Sewage in Detroit River & Lk. Erie

[Tom]

SEWAGE!!! Going into the Detroit River and Lake Erie. Some great fishing reports out and they'll only get better as things warm up.

What won't get better is the water quality of this beautiful resource, at the rate things are going. The raw sewage, rubbers and tampons several guys commented on weren't from someone dumping garbage. It was from the heavy rains before last weekend and Saturday morning. They call it a C.S.O. (combined sewer overflow) where excess rain water in the storm drains is diverted to the sanitary (toilet) sewers. This flushes sewage into our rivers and Great Lakes COMPLETELY untreated, in order to keep streets and basements from flooding. It's a turn-of-the-century system that should have been fixed long ago.

A few efforts have begun, but many CSO's still happen because many communities haven't begun to update their systems. The cost to do this is very high, but it will only go up the longer we wait.

Our current (and soon out-of-office) governor has had plenty of time to do way more than he has. As sportsmen, we need to vote for (and write to)local and state legislators, and esp. governors, who will do something about it. Now.

[Marble Eyes]

Tom,

I read in the local paper last night about how there is some State Legislation in the works right now on a Bond proposal to fund localities to rebuild the Sewer systems of these lakeside Cities.

The article did state that it seems to have some support in the State Legislation but that it could get lost in the process due to "more" important Bond legislation. Like K-12 Education funding.

We need to show up at political forums, legislative luncheons etc. and put the Issue on the Front Burner. Let them know it is important to you. It's the American Way.

And IMHO any city Manager or City Government that doesn't act while dumping millions of gallons of waste into the water system ought to be retired by the residents.

It is sick the number they gave as to the amount that gets "released" on a yearly basis. It was like 540 Million. YUCK.

[Husky]

Tom ,
I agree whoeheartedly. This has been a problem for far too long. Our local and state governments have balked at taking action due to the cost (and the admittal of being partly responsible). I feel as if they have been wishing it would just go away. Talk about unrealistic.
In the papers lately, there seems to be an initiative to have bond issues for local communities to pay, in order to get the work done. I have mixed feelings as to whether it should be the financial burden of the communities alone, or whether the state government should be partially financially responsible.
I have been calling the lake "Lake St. Sewer" for about three years, a phrase most don't like to hear. But they need to hear the truth, if we want someone to finally DO something about it.
Maybee we can re-name walleyes in the lake as "crap-eyes", that might help get their attention.

[Pitts]

Tom do you work for a municipality or have inside info on the sewage release.
Because if you don't you should quit spewing sewage from your hole below your nose about something it is clear you know only half the story.
It is very likely that at heavy rain periods that every sump pump in towns along the lakes and rivers is running to keep water from collecting around basements and they are dumping into the sanitary sewer system which overloads it and some of it has to be bypassed or risk overflowing the sewage plant which would cause even more problems than the bypassing.
Trust me at the time that bypasses occur samples of the bypass water are taken and analyzed to see how many BOD's and COD's are being released which is a measure of how much oxygen the sewage is going to use to decompose.
Never is storm water diverted to the sanitary sewer during heavy rainfall because this would overload even very large sewage systems.
Any remedies will be expensive and we all know how we like to pay the water and sewer bill ever month or 3 months. If a municipality upgrades there system to state of the art technology and size to handle all situations the price will be passed on to everyone in the community and likely county and state will pay there share.
I do agree that dumping raw sewage to the river and lakes not a good idea and will cause environmental problems but we have to realize that great strides have been made in the last 20 years and we can all hope that in the next 20 years we will improve on our systems at least the same or more and bypasses will not happen as often or ever.

MY .02


Pitts

[Husky]

Pitts,

The communities around the southern shore of Lake St. Clair (above Detroit) have antiquated sewer systems. they do not possess stom sewers at all, all effulent, whether storm runoff or waste water runs to the treatment plant. The lack of a sufficient number of treatment plants for the needs of the surrounding area is exaserbating the problem. When any moderate rains occur, diverted water is released, directly to the lake. The lack of storm sewers/retention ponds for runoff is the major problem here. Our beaches are monitored daily, and are closed with to much regularity. Much depends on wind and currents at the time of discharge. Neverless, even if the winds and current are favorable and move the effulent away from shore, it is a poor practice to let the antiquated system continue polluting as is.

A web site to get the latest reports on beaches:

http://www.co.macomb.mi.us/publichealth/sum_beach.htm

The number of times the sewage is diverted without treatment as well as the volume of effulent diverted is far above what most would consider average for the population/region/weather patterns. The system is simply old and cannot come close to serving its assigned area. I hope this helps to give you some information.

Regards,
Husky

[Ron]

Pitt,

Try a more tactful approach and people might read your whole comment. We are all concerned with the good welfare of the fisheries and the water quality and if it takes more money than so be it.

[Tom (mich)]

Just a tad bit strong maybe? You may or may not have a valid point, but after reading your unwarranted personal attack on the origial Tom I frankly quit reading your message.

[Cost-Benefit]

While Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes are undeniably 'cleaner' than they were in the 1960's, there are still many things that threaten these wonderful bodies of water and their eco-systems. The waters may be clearer, but invisible toxic chemicals and exotic species are destroying the lakes. Untreated sewage is being dumped as well. Why we are dragging our feet on protecting 20% of the WORLD's freshwater is beyond me. But, politicians generally lack the will to 'protect' these jewels and the backbone to spend the money to clean them up. And in the rare instances that they do, they seem to fail miserably (see Milwaukee's 'Deep Tunnel' Project). We taxpayers, short-sighted as we are, are often just as guilty when we buy into their 'no tax' mantra. Protection and remediation cost money. There is no question about that. Frequently, the greatest offenders are left 'off the hook', so to speak, when it comes to clean up costs and preventative measures. Industries that are often the greatest polluters are given a free pass in the interest of jobs. Its hard to argue with that, but when the cost of new sewage plants and other pollution control costs are placed solely on the shoulders of homeowners (i.e., families), it doesn't give the 'no tax' politicians any incentive to change.

I'm from a 'high tax' state (WI). We have good public schools, a great highway and secondary road system, and they make decent attempts at controlling pollution. Yet people cry about the taxes they pay and criticize the DNR for DOING THEIR jobs. I wish people would travel more.

On my recent visit to MI I was appalled at the condition of the roads. I saw condoms floating in the river. Normal? I guess it all depends on what you're used to. Is MI considered a low tax state? I don't know, but if it is, it wouldn't surprise me. We can start to clean up this mess AND keep taxes at a reasonable level if EVERYONE pays (including businesses). Realistically, I don't think this will ever happen. We've gone way too far down the road of special interest exemptions and the like. I'm afraid my kids will grow up watching the Great Lakes revert to the cesspools they were in the 1960's when I was a kid growing up on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Sorry for all the doom and gloom, but I call'em as I see'em.

What will we be drinking in 20 years?

[Cangl]

Cost-benefit in this world your wish that people would travel more would enlighten most peoples outlook on our enviroment and world.
To easy is it to go day to day and situation to situation within that day with all the days of a year and years of a decade and so on.
So this problem will wash away quite literally. As more land is developed less water is absorbed a these runoffs have been led along roadways through drains that basically run with proveided utilities and what not ending up in lakes and rivers, Oakland and Wayne counties are working together to increase holding and releasing capacities, the Red Run for instance which help maintain the Clinton and upper portions of the Rouge. More work and money is needed as well as cooperation between the counties and state. But over development and the continued development of properties that do not perk are draining monies of (thru settlements and insurance payments and claims) the very communities and thereby their abilities to conform to state guidelines on these issues. It just may be cheaper to conform now as property values never go down anymore. Drove and scouted out the Canadien/Niagara and Lake Ontario feeder streams it was an eye opener. All those beautiful fruit trees with the magically browned brush under them on down the river to the Atlantic. Its got to stop.

[SUPERTROLLER]

While Pitts might not be the most tactful person I have seen on this subject, he remains 100% correct. There have been laws on the Books in Michigan since the 1950's trying to get city's in this State to divide their combined sewers into separate Storm and Sanitary sewers. Most of the city's are in compliance. The majority of those in Non-compliance are in S.E. Lower Mi. and also the City of Grand Rapids on the Western side of the State. These city's have been able to stall the process of dividing their sewers by virtue of their politcal power in Lansing. They have had major storm events and resultant discharges to their respective receiving waters for decades. To whomever took the cheap shot at the current Governor, you need to know the facts before you make broad statements insinuating that this is a recent occurence and only happens when Republicans are in office. The big hold up in getting these projects started is the large cost of the projects involved. As stated in other posts, since there are no storm sewers, all water funnels to the treatment plants. When the sewers fill to their capacity they OVERFLOW to what is in reality their start of a Storm Sewer system. The cost is so prohibitive because they have to separate EVERY sewer in town because they didn't build them smartly the first time. As these city's grew they time and again built bigger lines without spending the extra dollars to separate their sewers. Most of the smaller city's have completely separate systems because they were built after the big city's got started and we learned that trouble resulted from running all that rainwater through the plants. It didn't need to be treated, it was rain water. It also saved money by decreasing chemical costs and electrical costs. The longer the big city's put off dividing their sewers the more cost prohibtive it became. Now they want everyone else in the State to subsidize their public malfeasance and neglect by forcing those of us that did already pay for our own city's to do the right thing to give them a handout. They can sell bonds and pay them back just like every other city has had to do. They don't want to bite the bullet and do something politically unpopular with their voters by raising their water and sewer rates to pay for it. It like the Midas commercial, You can pay it now or you can pay MORE later. They choose the easy way out for 50+ years and now it's time to pay the piper. At least that's my opinion.

