Meinecke Sewer Lines Do Their Job in Timely Fashion

When hearings were being held last summer on the Meinecke Sewer Project, there was no one whose testimony was more compelling and heartwrenching than that of Laura Mierow and her family.

Mierow had suffered having her basement flooded to the rafters six times. And it wasn't clear water – it was charged with sanitary sewage.

The Mierows had shelled out $150,000 in repairs over the course of years and were going broke paying ever higher flood insurance premiums.

But that wasn't the worst of it – Laura's daughters were stricken with asthma and other ailments the family blamed on their toxic home, and young Aubrianna, then 14, testified to the lost summers of her life.

This week, as perhaps the most sustained rains we've seen since the sockdolagers of 2010 came, Mierow sent an email to her alderman Jeff Roznowski.

"She said she was thrilled to say that she didn't have one drop of water in her basement," Roznowski said.

In fact, Roznowski said, he hadn't heard from anyone about basement backups in the Meinecke area or anywhere within the 6th District.

Neither did City Engineer Bill Wehrley.

"No calls, no reports," Wehrley said. "Not one."

The $15 million Meinecke Project was controversial because of cost and because of its impact on neighborhoods. For awhile, those in the Meinecke area who suffered repeated, devastating flooding were pitted against neighbors downhill along North 90th Street whose homes didn't flood but who faced the worst upheavals: having their entire street excavated 25 feet deep, the loss of almost all of their street trees, the loss of access to their driveways for weeks.

But even most of those 90th Street neighbors are now praising the Meinecke Project as a civic success, in their case for what it didn't do. After feeling they had been left out of the discussion, they are now relieved that it didn't have nearly the impact on their lives they were told it might.

The initial estimate for the length of the Meinecke Project was 16 months. When all was said and done, it was 95 percent complete in six months, with all the sewer pipes laid and connected.

"We had anticipated that they would still be putting pipes in the ground," said Wehrley when asked where we would be if the project had taken as long as expected. "But we came through well and we're ready for the next big rain event."

Roznowski, who is also an engineer by profession, said he believed that Mierow and others would be suffering if the project hadn't come in far ahead of schedule.

"I really think that she and some others would have had some basement flooding," Roznowski said. "Maybe not full basements, but some. And this isn't the first test, actually, just the biggest. We had a couple of 2-inch rains in, I think, December and January. But the pipes were in the ground by the end of November."

Pushing the Meinecke Project through to near-completion in such short order was a matter of constant attention to any detail that could help move things along, Roznowski said.

"We met every week, on Thursday mornings, myself, the mayor, our engineers, with the contractors, and talked about how to do things as efficiently as possible," Roznowski said. "And I can't say enough good about Globe Contractors for the job they did."

In truth, the Meinecke Project still remains incomplete, but little remains except repaving a couple of blocks of Meinecke Avenue itself from 90th Street to Swan Boulevard – and planting trees.

More than anything – more than the dust when it was dry and the mud when it was wet, the rumbling and shaking of behemoth Caterpillar 385 shovels outside, the lack of access to their own homes in some cases – people in the project's path bemoaned the loss of their trees.

Planting starts next week.