Warren - Detroit - Drainage Links

[Willi]

The City of #Warren - #Drainage#Districts - #MacombCounty - #Michigan --

http://redrundrain.wordpress.com/201...un-connection/

[Willi]

Will the suburbs divert MORE stormwater to Detroit to avoid overloading the Clinton River ?
Oakland County depends heavily on using the Clinton for stormwater control.

[Mikeg]

This is all about minimizing the amount of Combined Sewer Overflows [[CSO) into the Clinton AND Detroit Rivers by building new retention basin capacity to collect and hold the huge amounts of combined storm water and sewage from heavy storms in Oakland County that would otherwise go directly to suburban residential basements, the Clinton River and the Detroit Sewage plant. Once the retention basins are full and if the rainfall is still continuing, the overflow goes over the weirs and is given a very basic treatment and released to the Clinton River. By building more retention basin capacity, this should happen much less often. After the rainfall has stopped, the combined storm water and sewage remaining behind the weirs can be released from the retention basins [[dewatered flow) and safely sent on its way via the interceptor to the Detroit Sewage plant for treatment [[without overwhelming the treatment plant, which also has weirs which would send overflow directly to the Detroit River).

[Willi]

The catch is timing ...a retention basin is NOT permanent...""maybe"" held for 30 minutes.......

They repeatedly fill, get dumped, refill, get dumped, -- they cycle.
When it gets real bad, they basically begin FREE FLOW, wide open, little restriction.

On May 25, 2011 the George W. Kuhn Retention Treatment Basin discharged approximately
1.6 billion gallons of combined sewage into the Red Run Drain aka Clinton River according to
the Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner.
There were 3 rain episodes in 2011 , all leading the class action lawsuit Case 11-004456-NZ.

The feces screens in flood senario are 2 inches wide at Kuhn Retention Basin,
and that 2 inch chunk that makes it thru got sprayed a bit with chlorine/bleach/sodiumhypochlorite
https://plus.google.com/108590711667...ts/RERfUaMSu3C

[Mikeg]

The catch is timing ...a retention basin is NOT permanent...""maybe"" held for 30 minutes.......

They repeatedly fill, get dumped, refill, get dumped, -- they cycle.
When it gets real bad, they basically begin FREE FLOW, wide open, little restriction.

On May 25, 2011 the George W. Kuhn Retention Treatment Basin discharged approximately
1.6 billion gallons of combined sewage into the Red Run Drain aka Clinton River according to the Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner.....

I didn't say they were permanent. They temporarily store combined storm/sewer water and when they cannot hold any more, the water flows over the weir and with minimal treatment it goes into the Red Run and Clinton River. When the overflow ends, the retention basin is dewatered and that flow is sent to the Detroit Sewage Plant.

According to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, during 2011 the city of Detroit discharged about 7 billion gallons of untreated sewage into the Rouge and Detroit rivers. During that same year, Detroit also discharged an additional 25 billion gallons of partially treated sewage [[solids were removed but the water wasn't disinfected).

At least Oakland County is spending money to reduce their CSO discharges. Detroit halted work on their CSO storage project in 2009.

[source]

[Willi]

Kuhn Basin and Red Run was a FEDERAL project and it still is basically overseen by the USACE.
http://redrundrain.wordpress.com/201...-project-1970/

A FEDERAL judge ordered 14 cities to pay for the GWK basin via bond payments.
http://redrundrain.wordpress.com/ori...red-run-drain/

The Red Run is in Warren by Dequindre, but the water comes from far away........

[Mikeg]

What point are you trying to make?

[Scottathew]

What point are you trying to make?

Willi and I are buddies from a past life. He offers a lot of great information about water and drainage, a topic that is on the minds of many metro-Detroiters these days.

I have a hard time interpreting some of the data, but I do find that which I can interpret to be fascinating.

There's a large amount of infrastructure that we are blissfully unaware of that is critical to how we live.

[MikeM]

What point are you trying to make?

Yes, where is this going?

[Scottathew]

I don't really think it's a point that's being made but rather information that is being provided. For those of us that find value, we can comment, ask questions, etc... For those of us who don't find value, we can move on to topics that we find more interesting.

