Clean Water Works
CLEVELAND, OHIO: From the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, an in-depth and fun conversation led by Donna Friedman and Mike Uva on any and all topics related to clean water, wastewater treatment, stormwater management, and the people, projects, and programs serving Lake Erie and our local waterways and communities.
Episodes
In this episode, we celebrate a milestone: 10 years of the Sewer District’s Regional Stormwater Management Program.
Stormwater Program Manager Kim Colich and CEO Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells explain the basics of stormwater, how development and impervious surfaces create erosion and water quality problems, and why a regional stormwater utility can solve what individual municipalities can't.
The Sewer Distri...
One careless shovel strike can turn a home project into a power outage or emergency situation, but it's easy to avoid! We sit down with Community Discharge Permit Program Specialist Rob Stoerkel to discuss Ohio 811—also known as OUPS, the “call before you dig” service that keeps homeowners, contractors, and field crews from hitting underground utility lines.
We also talk about the helpful sy...
Pouring grease down the kitchen sink seems harmless until the day the drain slows to a crawl. Joe Boziak, a master plumber with decades in the trade, handles all of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District’s plumbing needs. We discuss fats, oils, and greases (FOG), how they can mess up your pipes, and why the old “just run hot water” advice can make the buildup worse.
Home-plumbing m...
UPDATE: This episode was recorded on July 1, 2026. On July 21, Ohio EPA announced it will NOT finalize a proposed general permit for data centers. For additional information on this please visit Ohio EPA's website.
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE seems to be everywhere. Whether we're using a chatbot, saving files to the cloud, or asking Google a question, we're relying on infrastructure that's largely invisible to ...
Concrete channels, buried creeks, and straightened streams simplified urban development but decades later we see the side effects: faster water, steeper channels, collapsing streambanks, and pollution. Manager of Stormwater Design Kristen Buccier and Project Manager Denis Zaharija explain the benefits of more recent, holistic stream design methods.
A stream is a living system seeking stability. De...
We talk with Mark Christie, Director of Cuyahoga County's Office of Emergency Management, about severe weather in Northeast Ohio, damage assessments, and how recovery decisions get made fast.
Mark gives some tips on preparing for hazards during thunderstorms, tornadoes, winter storms, and flooding that hits both rivers and basements, with info on ReadyNotify and the federal IPAWS system and a simple preparedn...
Mike and Donna report from the 19th annual Ohio Stormwater Conference in Sandusky, OH. The day's presentations touch on education, stormwater modeling and maintenance, and funding, and demonstrate how design choices and policy decisions can ripple across entire communities.
Our guests include:
Erica Matheny, Tinker's Creek Watershed Partners
Refka Abroug, Tinker's Creek Watershed Partners
Jesse Rufne...
April is National Native Plant Month, and in this episode we talk with Sustainability Specialist Kevin Harrison and Paul Kovalcik of our Stormwater Inspection & Maintenance (SWIM) department, unpacking what defines a "native plant" and why they matter for water quality and habitat. We talk about how native species support pollinators, and why losing host plants can impact the entire food web.
We connect n...
A fallen log in a stream can serve as beneficial fish habitat or pose a flood hazard. Stormwater inspectors Kelsey Hickox and Andriana Hayes explain what Stormwater Inspection and Maintenance (SWIM) looks like and why the Sewer District pays so much attention to creeks, culverts, and stormwater basins.
We also discuss urgent storm response and why field verification matters for our stormwater modeling. Plus, practica...
Rainfall can turn some roads into rivers. Construction Supervisor Joel Hill explains how his team keeps neighborhoods dry using basins, culverts, and stream restoration projects to manage downpours. Joel brings a rare perspective with his decade-plus working on massive tunnel projects and his pivot to the stormwater side of the Sewer District's work.
We discuss hydrologic forecasts that shape project designs ...
What actually leads a policy idea into becoming a clean-water milestone? We take you behind the scenes with Danielle Giannantonio, Senior Manager of State and Federal Legislative Affairs & Grants at the NEORSD, to map the practical path from bills to budgets to better infrastructure. Danielle shares how a Statehouse page job led to legislative aide work, a crash course in clean-water issues at Ohio EPA, and ulti...
Hey, it's hard to pass up a good pun. Even if we didn't talk much about sewer smells in this episode, we were excited to learn how our legal team moves billion‑dollar water projects forward with strategy, ethics, and empathy. Chief Legal Officer Eric Luckage explains how well‑designed contracts, early risk spotting, and clear and honest conversations with residents help the Sewer District deliver clean water and pro...
Freezing temperatures can test our municipal water systems as well as the pipes inside our homes. Water Commissioner Alex Margevicius explains how the Cleveland Division of Water keeps 1.4 million people supplied with safe drinking water when temperatures plunge and aging water mains face their toughest days of the year.
From Cleveland's offshore water intakes to your homes and businesses, we trace the journey ...
A lake that learns can change a region. Sam Martin, Director of Communications and Engagement at Cleveland Water Alliance (CWA), shares how Lake Erie has become the world’s largest digitally-connected freshwater test bed—and why that matters for public health, utility costs, and the next wave of water-tech jobs.
Sam walks us through the water economy—everything from maritime logistics and trea...
A new crew of superheroes, the Lake Erie League, is turning everyday systems into comic-book stories for kids and teachers to use in the classroom. Across eight origin tales, these northeast Ohio-inspired characters mirror very real aspects of the Sewer District's work, from massive tunneling machines whose creations tame storm overflows, to a miniaturized lab technician who can detect toxins no human eye could witn...
Art meets infrastructure! The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District partnered with the nonprofit creative-writing center Literary Cleveland to host a reading of "Odes to Infrastructure," a newly-published zine, right in the heart of our Southerly Wastewater Treatment Plant. It was a celebration of our essential-yet-often-unseen water systems and, of course, Lake Erie.
Standing in the concrete tunnels where o...
Technology continues to transform how the Sewer District manages wastewater and stormwater.
Process Analyst Ron Maichle explains how the District's drone program evolved from emergency-response support to an essential tool for project planning and monitoring. Engineer Joe Reese demystifies the elaborate control systems that allow operators to monitor and manage entire treatment facilities from centralized locat...
The newly released 2025 Ohio Infrastructure Report Card delivers a sobering assessment of the systems we rely on daily but rarely think about. Ohio has made modest improvements since the last American Society of Civil Engineers' report in 2021, yet vulnerabilities persist.
Sewer District employees (and ASCE members) Derek Vogel and Lita Laven walk us through the grades and explain how federal infrastructure f...
What does sustainability mean for a wastewater utility?
Sustainability Manager Marie Fechik-Kirk shares her thoughts on environmental stewardship at the Sewer District. Under Marie's guidance, the NEORSD has integrated sustainability into its everyday operations and engineering projects.
Listeners will also discover sustainability tips for their own homes to make an environmental impact while helping their...
A recent innovation, the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) has transformed from an emergency response to COVID-19 into a comprehensive early warning system for disease outbreaks.
The NWSS monitors approximately 45% of the US population through over 1,400 sampling sites. Public health laboratories can analyze genetic material from the waste stream to detect the presence of pathogens even before cl...
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