On Dec. 2, the Board of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District voted to begin a $3 billion, 25-year program to reduce sewer overflows into local streams and Lake Erie. The program will be one of the last big initiatives to clean up the region's legacy of water pollution.

The combined sewer overflow (CSO) program is the result of a settlement with U.S. EPA, and it has stirred up debate about the cost burden it will impose on local rate payers, as sewer fees increase in the coming years to pay for the work. But the program can be a key part of moving Greater Cleveland toward a more sustainable future. At the Board meeting, I spoke to the Sewer District Board and encouraged them to imagine the possibilities if we make clean water a priority.

Here is what I said:

First of all, I want to acknowledge that the CSO program is a big deal, and I understand why many people are struggling with it. It’s important to raise questions to make sure that we do what’s best for the Greater Cleveland area. And it’s especially important to consider the social equity issues related to how rising sewer fees will impact people on fixed incomes.

However, I would like to suggest a couple of ways to reframe the issue.

The politics of this situation tends to push us to adopt a very negative frame in which the CSO program is seen as a problem. So it’s higher fees. It’s an unfunded mandate. It’s coming at a bad economic time. It’s just something we are forced to deal with because the Feds are threatening to sue us. So we end up just trying to minimize the damage.

In recent days we’ve seen more scientific confirmations of climate change. On May 19, the National Research Council released a major report, “Advancing the Science of Climate Change,” which affirms that there is a strong, credible body of evidence that climate change is occurring and is caused in large part by human activities.

"Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for — and in many cases is already affecting — a broad range of human and natural systems," the report concludes.

Multiple lines of evidence support scientific understanding of climate change. The core phenomenon, scientific questions, and hypotheses have been examined thoroughly and have stood firm in the face of serious debate and careful evaluation of alternative explanations, according to the press release about the report.

As part of its comprehensive study of climate change, the National Research Council also issued companion reports calling for the U.S. to act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change.

Meanwhile, on May 17, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for both April and for the period from January-April.

The Medical Mart and Convention Center project in downtown Cleveland is providing an opportunity to rethink the Mall, one of the most significant civic spaces in the country. At a public forum on May 6, designers offered preliminary ideas for transforming what is now a forbidding and poorly used space on top of the old underground Convention Center. The goal will be to combine the historic ideals of the City Beautiful movement and the best of contemporary urban design — while creating a family-friendly activity space that will enliven the everyday life of the city.

Shannon Nichol of the Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN) landscape architecture firm suggested seven design principles that will guide the planning of a renovated Mall:

Today is World Water Day, a day to reflect on the importance of water. I've been trying to think deeply about our relationship to water here in the Lake Erie Basin. Below are some thoughts. Please add your own thoughts in a comment.

Deep water

I am mostly water, so I am mostly Lake Erie. The cells of my body also could contain water from the blood of dinosaurs. I probably just inhaled a thousand water molecules given off by the person next to me. Tomorrow I will be a new person because of the water flowing through me.

Water is the ultimate public good. You can’t own water or even possess it very long. Water just passes through everything — rising, falling, boiling, condensing, evaporating, transpiring, precipitating, infiltrating, seeping, vaporizing, freezing, melting, cycling, flowing. Along the way, it makes all life possible. (Or could it be the reverse? Did life evolve in some mysterious way to serve water?)

As people of the Great Lakes freshwater miracle, we have the luxury of being complacent about water. We don’t know the desperate thirst of the world. We even spend a lot of time and effort trying to avoid water, trying to stay dry. Some day we will throw away our raincoats and water-proofing materials, and we will figure how to work with water in a more intimate way. Our clothes will be like permeable cell membranes. Our buildings will be grown out of organic, water-based materials. Buildings like trees. Cities like forests. You won’t have to be one of the fortunate few with lakefront property to have a biophilic relationship with water.