This is absurd, and that rainstorm wasn’t even a drop in the bucket compared to the #brewcityflood that’s happening tonight. (If you don’t live in Milwaukee, in the last two to three hours we’ve gotten over eight inches of rain across most of Milwaukee County, probably more by now.)

The lake is going to be a mess for weeks, if not months, all because we as a city didn’t have the sense to separate our rainwater and sewage control systems.

desjardins:sawaboof:sarandipity79:

That’s not the Gulf of Mexico above. Those are ariel shots of the shores of Lake Michigan in my city of Milwaukee, WI. The discoloring? A recent dump of 506 million gallons of partially treated sewage after a summer rain storm. 

Yeah. That’s not a typo. That’s HALF A BILLION GALLONS. 

To put it in perspective, the oil spill in the Gulf has leaked approximately 300 million gallons of oil since the tragedy occurred 3 months ago.

That’s 300 million over three months.

Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District polluted our fresh water lake with over one & 1/2 times that in ONE DAY. 

On June 15th, it rained. MMSD dumped 23.6 million gallons.  On July 7th 1.56 million gallons was flushed into our giant toilet….aka Lake Michigan. 

Did I mention that the Lake is the source of Milwaukee’s drinking water?  Uh huh. Eww.

The stinkiest part of this story is the lack of action by our cities’ leaders.

 Our beaches are not safe & we treat one of the most unique treasures in the entire country as our glorified port-a-pottie. Where is the outrage? We boycott & protest BP stations. When will we boycott & protest Milwaukee’s leadership & the complete failure that is Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District? We blindly watch images after images like the ones above on the evening news. We joke at the stench & the closed beaches. 

It’s disgusting. It’s embarrassing. It’s shitty. 

Maybe Kevin Costner has a poop skimmer we can use?