GerryMandering and Drainage

[MikeM]

If Oakland County is forced to treat their own sewage then so should Macomb County. Why should Wayne County suffer from the effects of Macomb's development? That's the rhetorical you're going to encounter.

I think I had an earlier response lost in the server crash, but how can you convince anyone in the neighboring county to change anything, much less pay for it, when their current system meets federal and state requirements?

[O3H]

Warren has its own Waste Water Treatment Plant - why did Oakland piss away $200 million on something that overflows sewage 20 times a year ? Doomed from day 1

Macomb has separated systems = 1 for rain, 1 for sewage
Oakland was cheap and has a combined sewer system = only 1 pipe for both

Time for Oakland to join the 21st Century - Pay their fair and justified costs

When the "standards" are low, and the beaches are continually closed, MACOMB residents can easily demand the bar be raised, and stricter standards enforced for Oakland - the major contributor by far, of pollution in the Clinton River.
Fines and penalties can also be enforced and mandated via the EPA.
Too many officials looking the other way, using blinders, and expecting everyone else to follow their lead. Eye are now Wide Open in Macomb, and people are mad !

Typical of many waterfront Property Owners by LakeStClair
https://scontent.fdet1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...3d&oe=595704A0

If you were a property owner, and your "investment" was jeopardized, by a well known and clearly identified threat - you would fight for your money as well.

WayneCounty should have massive EXCESS capacity - everyone left, moved out.

[O3H]

No one wants FOULED waterways - regardless of race, ethnicity, etc.
That fact crosses all boundaries, manmade, political, etc.

Why doesn't Snyder [[courts) mandate separated sewers systems
for Oakland, just like they did in Port Huron ?

It's for the greater good of all of us.
Toledo had green drinking water, in part, from Michigan issues.

[O3H]

Wonder if Miller will force Nash into a corner and demand change ?

[O3H]

Even Bridge Magazine claiming gerrymandering is an issue for politics

http://www.bridgemi.com/public-secto...ew-test-claims

A grassroots group is organizing to put a constitutional amendment on the 2018 ballot that would take redistricting out of the hands of politicians of either party.

[Jimaz]

...

A grassroots group is organizing to put a constitutional amendment on the 2018 ballot that would take redistricting out of the hands of politicians of either party.

And give it to whom, I wondered? Ah. From "the accompanying story" :

The vision: Place a 2018 constitutional ballot question before Michigan voters that would seize from politicians the power to draw political boundaries and give it to the people.

• Voters Not Politicians

[ddaydetroit]

Interesting thread I recently moved to Ray Twp that has no city water or sewer and the residents do not want city water or sewer because it keeps the developers out.
Right now the smallest lot you can built a house on is 2 acres because you have to have room for a septic tank and well. My neighbors have made if they try to put in city water and sewer they will fight it.

[Lowell]

Not quite Clinton basin but this related article on storm water runoff assessments in Detroit and election year politics is telling.

Detroit's water department is preparing to scale back a controversial storm water drainage fee after backlash from businesses and churches that got hit with the hefty $750-per-acre monthly charge.

The city's Board of Water Commissioners will vote Wednesday on a plan to reduce the drainage fee to $125 per acre until July and then phase in increases over the next five fiscal years to $677 by July 2022, Detroit Water and Sewerage Department Director Gary Brown said.

Detroit began imposing the fee in July 2015 on the owners of 22,000 parcels with impervious surfaces such as roofs and parking lots that "weren't paying anything at all," Brown said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has required Detroit to eliminate all sewage discharges by 2022, Brown said.

The sewage releases vary depending on heavy rainstorms.

Last year, the city released 800 million gallons of combined sewage and storm water, according to DWSD.

In 2014, a torrential August rain storm contributed to 6.8 billion gallons of untreated sewage and storm water being released — and widespread basement flooding in the city and northern suburbs.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...oit-businesses

[Dumpling]

The 800 million gallons of combined sewage and storm water is
an underestimate. The unit of measure at the GLWA WRRF
is MGD = million gallons per day. A good area wide thunderstorm
gives us a typical "River Rouge Outfall" of 250 MGD or better.
We are actually paying twice to treat it - and it is not yet being
fully treated - due to the failure of the Detroit River Outfall Tunnel
#2 back in about 2002. We are paying for that construction as
well as current and future construction intended to fully treat plant
overflow from the primary treatment into the Rouge River.
The Complex II incinerator is back on line for better or for worse.

[O3H]

It is really easy to determine the carrying capacity of an Open Channel Drain.
The Red Run Drain in Warren and Sterling Heights is a trapezoid.
http://bit.ly/OpenChannelDrain
http://www.onlineconversion.com/obje..._trapezoid.htm

For just ONE MILE of the Red Run Drain it holds about 13 Million cubic feet of liquid
ONE MILE is 95 Million gallons of stormwater and sewage overflow .
The Red Run Drain easily stretches from Dequindre to Hayes entering the Clinton.

Those 6 Miles of the open channel drain often are full, almost spilling over the banks, touching bridges, and easily represent a “snapshot” of nearly 600 Million gallons. Of course the channel is a dynamic, ever changing, constantly flowing entity. It can fill multiple times during a long storm.

The GWK retention basin, merely slows the onslaught of stormwater, it stops nothing.
It is all gravity driven, and Oakland has elevation advantage over Macomb

Every long hard thunderstorm, fills that channel in Warren,
- with OaklandCounty stormwater + sewage overflow.

http://bit.ly/DrainMap

[Dumpling]

I'm BA - ACK. This time I took notes. This concerns the wet weather
for April 19th, 2017 through April 22nd, 2017 and the resulting volumes
of wastewater appearing at the GLWA WRRF. I will forgo editorial
remarks about billing funeral homes and churches within the city
proper to treat it; however, I was not able to confirm at this time
whether the main bank for GLWA is JP Morgan Chase.

The recorded rainfall here for the 19th: 0.34". For the 20th: 0.48".
Total = 0.82".

Based on periodic observations and rounding UP to the nearest hundred,
the semi-treated volume going out the River Rouge outfall was 700
million gallons over the four day period. The more fully treated wet
weather volume going out the Detroit River Outfall #1 was 1200 MG.
Total wet volume for the four days was then about 1900 million gallons.
This is in addition to the normal [[high normal - very dry normal is about
400MGD) volume of wastewater, which is 2400 million gallons also
exiting via DRO-1 during the four day period. Four day grand total
4300 MG.

[Dumpling]

0.82" x 12" x 12" = 118 cubic inches of rainfall per square foot.

118 cu. in. / 231 cu. in. per gallon = 0.51 gallons of rainfall per square foot.

One square mile = 27 878 400 square feet.

This, times 0.51 gallons/square foot, gives 14 217 984 gallons per square mile.

This is about 14 MG [[million gallons) per square mile.

1900 MG GLWA WRRF wet flow divided by 14 MG gives 135.7 square miles
that this rainfall ran off from rather than being collected and stored out there so
that it did not reach the WRRF.

[Dumpling]

A re-estimate of the vacant land within Detroit whereon rainwater
could theoretically be stored is about 20 square miles.

Using an estimate for Detroit's annual precipitation, 34 inches,
gives 21 gallons per square foot per year. Calculating the
theoretical storage volume for 135.7 square miles worth of
21 gallons per square foot per year...

21 gal/sf x 27,878,400 sf/sqmi x 135.7 sqmi = 79 000 000 000 gal.

there is 7.48 gallons per cubic foot of water = 10 500 000 000 cu ft.

5280 x 5280 = 27 878 400 sq ft per sq mile.

10,500,000,000/27,900,000 [[I rounded) = 376 ft = depth of a theoretical
one square mile reservoir. Divided by 20 = 18.8 ft = depth of one of
the twenty theoretical square mile reservoirs.

For comparison average depth of Lake St. Clair is 11 ft.

[O3H]

Rain is not an EASY thing to average out and generalize.
It varies enormously - in intensity/duration/frequency - often in small areas.

Nice try - but those calculations fail on sooo many levels it's hilarious.

Impervious surfaces
A mere 1 inch rainfall .. on 1000 sq ft .. = 623 gallons of water

Stormwater pollution is the greatest source of
water quality impairments in the local watersheds.
Notice that does not say sewage, or sewage overflow.

Time to study some Isopluvial Charts - http://bit.ly/2year24hour

[O3H]

Public Meeting and Comment Period for the
Draft Statewide E. coli Total Maximum Daily Load [[TMDL)
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality [[MDEQ)
is announcing a public comment period [[April 17-May 19, 2017)
and public meeting [[May 9, 2017) to discuss
the revised draft statewide E. coli TMDL.

The statewide E. coli TMDL is a framework
that applies to all water bodies that are
included in Michigan’s Year 2016 Section 303[[d)
list due to elevated E. coli and will also apply
to water bodies listed as impaired due to E. coli in the future.
The TMDL is being developed to identify the
pathogen reductions necessary to meet water quality standards.
This is the second, and more formal, comment period
for the draft statewide E. coli TMDL, and four previously
recorded webinars are available on www.michigan.gov/ecolitmdl.

The draft TMDL and mapping system have
been revised based on public input.
Revisions are highlighted and referenced with
footnotes within the document to explain changes.