[Willi]

Oakland County truly NEEDS Macomb County
--NOT the other way around !!!!

IF the cities of Oakland County continue to flood those in Macomb
maybe the GATES just need to be welded shut at DEQUINDRE ROAD
and what happens in Oakland County stays in Oakland County.

Now Oakland wants to run more through Pontiac, more into the Clinton,
and flood more people at the eastern edges , past Dequindre ?

Oakland seems to be insistant on runnning their crap through Warren,
someone has to say enough is enough, STOP.
Steenbergh certainly isn't sticking up for ""his"" people in Warren.

Oakland needs to PAY a stiff usage fee to Macomb -- for this service.
Macomb has Oakland by the short hairs, but doesn't leverage that fact.

[Mikeg]

Oakland County truly NEEDS Macomb County
--NOT the other way around !!!!

IF the cities of Oakland County continue to flood those in Macomb
maybe the GATES just need to be welded shut at DEQUINDRE ROAD
and what happens in Oakland County stays in Oakland County.

Fun facts:

1) only 15% of the Bear Creek watershed lies within Oakland County - 85% of it lies within the cities of Warren and Center Line.

2) welding the GHK Retention Basin gates shut on August 11th wouldn't have kept one drop of Bear Creek water from flooding out the GM Tech Center and the Van Dyke-Old 13 Mile Rd. area:




Floods in Warren Township pre-date the installation of combined storm and sanitary sewers.

[Jimaz]

That trash pickup graph was useful. I saved it to disk.

Why do Warren and Sterling Heights produce so much trash normally?

[Danny]

When inner ring suburbs built from the 1950s to present. Flood control is needed to diver excess water out the rivers and lakes. Real estate developers in Warren only made flood control sewers and pumping stations to handle up to 3 feet of water. When 4 to 5 inches of water was gushing into Warren neighborhoods suddenly streets were turn in to raging rivers, basements flooded and low level homes were gutted with water. Today as suburban sprawl in Metro-Detroit expanded Napier Wayne County Line Rd to 26 Mile Rd. Developers learn their lesson. Every new home with basements will have built in sump pumps to keep excess water out.

[Scottathew]

That trash pickup graph was useful. I saved it to disk.

Why do Warren and Sterling Heights produce so much trash normally?

They are bigger cities. Many of the southeast Oakland cities got hit harder than Warren. They just don't have strong-mayor governments with media machines like Warren does where they cry for the National Guard [[to do what, exactly I'm not sure), give grossly exaggerated damage figures, etc...

That's why that graph isn't good at showing where the damage was. In terms of trash generated and adjusted for size, Huntington Woods was hit the worst.

[Scottathew]

Today as suburban sprawl in Metro-Detroit expanded Napier Wayne County Line Rd to 26 Mile Rd. Developers learn their lesson. Every new home with basements will have built in sump pumps to keep excess water out.

So you're saying that sprawl is good?

[Ltdave]

the city of port huron was forced by the state of michigan and deq to separate its storm and sanitary sewers to the tune of some $185,000,000. money they didnt have, but they are close to 98% finished with only one small section yet to do...

i guess all those macomb and oakland county cities need to be grateful that their representatives keep the state off their backs regarding combined sewage overflows. or do they just feed their sewage into the detroit sewage treatment system?

[Lowell]

Welcome to the forum Willi. Thanks for the great graphics and info.

[Willi]

Two terms to get familiar with - Inflow and Infiltration.
These lead to ""surcharging"" a system, aka backing it up, over capacity, back pressure.
When rain water from saturated ground starts pushing its way into the old antiquated
drainage piping, it infiltrates or inflows into the suppossed closed sealed system.




An eight-inch sanitary sewer can handle residential
wastewater flow from up to 200 homes, but only a
few sump pumps, operating at full capacity will
overload this same eight-inch line.







Take a guess where ALL the street storm drainage is -- AT THE BOTTOM of the Red Run.
It becomes pressurized very very quickly when the Red Run is 20, 30, 40 feet deep




The pressure at a certain depth in the liquid is the same at all points at that depth.
Pressure at A = Pressure at B = Pressure at C = Pressure at D = Pressure at E
Notice that it is only the depth of the liquid that matters;
not the angle of the tube, the cross sectional area of the liquid column,
or the area of the liquid surface.

