Cumberland Students Celebrate Water Week

Students will spend the week learning about water issues, with guest presentations from advocates, writers, engineers, and scientists.

Cumberland School students will celebrate one of the Earth's most vital resources this week. The school's Water Week activities kicked off Monday with an all-school assembly led by Whitefish Bay parents Karen Sands, of MMSD, and Melanie Ariens, an environmental activist and artist. During their presentation, they celebrated Cumberland’s achievement in being named a “Green and Healthy School” by the Wisconsin Departments of Natural Resources and Public Instruction. Cumberland students will continue to learn about water issues throughout the week, as Cumberland PTO Community Service has arranged for visits from from a variety of organizations like Engineers without Borders, Global Brigades, Global Partners Running Water, H2O Scoree, …

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MMSD Wants Your Green Idea And to Pay You For It

The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District is looking for green ideas to reduce flooding and improve water quality. If the organization selects your submission, you could be reimbursed 50 percent of the cost to create it.

Have a green idea that would reduce flooding and improve water quality? The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District wants to hear about it and they are willing to pony up some cash for good ideas. As part of the 2013 MMSD Green Infrastructure Partnership Program, they are looking to improve water quality by reducing basement back-ups, flooding by sewer overflows and are looking to implement natural storm water management programs that capture, store or filter rainwater. The program would reimburse 50 percent of the cost of eligible expenses for chosen applicants. In order to qualify for the program, applicants would need to provide MMSD with information about the effectiveness of their ‘green infrastructure’ idea including the costs; …

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Village May Televise Sewers to Prepare for Private Lateral Program

The village will pay roughly $175,000, for inspections, but homeowners will likely have to pay for laterals to be lined or replaced.

As the first big step in addressing leaky private sewer laterals, a village committee is recommending engineers start televising sewer lines in the flood-prone southeastern portion of the village with the goal of learning which laterals need to be lined or replaced. The program recommended by the Private Property Inflow and Infiltration Committee Wednesday night includes visual inspection and/or dye testing where permission is granted, or where legal, to investigate suspected clear water connections to the sanitary sewer. Village engineers suggested the committee consider beginning the televising project in the area roughly bordered by Glendale Avenue on the south, Hampton Road on the north, Oakland Avenue on the east and Ardmore Avenue on…

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Your Property Tax Bill, Broken Down

A detailed look at how your tax money is allocated to different governmental bodies that serve Whitefish Bay.

The owner of a $400,000 home in Whitefish Bay will pay $72 more in tax this year, with an overall tax bill of $9,008. If you are paying your taxes in full, payment must be received on or before Jan. 31, 2012. For residents who want to deduct the tax in their 2011 federal income taxes, Village Hall will be closed on Saturday, but if you drop it in the box before midnight, it will be registered as filed in 2011. Village Hall will also be closed Sunday and Monday. Below is a breakdown of how the money is allocated to each governmental entity, according to the village website. If you would like help with your taxes, the TaxAide program prepares state and federal tax returns without charge for middle and low income taxpayers at the Whitefish …

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Blue Notes

MMSD's Christmas Wish List

Kevin Shafer of MMSD asks Santa with help in adding another 352,827,081 gallons of green infrastructure initiatives.

Dear Santa, I hope you won't think I'm greedy, but I would like to add 352,827,081 more things to my list this year. Actually, it's one big present with a lot of parts for all my neighbors here in the Milwaukee area to help protect homes, businesses, our rivers and Lake Michigan when Mother Nature doesn't play nice. Santa, we've had some big storms here in recent years that caused millions of dollars in flood damage. Some people lost their homes. To make things better, we have a plan here at MMSD that is all about green and cost effective solutions for solving problems. You see, Santa, we've already invested $4 billion in gray infrastructure (pipes and plants) in our region and it's really helped. If we want to see more improvements in our…

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Jay Sykes

10:28 am on Friday, December 9, 2011

@Ben Hogan... The deep tunnel solved approximately 90% of the problem, in both gallons of untreated sewage flow into the lake and the number of rain storms that cause an overflow of any amount, to occur. The MMSD does not own the sewers in local communities, places like Shorewood(most specifically south of Capitol & east of Oakland in the area north of Capitol-with combined sewers) that are …   more ›

Blue Notes

After 31 Years, a Warm Goodbye to John Jankowski

Even when his basement was flooded, John wanted to reduce storm's impact on others.

"Uh oh. The cat just came out of the basement and it's wet.” I'll never forget those words or the person who said them in July 2010. His name is John Jankowski, a dedicated MMSD employee of 31 years. John uttered this statement in the middle of the night as we were on the phone together trying to manage the deep tunnel response to a now infamous storm that caused widespread flooding. This phone call was like so many others we've shared over the nine years since I became Executive Director of MMSD. That's right; every major storm that's hit the Milwaukee area – no matter what time of day, whether it's a holiday and the relatives are over (like Christmas Day, 2009), or even if we had one hour of sleep and had to be at the office the entire …

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Trustees Show Support for Storm Utility, Lateral Mandates

Private Property Inflow and Infiltration Committee asked for direction on three items before moving forward with MMSD program.

Miller Park Medicine Collection A Big Success

Over 7,000 pounds of unwanted, unused medicines collected Saturday.

Nearly four tons of unused medications will soon be incinerated, keeping them off the streets and out of waterways following the sixth annual Medicine Collection Day at Miller Park on Saturday. According to a press release from the Milwaukee Metropolitian Sewage District, the program started in 2006, collecting more than 14.8 tons of unused medications to date. A total of 1,400 Milwaukee County residents turned in 5,702 pounds of unused prescription and over-the-counter medications directly at the four-hour Miller Park collection. The remaining 1,958 pounds came from residents who turned in unused meds at police departments prior to Medicine Collection Day.  Thirteen police departments in the County are participating in a program that …

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Couple Pay Reduced Fine for Removing Manhole Cover Last Summer

Whitefish Bay couple ordered to pay $500 each for removing manholes during August rainstorm, down from original amount of $1,500 each.

The husband and wife that were fined $1,500 each for removing a manhole cover during a rainstorm last summer were both ordered to pay one-third of the original citation amount last month. Michael Payne, 47, and Sally Heiple-Payne, 42, each received a municipal citation for $1,500 from the Whitefish Bay Police Department after they admitted to removing a manhole cover in the early morning hours of Aug. 21. The couple later requested the case be transferred to Brown Deer Municipal Court, where in January Judge David M. Victor ordered the couple to pay $500 each to the court by March 25. Whitefish Bay Village Attorney Christopher Jaekels said the village is enforcing rules from MMSD and local ordinances. According to a Sept. 14 complaint from…

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Bob McBride

5:17 am on Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Not a problem, Andrew. I was just wondering because John, best I can judge from some of his other posts here, hardly falls into the category of Tea Party advocate. Which I guess caused me to think I'd missed something. I agree regarding the rest of you statement there, exactly. As mentioned above, I was particularly put off when this incident was used by certain village officials as a distraction…   more ›