An excerpt from the 2003 Wisconsin Policy Research Institute report, "Government Pollution: The Metropolitan Milwaukee Sewerage District's Impact on Lake Michigan." :
In what seemed like an echo from the past, the DNR secretary recommended in 2001 that the separation of sewers be reviewed as part of an alternative plan for solving the sewer problems. To many Metro Milwaukee residents, this was ironic. After having been eliminated as an option twenty years ago, and after $2.8 billion had been spent on a different approach, separation of the combined sewers was in the spotlight again. The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District was against it. A spokesman for the MMSD explained that the alternative had been rejected two decades ago because it would have cost too much and because it raised the possibility that pollution levels in the lake would increase if untreated water from the storm sewers flowed into the waterways. A former Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission executive director turned consultant, Kurt Bauer, added that the first flush of rainwater from city streets is just as dirty as raw sewage. And the director of the EPA’s waste management office claimed that other cities were moving toward storage instead of separation of sewers because of cost and other problems. But he added that old sewers that needed to be replaced could be incorporated into a sewer separation project.
Mayor Norquist and Antonio Riley, the former MMSD commission chairman, adamantly opposed the separation option, citing problems of cost and disruption to downtown traffic. They also predicted that separation would degrade water quality. They blamed the proposal on partisan politics, with Mayor Norquist accusing the DNR secretary of resurrecting the sewer wars by proposing something for which city residents would pay, while the suburbs were relieved of costs. However, some suburban officials said the separation option should be considered and that the suburban communities would be willing to help with the cost.
