Construction Begins For Edgewood Overflow Sewer

SHOREWOOD, WI — Work began Monday near Maryland and Edgewood Avenues on a new sewer being built to prevent overflows during extreme rain events, such as the one Shorewood and much of the North Shore saw in 2010.

The near surface collector extension, as it's called, will bring a new sewer line under much of Edgewood Avenue, according to MMSD documents. Scheduled work at Maryland and Edgewood will consist of excavation, drilling, tunneling and concrete work. Work is expected to last until early 2023, but weather may change that.

The construction comes after hundreds of houses in Shorewood were devastated by surface or basement flooding in the 2010 floods, MMSD writes in a project background report.

The sewer line will be attached to the existing line to expand rainwater collection capabilities in extreme rain events. It's being constructed with a technique called microtunneling, which is supposed to be less disruptive, the MMSD report says, but there will be inconveniences still as the project is complicated.

Work will extend across the bulk of Edgewood Avenue, from the river to Maryland Avenue.

Edgewood Avenue will remain open to traffic throughout most of the construction aside from occasional deliveries. Parts of Maryland Avenue and Murray Avenue will be closed for the duration of the sewer and roadway construction, MMSD writes in its report.

In case you forgot what the floods looked like that year in the area, here's a video one person captured from the event: