MSD Overview
It's all about clean water!
Introduction
MSD is a local wastewater utility that provides sewer service to about 230,000 households and businesses in the City of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio. MSD's service area encompasses 290+ square miles and serves 43 of the 49 communities in Hamilton County.
MSD operates and maintains about 3,000 miles of underground sewer pipe, about 100 pump stations, several high-rate treatment facilities, and 9 wastewater treatment plants. The pins on the map show the location of the plants and are scaled by the plant capacity.
MSD's sewer system is divided into sewersheds. The community in each sewershed area is served by a collection system that drains to a single wastewater treatment plant.
MSD's sewer system discharges to local waterways. These waterways include the Ohio River, the Great Miami River, the Little Miami River, Mill Creek, Muddy Creek, and their tributaries.
MSD History
In the early 19 th century, sewers were first built for storm drainage in Cincinnati. Most sewer projects were done privately and involved materials like limestone or lumber from dismantled flatboats.
In 1860, residential connections to the sewers became permitted, but access remained limited. Twenty years later, only about a quarter of Cincinnati homes had sewer access.
To deal with rising public health concerns such as drinking water contamination, the City of Cincinnati decided to provide sewerage to all residential areas in 1897.
Towards the turn of the century, standards and techniques for wastewater treatment were being developed. In 1937, a site near the mouth of the Little Miami was chosen as the first treatment site for Cincinnati and the second wastewater treatment plant on the Ohio River.
It took over 15 years for the Little Miami treatment plant to come online in 1953. However, in the decade that followed, another three treatment plants came online in Cincinnati: Sycamore - 1958; Mill Creek - 1959; and Muddy Creek - 1961.
In 1968, the city and county sewer operations merged to form The Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati (MSD), the first of its kind in Ohio.
As development continued additional treatment plant were brought online: Polk Run and Mayflower began operations in the early 1970s, Indian Creek, constructed in 1935 with a major upgrade in 1995, Taylor Creek in 1995, and Fort Scott in 2007.
Treatment Plants
MSD’s sewer collection system is made up of an extensive system of pipes that receive flow from homes, businesses, and runoff from older stormwater pipes that are combined with sewer collection pipes. This collection system brings all that flow to MSD’s wastewater treatment plants.
Treated wastewater (called effluent) is released into the region’s creeks and rivers. MSD protects the natural environment by ensuring that its effluent meets or exceeds required standards. Every day, MSD turns about 200 million gallons of wastewater back into clean water.
Click through the slides below to learn more about the facilities.
Mill Creek WWTP
Little Miami WWTP in the East End
Muddy Creek WWTP in Sayler Park
Sycamore WWTP in Indian Hill/Symmes Township
Polk Run WWTP in Loveland
Taylor Creek WWTP in Cleves
Indian Creek WWTP in North Bend
Mayflower Package WWTP in Pleasant Run
Fort Scott Package WWTP in Crosby Township
Mill Creek WWTP
The Mill Creek WWTP, which began operations in 1959, is MSD's largest plant, treating about 100 million gallons of wastewater a day. The plant serves customers in central Hamilton County, from the northern county border to the Ohio River.
Little Miami WWTP in the East End
The Little Miami plant serves customers in southeastern Hamilton County. As MSD's first major treatment facility, Little Miami WWTP has been in operation since 1953 and treats about 27 million gallons a day.
Muddy Creek WWTP in Sayler Park
Muddy Creek WWTP serves customers in portions of southwestern Hamilton County. Muddy Creek has been in operation since 1961 and treats about 15 million gallons a day.
Sycamore WWTP in Indian Hill/Symmes Township
Sycamore WWTP serves customers in portions of eastern Hamilton County. Sycamore has been in operation since 1958 and treats about 8 million gallons a day.
Polk Run WWTP in Loveland
Polk Run WWTP serves customers in the Loveland area. Polk Run has been in operation since 1970 and treats about 4 million gallons a day.
Taylor Creek WWTP in Cleves
Taylor Creek WWTP serves customers in northwestern Hamilton County. Taylor Creek has been in operations since 1997 and treats about 2.5 million gallons a day.
Indian Creek WWTP in North Bend
The Indian Creek plant serves customers in the Cleves and North Bend communities in southwestern Hamilton County. Indian Creek, originally constructed in 1935 as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project, had a major plant upgrade in 1995 and treats about 1 million gallons a day.
Mayflower Package WWTP in Pleasant Run
The Mayflower package plant serves about 200 customers in the vicinity of Overdale Drive in Pleasant Run. The plant was built in the early 1970s and treats about 45,000 gallons per day.
Fort Scott Package WWTP in Crosby Township
The Fort Scott package plant serves customers in the Fort Scott subdivision in Crosby Township in western Hamilton County. The plant was built in 2007 and MSD assumed operation in 2008. This plant treats about 45,000 gallons a day.
