Engineering a Cleaner Environment

In these cities, outdated storm and sanitary sewers are connected, so that during heavy rains storm and sanitary sewer flows become mixed. To prevent raw sewage from backing up into homes and businesses, municipalities often divert the excess flow directly into an open stream or river.

This leads to contamination with serious public health consequences. It also leads to truly scary projections of the public financing necessary to fix the problem-from hundreds of millions to upwards of a billion dollars, depending upon the size of the city. Dr. Jeffrey Talley, Professor of Bio-Engineering and Environmental Engineering, University of Notre Dame, is working on a high-tech solution to this very fundamental problem-one that may go a long way toward solving both the public health and public financing sides of the issue.

Dr. Talley and others at Notre Dame are doing pioneering work in the technology of embedded networks, consisting of environmental nodes or sensors. Such networks form an intelligent system, which can instantaneously measure and assess variables such as temperature, pressure, and flow. Applied to municipal sewer systems, this computer-controlled technology can also-through a system of "smart valves"-automatically determine how to divert water and minimize CSO events.

With the help of a 21st Century Research and Technology Fund grant, Dr. Talley and colleagues from the University of Notre Dame and Purdue University are testing the technology in South Bend. The cities of Mishawaka and Elkhart are also collaborating on the project. These cities realize they have a tremendous challenge and are turning to universities for assistance and technology. The new monitoring and control system holds the promise of solving these cities’ CSO problems for much less than originally projected.

This solution will then be used as model for other CSO communities in Indiana and nationally, making Indiana a center for the technology and its application. Which is good news for the Indiana companies-from start-ups to manufacturing, service, and consulting companies-that have the capability to help commercialize this promising new approach to an old problem.