people flush away prescription drugs, it can pollute the water supply.

"Sometimes, people think, 'well I'm almost done with these [pills,] I'm not gonna use them anymore. Maybe I should just flush them down the toilet.' Absolutely not," Scott Laeser, water program director at Clean Wisconsin, said. "Those pharmaceuticals should go to a station specially meant to process and destroy them."

Laeser said it's even more vital to keep plastics, and other chemicals, out of the system for families who use a septic tank. Those tanks are only meant to treat bacteria, so they don't remove any of the other chemicals that can pollute groundwater.

About one third of Wisconsin families rely on private wells as their source of drinking water.

"[Septic tanks are] really the only thing that is standing between the water they use, and the groundwater that, of course, is so critical to so many Wisconsinites because that is our source of drinking water," Laeser said.

For MMSD, the challenges continue to grow. Over the last two-plus years, a new item has been contributing to clogged pipes.

"Disposable masks are becoming a pollution problem," Dundee said. "Some of them end up down the drain, and into our equipment."

One more reminder of the items the public is asked to keep out of toilets and sewer drains. It's all part of a never-ending quest to keep our wastewater...relatively clean.

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services has compiled its list of permanent drug drop boxes, where people can safely dispose of excess pills. Those boxes are also used in the effort to keep addictive opioids out of the wrong hands.

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Flush this, not that: The items constantly causing problems at Madison's wastewater treatment plant - WKOW