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Rhode Island’s Combined Sewer Overflow System

Colton Dudley

Department of Environmental Studies, The Greene School

English IV/Environmental Science

Mrs. Michele Percival/Mr. Brendan Haggerty

December 11, 2020

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Abstract
Rhode Island has had a long history with its water quality post-1972 Federal Clean Water

Act Amendment, a faulty sewer system has lead to a large scale of pollutants being discharged

into Narraganset bay, The state finally addressed this problem in 1993 when they began planning

a combined sewer abatement overflow program, designed to mitigate this problem, it has taken

over 20 years of construction, and is still the largest engineering feat in Rhode Island’s history
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Research Reflections

My Question
For my research question, I have chosen to study the CSO (Combined Sewer Overflow)

program. My initial research was more geared towards how water quality and population density

coincided, but after Mr. Haggerty introduced me to the CSO program. I realized since it was

something regarding my community, I’d be much more apt to research. Once I began to research

I was bewildered by the engineering feat that was the Combined Sewer Overflow and to date, it

is still the largest engineering project in Rhode Island, and one that would have had a major

detrimental impact on our water quality, if it wasn’t implemented and built,

Research Reflection
While fieldwork was interesting in its own right, It didn’t offer me much for my question,

the bulk of my research was done online, I began by asking myself a few questions, What was

the reason for the CSO? Was it a viable remedy? What inspired or influenced the NBC

(Narragansett Bay Commission) to choose a Combined Sewer Overflow instead of an alternative

solution, and most importantly what is a Combined Sewer Overflow, and how does it impact us?

While there was not an abundance of information accessible to me, I was able to find a handful
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of lengthy sources that went into extensive detail on the construction and necessity of the

Combined Sewer Overflow control program.

Research Findings and Conclusions

Introduction

Prior to the construction of any underground facilities or deep rock tunnels, wastewater

and storm runoff were stored before treatment in one Combined Sewer, in periods of dry

weather, this system functions perfectly fine, the issue being heavy rainfall can lead to frequent

exceeding of capacity, the consequence of which is waste being dumped into the Narragansett

Bay and nearby rivers. The waste being dumped into Narragansett Bay was directly in violation

of the Clean Water Act Amendments of 1972 and the state was fined roughly $32,500 daily for

the violation. By march of 1993 the Narragansett Bay Commission had approved a Combined

Sewer Overflow Abatement Program, the program introduced the idea of building three deep

rock tunnel segments and seven underground storage tunnels. The initial cost of this monumental

feat was 467 million dollars (inflation not taken into account) Providence’s construction of the

Combined Sewer Overflow system was an enormous and expensive undertaking that will shape

Rhode Island’s water quality for generations.

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Combined Sewer Systems
Across the United States, more than seven hundred cities still rely on combined sewers to

store water before it can be transported to a treatment facility. A Combined Sewer in effect is

supposed to simultaneously collect home wastewater and storm runoff from the street in one

shared system. While functional a combined sewer is considered to be a dated system, used

primarily before the existence of wastewater treatment plants, However, even after the

construction of treatment facilities, combined sewers were not entirely functional or sustainable,

Since the systems are quite dated they were built before widespread concern of water quality was

prevalent in America,

Challenges of Combined Sewer Systems Subtopic

As I’ve mentioned previously, Combined Sewers are not always the most functional

system, due to the immense cost of reconstructing sewers, more effort is geared towards

abatement and treatment. The problem most commonly associated with our state’s CSO is how it

reacts to long periods of wet weather conditions. Rhode Island’s Combined Sewer,

pre-construction of the 2008 Phase 1 CSO abatement program was notorious for exceeding

capacity in times of rain, one of the most notable of which was the 2003 Greenwich Bay Fish

Kill, throughout summer months of 2003, Rhode Island had got more than 16 inches of rain,

causing a large overflow of pollutants to be discharged into various bays, the result of which was

a fish kill like Rhode Island had never seen, for as far as the eye could see fish laid dead on the

beaches of Greenwich bay. This Fish Kill was the catalyst for a lot of change in Rhode Island

water quality and raised public awareness of the matter.

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When used in conjunction with green infrastructure, the waste produced by combine sewer can
be minimized

Conclusions
Residents of Rhode Island may not be aware of it, but our state has had a troubling

history of water quality, however, the Naragangset Bay Commision and Rhode Island

Department of Environmental Management have spent years of time, resources, money, and hard

labor to remedy this. We have seen a drastic change in water quality since the construction and

implementation of the Combined Sewer Overflow Abtmanet Program, and suffice to say had

they not built it disasters like the 2003 fish kill would still happen at regular intervals.
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References

https://www.narrabay.com/programs-and-initiatives/combined-sewer-overflow/
https://www.narrabay.com/programs-and-initiatives/combined-sewer-overflow/cso-phase-ii
i-documents/
https://www.providencejournal.com/article/20130819/NEWS/308199995
http://www.sna.providence.ri.us/sna4/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/PHASE-II-CSO-PROG
RAM_LANDSCAPE_-UPDATED-6-4-2012.pdf
https://snapshot.narrabay.com/app/Services/MossFile.ashx?file=/s/emda/snapshot/Docume
nts/Publications/Water%20Quality%20Reports/Water%20Quality%20Improvements%20
Associated%20with%20Phase%20I%20CSO%20%20Tunnel.pdf