Combined Sewer System (CSS)
There is an ongoing effort to upgrade Metro Nashville’s combined sewer system and, in advance of these upgrades, to communicate related impact on neighborhoods in your area and the entire Nashville community. This effort is a requirement of the consent decree that Metro Water Services must implement. The decree calls for specific activities in the creation of a Long Term Control Plan. The EPA’s Long Term Control Plan program addresses combined sewer overflow events across the country.
The part of the consent decree that deals with combined sewer overflow requires both a public education and participation plan, and this website serves as a catalyst for both.
About the Combined Sewer System (CSS)
Combined sewer systems are wastewater collection systems that combine sanitary sewage from our homes, businesses and industries with storm water from rainfall and surface water into one pipe that flows to a treatment facility. During dry weather, the sewer system and treatment facilities are able to handle the capacity of water generated and treat it appropriately. During wet weather conditions, many times the sewer and treatment facilities reach capacity causing a combined sewer overflow into bodies of water including lakes, rivers, oceans and streams.
![CSS - History Background Construction [2]](/water/images/cleanwater/CSS-HistoryBackgroundConstruction2.jpg)
Nashville has a combined sewer system primarily located within a 14-mile radius of our urban core (view map of Nashville’s combined sewer basins). Nashville’s system dates back to the late 1800s- but it still handles the sewage in our urban areas. In the 1950s, Nashville began installing separate systems after the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant was constructed. In wet weather conditions many of our communities combined sewers become taxed and the combined sanitary and storm water waste overflows into the Cumberland River.
In the 1990s, Metro Water Service began a process to limit the number of combined sewer overflow locations and events. Much was accomplished during that time and the Cumberland River was removed from the EPAs 303D list, a list our nation’s impaired waters, but much work still needs to be done.
Long Term Control Plan
EPA’s Long Term Control Plan program addresses combined sewer overflow events across the country. There is an ongoing effort to upgrade Metro Nashville’s combined sewer system and, in advance of these upgrades, to communicate related impact on neighborhoods in your area and the entire Nashville community. This effort is a requirement of the consent decree that Metro Water Services must implement.
The portion of the consent decree that deals with combined sewer overflow requires both a public education and participation plan. This website serves as a catalyst for both.
The Long Term Control Plan is currently under development.
Questions which are not addressed through this web site, please email Sonia Harvat.