Wet Weather Facilities
SSO-700 Storage Treatment Facility
Werk and Westbourne EHRTF
Muddy and Westbourne
Lick Run RTC
Ross Run RTC
Mitchell Avenue RTC
Badgeley Run RTC
Bloody Run RTC
Wooden Shoe Hollow RTC
SSO-700 Storage Treatment Facility
MSD commissioned the Sanitary Sewer Overflow (SSO) 700 High Rate Treatment and Storage Facility (STF) in 2006 to minimize the impact of sanitary sewer overflows on Mill Creek in the upper reaches of the Mill Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant sewer service area. SSO 700 is located on the East Branch Mill Creek Interceptor approximately 13 miles upstream of the Mill Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. The service area upstream of SSO 700 is approximately 27 square miles and includes the suburban communities of Evendale, Reading, Sharonville, and Springdale. The sewer system is primarily a separate sanitary sewer that experiences a high degree of Rainfall Derived Inflow/Infiltration (RDII).
Werk and Westbourne EHRTF
The Werk and Westbourne Enhanced High Rate Treatment Facility (WWEHRTF) is on a ~7 acre site located in Green Township, Hamilton County, Ohio, at the intersection of Werk Road and Westbourne Drive. The facility treats wet weather flows from CSO 522 fed by the Upper Muddy Creek Sub-basin which encompassing an area of roughly 1,400 acres.
Muddy and Westbourne
Facility is located at 5741 Muddy Creek Road in Greene Township, between the intersections of Muddy Creek Road with Westbourne Drive and Muddy Creek Road with Neeb Road. It was placed in operation in 2001 and upgraded in 2019-2020, and captures, disinfects, settles, and screens, portions of wet weather flow from the Westwood Trunk Sewer, which would have otherwise overflowed to Schaible Creek (CSO 198) without treatment. Dry weather flows and portions of wet weather flow are directed from the Westwood Trunk Sewer to the Muddy Creek Interceptor (MCI) via a 36" underflow sewer for conveyance and treatment at the Muddy Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant (MuCWWTP).
Lick Run RTC
The Lick Run RTC facilitates storage and flow control from the Lick Run Trunk Sewer at CSO-005. Designed to utilize the Lick Run Trunk Sewer as a storage element and, thus, maximize the volume of combined sewage stored, conveyed, and subsequently treated at the Mill Creek treatment plant.
Ross Run RTC
This RTC facilitates storage and flow control from the Ross Run Trunk Sewer at combined sewer overflow CSO-487. Designed to use the twin outfall sewers as storage and, thus, maximize the volume of wastewater stored, conveyed, and subsequently treated. The MTS Study predicted that the Ross Run RTC could reduce overflow volumes in the typical year by 250 million gallons (MG) and cut the overflow frequency from 64 events/year to 45 events/year.
Mitchell Avenue RTC
This RTC facilitates storage and flow control from the Mitchell Avenue Trunk Sewer at CSO 482. It is located at the southeast corner of the Mitchell Avenue and Interstate 75 interchange, approximately 5.5 miles upstream of the MCWWTP. This RTC is an automated combined sewage storage facility. The facility has been in operation since July 2009. It was designed and constructed as a result of the Maximization of Transport & Storage (MTS) Study completed in June 2006 to maximize the use of existing infrastructure.
Badgeley Run RTC
The Badgeley Run RTC facilitates storage and flow control from the Badgeley Run Trunk Sewer at CSO-125. The MTS Study predicted that the Badgeley Run RTC could reduce overflow volumes in the typical year by 60 MG and cut the overflow frequency from 58 events/year to 35 events/year.
Bloody Run RTC
This RTC facilitates storage and flow control from the Bloody Run Trunk Sewer at CSO-181. Bending weir technology and dynamic underflow control maximize transport and storage.
Wooden Shoe Hollow RTC
This RTC includes automated slide gates, and flow storage array with bar screens to reduce overflows at CSO-217. In coordination with upstream stormwater detention basins and RTC storage the flows into the stabilized receiving stream are managed to mitigate existing erosional damage, promotion of habitat, improvement of water quality, and enhancement of aesthetics at Kings Run.
Sewer Overflows
Some of MSD's sewers carry both rainwater and sewage in the same pipe (combined sewers), while the rest carry only sewage (sanitary sewers).
When the flow in the combined sewers exceeds the system capacity, the excess flow is discharged through combined sewer outfalls into local streams and rivers.
During wet weather, flow in sanitary only sewers outside the combined sewer area can exceed the local system's capacity and cause discharges into local waterways.
To date, MSD has reduced CSOs by about 8 billion gallons annually (from 14 billion to 6 billion gallons a year during a typical year of rain) and made significant improvements in eliminating SSOs. MSD has operated a Sewer Backup (SBU) Program for customers since 2004 to help mitigate the impacts of sewer backups caused by the public sewer. Learn more at https://www.msdgc.org/progress .
Real-Time Monitoring
MSD monitors all outfalls in real-time and responds as quickly as possible to reduce environmental impact. Several tools are used internally to alert our crews to problems, including dashboards and maps such as this: CSO Reporting Dashboard
Screen capture of MSD's real-time monitoring tool
