Getting Started

Even before it started collecting fees, the new district started making improvements. The first construction contract, for $3,237.50, was awarded in April, 1947 for a sewer on Algonquin Parkway east of Beech Street. Soon work began on other much-needed projects. By the end of June, 1947, $26,000 worth of construction had been completed — all on borrowed money.

Construction and long-delayed maintenance work accelerated as sewer fees started coming in. Repair work was started on the Beargrass Creek channels. Sewers were extended in several neighborhoods in southern and western Louisville. And work was started on the Snead’s Branch relief drain, a huge line in the Shelby Street area from Eastern Parkway to Kentucky Street.

In May, 1948 the Board adopted its first long-range construction plan, the "10-year program" prepared by Metcalf & Eddy. It detailed roughly $20 million in projects, including $8.5 million for the city’s first treatment plant and its necessary interceptor sewers. The second largest project included extensive work in the Upper Dry Run area in southern Louisville, estimated at $3.3 million, and the third largest was completion of the Snead’s Branch relief drain, at a total cost of about $1.6 million.

Altogether, there were 45 projects, mostly around the edges of the city. To help pay for the projects, the Board authorized its first bond issue. The total was $8 million, of which $4 million were sold in the summer of 1949.

A Troublesome Heritage: Damage From Industrial Waste

The Commissioners of Sewerage final report identified a major problem in western Louisville: acid waste from distilleries was attacking the concrete in sewer lines. Slaughterhouse wastes were already a problem in Butchertown, but at least they weren’t destroying the pipes.

Louisville’s industries expanded greatly during World War II, and so did the variety of materials they discharged into the sewers. Industrial waste and spills would remain a major problem for another four decades, damaging sewer lines and treatment facilities and polluting local streams and the Ohio River.

The threat of strong federal action and the sewer explosion of 1981 brought major progress in the 1980s and 1990s. Most companies entered into a partnership with MSD and industrial waste was finally brought under control.

As MSD was going to work, another major local project got under way. On March 20, 1947, construction began on the floodwall. By December, 1948, it was 20 percent complete. MSD was involved in the planning almost from the beginning, because the project included a series of wastewater and stormwater pumping stations that would become a part of MSD’s system. But financing and construction were left to others: the federal government paid for design and construction, city and county governments paid for the land, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did the design and construction work. And as each section of the floodwall system was completed, it was turned over to Louisville and Jefferson County for operation and maintenance.