cso_scoring

Photo courtesy John Winters

Thanks to The Boren Foundation,
and Jack and Karen Kay Leonard
for making this website possible.

Major Initiatives:

Sewers and Combined Sewer Overflows - IKE's Priority

How Does Your Community's Sewer Plan Rates?
Indiana’s CSO Scoring System Provides Answers!

Indiana’s 105 combined sewer overflow communities are expected to invest more than $2 billion dollars in public funds over the next 20 years to reduce the more than 20 billion gallons of annual combined sewer overflows. The result should be a major step forward in making our urban streams safe for our children.

How that investment is made was to be decided by communities on a staggered schedule between 2000 and 2003. During that time, communities were developing CSO Long-Term Control Plans (LTCPs) that lay out the goals, options, final selection, and implementation plan to address the problems. The schedule was set by permits, agreed orders, and community needs.

Eight Indiana environmental groups teamed up to develop a scoring system to evaluate the quality and effectiveness of the Long-Term Control Plans. The groups were:

Through this system, we intend to help communities develop plans that are more likely to achieve Indiana’s environmental and public health goals and to help residents understand how their community's plan compares to other plans. A score of 100 should be the goal of every community.

Tom Neltner, IKE President

Audubon Society - Amos Butler Chapter
Grand Calumet Task Force
Hoosier Environmental Council
Improving Kids' Environment
Izaak Walton League—Indiana Division
Save the Dunes Council
Sierra Club - Hoosier Chapter
Valley Watch.

The groups released their scoring system form (Word Perfect version) on July 28, 2000. This effort was designed to complement review by IDEM. IDEM must review and approve all LTCPs.

IKE led the project and coordinated the scoring. A description of the system and results is be on IKE's webpage. The results will be posted on a web page table showing the status of all 105 CSO communities.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Check to see if you are in or are downstream of a CSO community and find out when its plan is due.
Get involved in that community’s Long-Term Control Plan — the plans are being developed now.
Remember that a high score does not imply that the LTCP is perfect or that the eight organizations endorse the plan.

posted April, 2002