Curtis Good
Holland, Class "A"
Treatment Plant Operator

[dmeyers]

Just looking in the paper this morning since the beginning of April one city has released over 49 million gallons of partially treated sewage into the Clinton River, which flows into Lake St. Clair. There was also another story above it about 240,000 gallons of partially treated sewage into the Rouge River. The first happened from .7" of rain the second from .91" of rain. These stories were on page 3 of the Oakland Press Today.

[Nordicron]

Cost-Benefit I also live in the 4th highest taxed state in the country and we don't seem to do anything better than most other states I have lived in over the years, except we sure tax alot more. I don't know if you intended to put WI on some kinda pedistal or not but it certainly doesn't belong their. We have our share of problems as well, all our rivers and quite a few lakes have fish eating advisories and just last week the great city of Milwaukee dumped 150million gallons of untreated sewage into Lake Michigan because of the type of sewer system they have. And one last note I believe the majority of road repairs are paid for with federal funds so don't use that as a benifit of all the state taxes you pay here.

[Cost-Benefit]

No, WI doesn't deserve to be put on a pedestal. My post points out Milwaukee's problems. 'Cangl' is quite correct that the continued 'sprawl' that covers precipitation absorbing soil with asphalt, concrete, and roofs leads to increased stormwater runoff that overwhelms the storm (and too often, the sanitary) sewer systems. Thus, our 'waste' ends up dumped into our waters. Milwaukee's sewage goes into L. Michigan and Milwaukee draws their DRINKING water from L. Michigan. Yum. So they get their just 'desserts'.

All of our waters suffer from polution of some sort, hence the eating advisories. Different states have different standards and varying degrees of monitoring and testing. WI happens to do alot of testing so they have lots of advisories. Many of the pollutants (eg., mercury) currently deposited into our waters falls from the sky. How do we stop that? Others (eg., pesticides) run off our lawns and farms with the storm water. My point is, there are no easy solutions, but they all cost money. We need to spend some money to fix these problems. There must also be balance between, you guessed it, cost and benefit. Too often, the cost ends up on yor back and mine while certain segments of our society avoid paying their share. Many time, those that avoid the cost are the ones who caused the problem!

As far as WI being the 4th highest taxed state - it depends on how you measure. I won't argue that we do pay more, but we also demand or expect a higher level of service and higher quality facilities. Where we rank in the relation to other states is impossible to say. So many things that are 'taxes' here are 'fees' there, etc. What I do know, since I work in the area of taxation, is that you (as an individual) and me pay a far greater SHARE in taxes than an individual in many other states. Why? How? Because the tax base has been constantly eroded over my life time so that soon, only you and I and individuals and homeowners like us will be paying all the taxes. Exemptions, however well intended, only result in a tax increase on everyone else who is left paying that tax. The economics here are indisputable. Your taxes (and mine) would be significantly lower if we re-wrote our tax laws and made every person, corporation, and organization that utilizes public services and utilities pays their fair share. Until we realize that 'revolution', you and I will continue to pay more and more.

Cost-Benefit

P.S. Federal dollars do pay for a majority (but not all) of the Federal Highway work in our state (The Interstate and US highways). However, most of the state, county and town/village/city roads are paid by us through the state gasoline tax and vehicle registration 'fees'. Perhaps that is why I was surprised that many of the roads in the metropolitan area of a major city (Detroit) were muddy gravel. At first I thought it was because they were under construction. but I later realized, that's just how they are. These roads had nice homes on them. No wonder there were so many car washes in the area! And I-75 was a pot-holed mess. I think that's why one of my trailer bunks broke. So much for the Federal dollars. I don't profess to much about Michigan's system of taxation and I am not slamming Michigan. They elect people just like we do. That's why I asked my initial question.

Please don't take my comments as criticism of your views.

