Treating Storm Water with the City of Indianapolis' First Green Infrastructure Project

The City of Indianapolis (City) is a combined sewer community with an approved Long-Term Control Plan (LTCP) that requires 1.7 billion in improvements to minimize raw sewage discharges to local waterways, as a result of combined sewer overflows. There are approximately 130 combined sewer outfalls within the City. The City also started the green infrastructure initiative to mitigate urban storm water runoff, which suffers pollution in the urbanized environment, and where combined sewer areas are located through its Storm Water Design and Construction Specifications Manual. Less intrusiveness in construction, cost effectiveness, and environmental friendliness have motivated the City to use sustainable practices to keep storm water out of the combined sewer systems. The Fall Creek Partial Sewer Separation Pilot Project will assess the cost for implementing Low Impact Development (LID) to manage storm water in the combined sewer areas, as well as the effectiveness of LID in water quality improvements.