Posted by Jared Shepherd 
If you watched Reading Rainbow as a kid, or if you’re still tuned in to today’s incarnation of the PBS classic, then this episode proves the theme song’s line, “I can go anywhere.” Host LaVar Burton takes a trip to and through a wastewater treatment plant. And while some...
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Storm clouds move across Lake Erie behind our Westerly Wastewater Treatment Plant. Nick Bucurel. When waterborne natural disasters like Hurricane Matthew affect the coasts, one of the biggest threats is not the wind. It’s the storm surge. The surge is the dramatic rise of sea levels and wave height...
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As swimmer Michael Phelps places more gold medals around his neck during these Olympic Games in Rio, we wondered how he’d fare in an environment more unusual than a 50-meter chlorinated pool. Southerly first-stage aeration tanks Could Phelps swim in one of these long bubbling channels known as an...
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Over the next five years, the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District is making a huge investment in Greater Cleveland. Whether it’s tunnels, sewers, pump stations, stormwater solutions or green infrastructure, we are making improvements to keep our Great Lake great. To help our ratepayers understand what this investment means...
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We don’t think this is the Force George Lucas or J.J. Abrams had in mind. Still, clean water wouldn’t be the same without it. Our own treatment-plant Jedi Christen Wood shows us how force and the rarely-seen sludge “explosion” helps keep a sewer line clear and gives the Death...
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Your toilet can’t take an extended holiday. Which is one of many reasons our shift workers like Christen don’t either. Christen Wood is an Operator at our Southerly Wastewater Treatment Plant and she was working on Thanksgiving with a number of her colleagues. She sent us this video after...
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We’re hosting our first-ever Sewer University (SewerU) presentation to a capacity crowd of nearly 120 guests on November 10, and if you haven’t registered, you’ll be able to follow the discussion on Twitter @neorsd #SewerU. The goal is to bring the underground and often misunderstood sewer network and its...
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Some of the access tunnels in the bowels of the Southerly Wastewater Treatment Plant in Cuyahoga Heights date back to the plant’s grand opening in 1928. Operator Christen Wood took us for a quick tour of the sprawling and sometimes spooky underground system, just in time for Halloween.
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Give your drain the acclaim it deserves. Every time you flush a toilet, drain your sink, or pass a manhole cover along the curb, amazing unseen things are happening that protect public health and the environment. What can you do to show you #RespectTheFlush? To raise awareness of the...
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Photo via @ridgej Despite The Plain Dealer’s headline June 17, we believe the Cavs had grit all playoffs long. But if they’re looking for more heading into next season, we have plenty. In sports, grit is toughness, attitude and heart. In the clean-water industry, grit is different but it’s...
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