Important Information:
The public comment period is April 17-May 19.
A public meeting will be held May 9, 2017, at 1:00 p.m.,
at the State of Michigan Library, Forum Auditorium,
1st Floor, 702 West Kalamazoo Street, Lansing, Michigan.
The meeting will be transmitted via Webinar.
To register for this Webinar broadcast, view our previously
recorded Webinar series on this topic, or access the draft
document and mapping system, please visit www.michigan.gov/ecolitmdl.
Written comments on the draft TMDL and mapping system may
be submitted to Molly Rippke, Department of Environmental Quality,
Water Resources Division, P.O. Box 30458, Lansing, Michigan 48909-7958
or rippkem@michigan.gov, by May 19, 2017.

[Dumpling]

The calculations given were for two side by side typical spring wet
weather events - "The Way We Think" - they were a "grab sample"
of our rain events. I will try to remember to post data if an intense
rain event occurs if anyone is interested.

http://www.glwater.org/sewer-system/sewer-map/

The Detroit portion of the sewer map covers just under 140 square
miles and appears to be about one quarter of the collection area.
Since the calculated runoff area is similar to Detroit's area, the
portion of surface area that is effectively impervious and therefore
contributing to the WRRF wet weather volume is also about one
quarter of the collection area.

[O3H]

That sewer map from GLWA - is also for stormwater -
One of the reasons Candice Miller was "concerned" when INTERCEPTOR broke.
No one one truly believes that feces from Oxford makes its way to Detroit,
just on urine, some bath water, and some laundry suds.

[Canadian Visitor]

In the light of the flooding portion of the issue being discussed here; I thought I'd offer this article from Toronto's Global News [[TV).

The relevance is limited, but it both discusses the issue of high water levels in Lake Ontario and associated flooding risk; but makes a comparison w/New York State as well.

The difference in approach might relate in some ways to the experience in Detroit, I leave that to locals to offer thoughts on.

Link below.

http://globalnews.ca/news/3401898/to...ampaign=buffer

[ABetterDetroit]

Kinda funny how when they find a major contaminator of E. coli to the Clinton River and the source is in Warren and not Oakland County all you hear on this board is the crickets chirping for a month.

No yelling. No call for heads to roll. No talk about raising taxes. No big expensive investigation on the Warren residents tab. Just as quiet as church mice this thread is.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/loc...li/1021657001/

[Dumpling]

Doug Martz and others worked on locating and fixing E. Coli
contamination making its way into Lake Saint Clair for several
years.

https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/m...nt?oid=2168517

They continually found new places, particularly in Warren with its older infrastructure, where E. Coli [[sewage) was getting into the waterways
and Lake Saint Clair.
There was a group of people working with Mr. Martz. There was one meeting in which, discussing a particular pollution problem, Mr. Martz urged the attendees to WRITE A LETTER OR EMAIL about the problem and send it to the appropriate officials.

Fast forward a decade, it does seem that Candice Miller has taken
on the responsibility that Mr. Martz and others had taken on before.

[O3H]

Doug Martz is now an old man, with a few surgeries under his belt.
He has inspired many in the Save Lake St Clair organization.
Mobilizing people to act as individuals, have them act on their own, is tough

[Dumpling]

In a typical southeast Michigan year we get maybe 40 inches of
rain [[maybe a bit less). For one inch of rainfall on one square foot:

1inch * 12 inches * 12 inches = 144 cubic inches ; 231 cubic inches
per gallon; 0.62 gallons of rain per square foot for every one inch
of rainfall.

0.62 gallons per square foot times the 40 annual inches gives [[rounding
up a little bit) 25 gallons of rain per square foot per the year that
gets 40 inches of rain.

[Dumpling]

There are 43,560 square feet in an acre. [[This is the same as
2.3 E-05 acres per square foot.)

25 gallons of rain per square foot times 43,560 square feet
is equal to 1,089,000 gallons of rain per acre per year.

This is the rain that falls, not the rain that goes into the runoff.

It was estimated that generally a quarter of the rain for
the entire area goes into the runoff and is treated.

So 0.25 * 1,089,000 gallons = 272,000 runoff gallons per
acre per 40 inch year.

[Dumpling]

We've had a relatively wet May.

https://www.freep.com/story/weather/...an/1285206001/

The National Weather Service reported "3.36 inches" of rain so far in
May as of last Thursday. If there were the same amount of rainfall in
each month of 2019 it would be a 40 inches of rainfall year.

[Dumpling]

The average daily amount treated at the Great Lakes Water
Authority WRRF [[wastewater treatment plant) in May was
about 700 million gallons per day [[MGD).

The dry weather amount treated is from 400 to 500 MGD, roughly.

Taking the dry weather amount as 500 MGD, then about
200 MGD every day was wet weather related inflow.