[Silentsixty]

Pitts - If you must hammer on someone else, please at least have your terminology and facts right, especially if you happen to be in the business. The orig. post was off a little, but had the right idea.

--------"Trust me at the time that bypasses occur samples of the bypass water are taken and analyzed to see how many BOD's and COD's are being released which is a measure of how much oxygen the sewage is going to use to decompose."--------------------

- Samples may be collected and analyzed for the CONCENTRATION of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) which is a measurement of the amount of oxygen consumed by the sample in 5 DAYS under controlled conditions. Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) is similar measurement where results can be obtained much quicker. Not all discharges are sampled. In the large municipality I work for, we historically sampled the 1st event each month from 3 out of 30+ CSO locations. Sampling requirement was dropped. Data doesn't fix the problem. Your municipality may sample each discharge, but I've worked for several others that only sampled the 1st one each month.

Bear in mind Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO's), Separate Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSO's) and partial treatment or bypasses at treatment facilities have existed since the 1st Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTP's) were built. It wasn't considered wrong at the time. Logic was - the rain flushed out the sewers, overflows/bypasses occurred during high dilution conditions minimizing impacts to receiving waters, and treatment plants usually tried to handle the 1st flush (dirtiest water). Remember that prior to the 1st WWTP's, all sewage was dumped directly to the river so a CSO during wet weather wasn't really a big deal. Nationwide, these problems have been gradually reduced over the past 25 to 30 yrs by sewer separation projects, storage capacity, replacement or lining of old infiltration prone brick sewers. At this point in time, the EPA has kinda lowered the boom and municipalities are having to demonstrate the need to have SSO's and CSO's.

Please note you will find elevated bacteria concentrations (potentially pathogenic and above primary human contact stds) in most/all streams (every one I've sampled) for 2 to 3 days after a rain event that produces runoff, with or w/o CSO's, SSO's, etc. There are problems with stormwater runoff too.

My 2 cents - try to keep your kids out of the creek for a couple of days after big rains & wash your hands after contact with any surface water.

Other than grants, water and sewer are supported by the customers payment of bills, not taxes. Stormsewers might be from taxes or sewer bills. You want the problems fixed, you need to demonstrate to your local goverment that the majority of customers are willing to pay a lot more for these services (a bargin now) in order to see the problems corrected. Correctly or incorrectly, many in goverment don't feel that's what the citizens want, therefore we devote our resources to fending off EPA efforts to address the problems.

Overall, water quality has improved substantially during my lifetime and I believe it will continue to improve over the next 20 to 30 yrs. The biggest area for improvement now is non-point source pollution.

Silentsixty
State of Ohio Class III Wastewater Treatment Operator
State of Ohio Class I Water Supply Operator
20 yrs experience in Wastewater/Water/Stormwater

[RandyG]

This is why I love this site!


Thanks,

Randy

[Pitts]

Out of the 4 to 7 million gallons we discharge to the Miss. River (above Red Wing) if we have any bypasses or discharges that exceed levels of pollutants that are permited amounts it is reported within the hour. If you are working for a plant that is not reporting all of there pollution then you are part of the problem if you don't take a stand and insist on timely reporting of all pollution you are discharging and all bypasses that take place even if they are not a requirement in the interpretation of your local laws. 80 million in fines from the state and federal gov will change anyones minds about trying to bend and interpret the rules in there favor.
I am truly sorry for attacking Tom but for any one living in a municipality that allows the storm water into there sanitary sewer they need to stand up and not be silent get on the band wagon and tell your city council what you think of it and you will not vote for them until you are paying at least 50$ per month more on you water/sewer bill to help finance a new system.
And all of you think gasoline is high priced:)


Pitts

[bigfish1965]

Ontario banned combination sewers many years ago. The provincial government took what was then considered a heavy handed approach. Any municipality not in compliance was fined enough money to make seperation of sewers economically more attractive. Developement was not allowed in areas with comb. sewer systems. Quickly it was turned around and all water treatment facilities are required to be able to handle a 25 year storm ( with lagoons if necessary.) Ideally only once every 25 years should there ever be a bypass, and with the use of lagoons, none of it need reach a lake or river. Now if we could just get the Ont. government to ban gas drilling on Lake erie.....

[szopster]

I agree.

An excellent exchange of information and perspectives. While sewage discharges are a real problem, Great Lakes sediment contamination is just as troubling.

For more on sediment contamination and the EPA's AOC's (Areas of Concern) visit http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/sediment/gpra/index.html

There sure are a "bunch of dots" on the Michigan side of Lake St. Clair. Lake Huron seems to have the fewest AOC's. This likely coincides with its relatively low population density.