Clean Water Nashville Program 5-year Update

Originally Published 2/23/2017

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In 2011, the Metropolitan Government through the Department of Water Services (MWS) began an ambitious program to fulfill Clean Water Act requirements by planning, designing, and constructing wastewater system improvements in a cost-effective manner to enhance water quality for the Nashville community. This program, known as the Clean Water Nashville Program, continues MWS’s commitment of reducing wastewater overflows to the environment. The Cumberland River and Nashville’s other creeks and streams are some of the community’s greatest resources. The Cumberland is an abundant source of drinking water, a place for recreation, and a major contributor to economic investment and increased quality of life. It is our obligation to ensure the health of this great river. It is also time to update the wastewater system. In some cases, the sewer pipes we are replacing were installed anywhere from 75 to 100 years ago.

Now in its sixth year, the Clean Water Nashville Program has achieved considerable advancement for both environmental compliance and overall system improvements across Davidson County.

Program highlights include:

  • Establishment of Clean Water Nashville, a dedicated program to administer an 11-year, $1.3 to $1.5 billion capital initiative to renew Nashville’s wastewater infrastructure, comply with the Clean Water Act, and improve water quality;

  • Elimination of the downtown Broadway and Van Buren combined sewer overflow locations that had previously allowed wastewater to overflow into the Cumberland River for more than 100 years;

  • A capacity increase at the Driftwood Equalization Facility, located on the east edge of downtown, to prevent combined sewer overflow discharges into the Cumberland resulting from heavy wet weather events during a typical year;

  • Completion of the replacement of are aware of the purpose, impacts, and work schedules. In all cases, the Program demands that projects are conducted in an expeditious manner and that Nashville Program has achieved considerable advancement for both environmental compliance and overall system improvements across Davidson County.

  • Completion of 13 major construction projects with continuing construction on 15 more projects throughout MWS’s service area.

Conducting this work is sometimes disruptive to community life because it often requires digging in roadways, rights-of-way, and private property. Recognizing that, the program is committed to proactive communication with property owners, residents, and Council members so that all parties public and private properties be left in the same or better condition than when our work began.

Much work lies ahead, and MWS continues to work with EPA and TDEC to improve the overall program. Nine new construction projects are scheduled to begin this year with ten more slated to begin in 2018. These projects are producing strong results and benefits. Each project, whether small or large, makes a contribution to the incremental improvement of water quality in area creeks and streams and the Cumberland River. And we are making an important investment in system renewal that will benefit future generations of Nashvillians.


Julie Flynn