WEATHER: Do Great Lakes have storm surges?

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 4961 Views
• October 7th, 2016
• in Miscellaneous
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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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LOOK: Treatment-plant steam coats trees with icy crystals

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 3497 Views
• March 2nd, 2015
• in Miscellaneous
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A winter wastewater wonderland? When the temps drop below freezing and the wastewater flowing through our treatment plants’ outdoor tanks is a near-constant 50ºF, the result is a whole lotta steam cascading across the plant landscape. Southerly Operator Christen Wood sent us a beautiful photo of the result. The...

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#BuffaloSnow: 2011 video shows how rain and snow melt can overwhelm streams and sewer systems

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 4128 Views
• November 24th, 2014
• in Miscellaneous
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Seven feet of snow followed by 60 degree temperatures and rain. The conditions of Buffalo, NY seem almost surreal, but the area is preparing for flooding anticipated as streams and sewers are surely going to be stressed by the combination of warming temps, snow melt and stormwater this week....

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WOW: “Wannabe photog” captures lightning strike, eerie shelf cloud over Lake Erie

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 4002 Views
• September 11th, 2014
• in Miscellaneous
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When storms pop up over Lake Erie, our wastewater treatment plant operators are ready. It’s a bonus when someone has a camera ready, too. These amazing images were taken by one of our consultants from Brown & Caldwell by the name of Nick Bucurel. Nick is on-call at all...

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NEWS: Litigation hinders ability to assist communities hit by Monday’s storm [#StormwaterProgram]

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 3871 Views
• May 13th, 2014
• in Miscellaneous
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A stream rack holds back storm debris near Cleveland Hopkins International Airport following a heavy rain event May 12. $20 million remains inaccessible in stormwater escrow Northeast Ohio communities are underwater from the storm that moved into the region on Monday night. Unfortunately, as a result of the Ohio...

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WOW: Bubbling tanks, frigid temps result in wondrous icy landscape

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 4048 Views
• January 7th, 2014
• in Miscellaneous
• 2 Comments

Well that’s not something we see every day. These open-air aeration tanks inject air bubbles into the wastewater during the treatment process at our Southerly plant, but this event is something rarely seen before. Here’s what the tanks look like in normal conditions (left image), bubbling and swirling to...

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WEATHER: Melting snow, heavy rain, flood warnings in the forecast

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 3883 Views
• December 20th, 2013
• in Miscellaneous
• No Comments

With snow on the ground and heavy rain in the forecast, be prepared. Some of our local Cleveland weather friends are predicting several inches of rain likely this weekend. With snow still standing on the saturated ground, it is possible that the rainfall could affect areas prone to flooding....

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LINK: What causes that after-the-rain smell? Scientists have a theory.

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 3577 Views
• August 21st, 2013
• in Miscellaneous
• No Comments

We open windows after a summer rain. Not only is the air cooler, it has a tangible freshness to it, a certain smell that is unique to the post-storm experience. And scientists have theorized about where that smell comes from. io9 says the aroma’s basic ingredients are ...

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LIST: Wait, people thought Cleveland was bad?

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 4184 Views
• May 16th, 2013
• in Miscellaneous
• No Comments

“16 reasons Cleveland is not as bad as you think”? We guess 16 is a fine place to start, but the list could go on and on, and there are a few glaring omissions. This week, Buzzfeed posted a fun piece with that title, noting examples like Charles Ramsey’s...

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NEWS: Sewage is new source of ski resort snow in Arizona

• Posted by Jared Shepherd
• 3323 Views
• February 1st, 2013
• in Miscellaneous
• No Comments

Let it snow, let it snow, let it… flow? Last month, an Arizona ski resort began making snow entirely from its most reliable water source: Water recycled from Flagstaff’s sewage. Wednesday’s Bloomberg story reads: The ski area near Flagstaff is the first in the U.S. to make snow entirely...

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