Current & Future Projects

The Toledo Waterways Initiative has evolved from its first phase dedicated to enlarging the capacity of the Bay View Wastewater Treatment Plant as well as major sewer improvements in the Point Place and River Road areas to its second phase of working within neighborhoods to reduce the overall number and volume of combined sewer overflows (CSOs).

TWI is a federally mandated environmental program to reduce pollution of the City of Toledo, Ohio’s waterways.  TWI was created as the result of a Consent Decree handed down in 2001 by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio’s Western Division, located in Toledo.  This Consent Decree settled an 11-year lawsuit between the City of Toledo and the U.S. and Ohio Environmental Protection Agencies (EPA).

In July 2002, Toledo voters overwhelmingly approved an ordinance settling the lawsuit. That settlement requires the City to update its sewer and wastewater treatment facilities to eliminate or minimize the release of raw sewage into Swan Creek and the Ottawa and Maumee Rivers.

The roadmap to reach the Consent Decree’s goals is found in TWI’s Long-Term Control Plan. The LTCP details how CSOs are to be addressed throughout Toledo. The Plan describes the sewer system improvements the City plans to make in order to meet federal and state water-quality standards and to improve water quality for recreation and aquatic life.

Within the LTCP, 25 projects were identified that need to be completed by August 31, 2020. These projects comprise TWI’s Phase Two.

Many of the early Phase Two projects are based on investigations conducted as part of a series of Sewer System Evaluation Surveys (SSES).  The construction resulting from the various SSES projects will be among the first TWI Phase Two projects and will help during wet weather events to capture more combined sewer flows into storage pipelines or facilities that will eventually bring the flow to the Bay View Water Reclamation Plant for treatment. This will result in less overloaded combined sewer flows getting into the local waterways.

This table helps explain the abbreviations used in the following listing of the 25 projects in TWI’s Phase Two.

• O– Projects located along the Ottawa River
• E – Projects located along the Maumee River’s east side
• W – Projects located along the Maumee River’s west side
• S – Projects located along Swan Creek

* SSES – Sewer System Evaluation Survey
Construction Projects in TWI’s Phase Two