EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) — The former Holy Trinity Church is being demolished for a green infrastructure project as part of efforts to keep millions of gallons of sewer water out of the Ohio River along the Indiana and Kentucky border.
The project will force storm water to be diverted into a 2.3 million-gallon (8.7 million-liter) tank underground that will then filter through sand and gravel and leach into the ground, as opposed to being swept into Evansville's aging combined sewer system and overflowing into the river.
The $8 million project is the latest of more than a dozen, similar smaller green infrastructure projects in the city's downtown area, according to the .
The Trinity Storm Water Park project includes new storm water inlets and pipes to convey the water to the holding tank and will keep an estimated 40 million gallons (151 million liters) of rainfall per year out of city sewers.
Mike Labitzke, EWSU Program Management Office Director, said about 300 million gallons (1.1 billion liters) a year of combined sewer overflow dump into the Ohio River just from downtown alone.
“The whole goal is to reduce, control and eliminate that sewer overflow,” he said, noting that utilizing the green infrastructure project was the far less costly alternative solution to fixing the sewer overflow.
Matt Montgomery, EWSU sewer special capital projects manager, said demolition is expected to last through the fall and construction bids for the project's second phase will be sought in January 2021, with an estimated completion date toward the end of the year.
