The Business of “Poop”

Frank Avila, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (WRD) was the speaker at our May 29, 2008 lunch meeting. On a budget of $1.4 billion, the WRD treats waste water, which primarily includes toilet, sewer and rain water, and also manages the treatment of Lake Michigan water. As Frank so famously said many times “we treat poop” and “we are in the poop business”.

The WRD can handle up to 2.4 billion gallons of waste water per day. The WRD treats the waste water generated by nearly 5 million people, and industry, in greater Chicago. Its facilities include 7 sewer treatment plants, including the largest single plant in the world. The WRD’s great success of the last 30 years was the construction of the deep tunnel project, which includes 109 miles of tunnels and two large reservoirs designed to handle 2.3 billion gallons of waste water. The cost of the Deep Tunnel project was $3 billion dollars.

Frank encouraged us to consider our use of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer, pharmaceutical drugs and other materials that cannot be eliminated or properly treated by the WRD. Eighty-five percent of the compounds in pharmaceutical drugs cannot be properly treated or eliminated by the WRD. Anti-bacterial soap, which is very popular in recent years, also has two ingredients that cannot be removed by the WRD. The treated water from the WRD (which contains the materials above that cannot be removed) is discharged into local channels, which feed into rivers, which ultimately feed into the Gulf of Mexico. The untreated materials are then consumed by fish in those rivers, which fish we then consume. Multiple untreated compounds often interact with each other and form new compounds, which we then also ingest.

Frank closed by challenging us to change our eating and consumption habits, and to consider how those poor habits affect the environment, society, and ultimately, our personal health. He also strongly suggested that we properly educate our children on these matters. Frank can be reached at frank.avila@mwrd.com.