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TO: Mayor Richard C. Irvin
FROM: Mark Phipps, Engineering Coordinator
DATE: December 31, 2021
SUBJECT:
Resolution to award a contract to Strand Associates, Inc. in the amount of $1,144,000 for the Rathbone CSO Preliminary Engineering Services. (Ward 4/Alderman Donnell)
PURPOSE:
Evaluate project alternatives for the proposed Rathbone Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Facility, which is an essential component of the City's CSO Long Term Control Plan.
BACKGROUND:
More than a century ago, cities across the United States, including Aurora and other communities up and down the Fox River, built combined sewers that took both sewage and stormwater away from homes and streets and discharged directly into the River. In 1927, decades before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) began requiring sewage treatment, forward-thinking Aurora residents supported the construction of a sewage treatment plant and new sewers. Those combined sewers are still in operation today and carry sewage and waste to the Fox Metro Water Reclamation treatment facility in Oswego, which cleans the water before returning it to the Fox River.
The combined sewer system can handle Aurora's typical volume of both sewage and runoff, but during heavy rainstorms and snow melt, too much water floods the sewers. When that happens, untreated sewage overflows into the Fox River or backs up into basements. Such occurrences are called a combined sewer overflow, or CSO.
As a first step toward solving this problem, Aurora and other cities across the country eventually began installing more modern storm sewer systems separate from the sewers that carry sewage from homes and businesses. The USEPA's 1994 CSO Control Policy required communities like Aurora to further develop and implement a CSO Long Term Control Plan (LTCP). Aurora's LTCP was submitted in 2010 and approved by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) in 2015. The Plan relies on various strategies ranging from sewer sepa...
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