CSO! Program: Our Combined Sewers

Omaha's combined sewer area encompasses 43 square miles of eastern Omaha. The area stretches from the Missouri River on the east to approximately 72nd Street and I-680 on the north to Harrison Street on the south.

The CSO service area has:

• 510 miles of combined sewers
• 345 miles of sanitary sewers that discharge into combined sewers
• 29 CSO outfalls (discharge points)
• 10 of the CSO outfalls discharge to tributaries of Papillion Creek and 19 discharge to the Missouri River

The City’s total wastewater service area (combined sewers and separated sewers) is approximately 275 square miles in both Douglas and Sarpy counties.

The federal government has identified at least 772 communities nationwide, including Omaha, that must reduce their combined sewer system overflows in order to improve the water quality of the receiving stream. This federal mandate means we must reduce the number of combined sewer system overflows to the Missouri River and Papillion Creek from about 58 per year to only four per year. Unlike federal mandated improvements to wastewater treatment facilities in the 1970s and 1980s that provided federal funding to support the projects, the federal mandate to reduce the occurrence of CSO discharges to the receiving streams is not funded. Thus local users of the system are required to pay for the improvements.