The cleanup: smart sewers, the amended decree, and the state of the work in 2026

2012 TO THE 2038 HORIZON

The first phase was finished on time, and the river's ledger improved measurably: The city's wastewater record, as its own page stands updated in April 2026, carries Phase 1 of the control plan as completed in 2017 at a cost of nearly $150 million: sewer separations in a set of neighborhoods and the building of the city's Smart Sewer System — a network of more than 165 sensors and software agents working thirteen automated gates and valves through the old pipes, raising the system's intelligence instead of only its size. Phase 1, the city states, removed over 75 per cent of the annual overflow volume, preventing more than 1,500 million gallons of combined sewage a year from entering the river. The results the parties publish for the smart system itself go further, and are printed with their carriers: a reduction of roughly one billion gallons a year in overflow volume, a drop of more than 50 per cent in the concentration of E. coli bacteria in the St. Joseph River, and $1.5 million a year saved in operations and maintenance — figures carried by the federal and industry releases that marked the amended settlement, attributed to them rather than adopted.

The second phase was renegotiated, and its terms are the present law of the river: In September 2021 the EPA and the Justice Department formally endorsed the city's revised long-term control plan, and in 2022 the amended plan — named SAGE, for Smarter Alternative for a Greener Environment — was finalized and approved, amending the 2012 decree. Where the original Phase 2 had been projected at more than $713 million, SAGE carries $276 million in capital improvements, a saving of more than $400 million against the original estimate — "we're going to spend 400 million dollars less than originally estimated," in the Public Works director's words to the public — with the completion deadline moved from 2031 to 2038, and with the finished system, in the plan director's figure, capturing and treating 99.6 per cent of the combined sewage generated in wet-weather events, against the original plan's 89 per cent.

The work's state, from the council's utilities update of 26 February 2024, stands so: Phase 1 complete; SAGE's $276 million on the 2022–2038 timeline; construction funding approved in 2023, $32 million for the first storage tank and plant improvements; the first of the plan's great combined-sewage storage tanks begun — the city's wastewater page describes Phase 2, commenced in 2021, as opening with the expansion of the treatment plant and the city's first ever storage tank, of two million gallons — and a second tank project set to begin engineering in late 2024. The plant the system feeds is documented in the same city record: designed for an average flow of 48 million gallons a day and at least 77 million under high flow, treating more than thirteen billion gallons in 2018 alone.

The annual overflow-discharge notices the decree requires the city to publish continue to appear on its wastewater page, the 2024 notice among them. The cleanup is therefore printed at its true state in November 2026: a decree in its fourteenth year, its first phase done and its second renegotiated and underway, its end twelve years off, and the river measurably cleaner by the one bacterial measure the parties publish — with no broader water-quality index for the river through the city verified first-hand for this section, and none printed. The river's documented course — from two billion untreated gallons a year to a 99.6 per cent capture promised for 2038 — is the agencies' and the city's own accounting, and the update cycle of this record will hold them to it.

Sources:

1. City of South Bend, Wastewater page (as updated 29 April 2026) — Phase 1 completed 2017 at nearly $150 million, over 75 per cent of annual CSO volume removed, more than 1,500 million gallons a year prevented; Phase 2 commenced 2021 with the plant expansion and the first two-million-gallon storage tank; the plant's design flows (48 MGD average, 77+ MGD high flow) and its 2018 treatment of over thirteen billion gallons; the plan's completion in 2038; the annual CSO discharge notices.
2. Xylem Inc. and U.S. EPA releases (September 2021) — the federal endorsement of the amended plan; the smart sewer system of 165+ sensors and thirteen automated gates and valves; the reported results (about one billion gallons a year of overflow avoided; E. coli concentration in the river down more than 50 per cent; $1.5 million a year in operating savings), printed as the parties' figures.
3. City of South Bend Common Council, Utilities update (26 February 2024) — SAGE finalized and approved in 2022 at $276 million on a 2038 timeline; 2023 funding of $32 million for the first tank and plant improvements; the first tank begun; a second tank to engineering in late 2024. Stantec, the plan's engineers — the 99.6 per cent capture figure against the original plan's 89 per cent, and the original Phase 2 projection above $713 million.