Red Run - Sep 10, 2011 -- during 1 of 3 Flooding scenarious that year




As OAKLAND COUNTY fills the Kuhn Basin and releases it into the Red Run, the level rises,
and as it rises ---so does the water level in the street drainage pipes connected to it ----
in Warren and all point further EAST towards Mt Clemens on the Clinton River.
The street drainage is blocked, pressurized, surcharged, and then piping begins leaking.
Hydro-static pressure pushes back, into peoples basement drains, forcing sewage up !

A mere sump pump can't handle this chaos, and storms usually mean NO ELECTRICAL POWER.
Now get that generator running and run electrical cables, - while standing in water -
without electricuting yourself - ALL thanks to OAKLAND COUNTY officials stormdrain strategy.
Nice huh ?

Warren residents might want to know what their former mayor is up to
http://redrundrain.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/mark-steenbergh-wastewater-services-manager/

[Scottathew]

Willi,

Out of curiosity, what are some better options for Oakland County? Pretty much we need the water to go somewhere, what should we do with it?

Do we need to build some kind of giant pipe that goes straight through Macomb to Lake St. Clair?

[Willi]

How about a pipe in OAKLAND COUNTY straight through to the Rouge ?
Oh snap, that'll will never ever happen...................
The precious --""Bloomfields and Country Club""-- would be torn up.

Pump, push, persuade the stormwater from Oakland County
to be put into the lakes on their side of town.
It's just rain water right, sliding off the streets into the lakes.
Oh, um, er, cough..you say its mixed - with sewage- gee
that's a god damn shame huh, L Brooks P .
You say those High Priced homes have inferior infrastructure, no, please,
say it's not true L Brooks P, you're the best thing ever for Oakland County.
For the last 21 years - http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...p-dead-detroit





Detroit Cancels Costly Combined
Sewer Overflow Tunnel


DETROIT, Michigan, June 1, 2009 [[ENS) -


The giant Upper Rouge Tunnel combined
sewer overflow control project was canceled
Friday by Detroit city officials worried about
residents' ability to pay increased sewer
fees to build the $1.2 billion project.
A report in the "Detroit Free Press"
Saturday quoted George Ellenwood, a
spokesman for the Detroit Water and
Sewerage Department, as saying sewer
fees would have been 16 percent higher as
of July 1 if the long-planned tunnel had gone
ahead.
In view of the Motor City's current 22 percent
unemployment rate, "It exceeds what is
considered reasonable," said Ellenwood,
Detroit, like many Midwestern cities, has a
combined sewer system that carries both
sanitary sewage and stormwater. During
heavy rain and snow melt, the flow capacity
of a sewer system is exceeded and an
overflow of this mixture runs into the Rouge
River.
The seven mile long Upper Rouge CSO
Tunnel was designed to capture up to 201
million gallons of wet weather flows
conveyed through existing sewer
infrastructure located in western Detroit from
17 designated outfalls that historically
discharge to the upper tributary of the Rouge
River.
It would also have captured overflows from
three outfalls in Dearborn Heights and eight
outfalls in Redford Township.
The tunnel would have stored the combined
sewage and stormwater until it could be
treated at the Detroit Wastewater Treatment
Plant and discharged.
Construction of the tunnel is a requirement of
the Detroit Water and Sewerage
Department's 2008 NPDES Permit, and is a
condition of a consent decree in litigation
brought by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. It was supposed to be
completed in the 2014-2015 timeframe.
Ellenwood said the department will seek an
alternative during the next six months.
Plans for the tunnel have been stalled for
months for lack of financing.
In late February, the Detroit Water and
Sewerage Department canceled plans to
bid the North Tunnel section, advising
prospective bidders not to submit any bids.
No official explanation for the cancelation
was offered.
Still, continued work was planned for the
South Tunnel. A contract for this section of
the project was awarded to Kenny
Construction and Japan's Obayashi
Corporation in September 2008.
Friday's decision canceled work on both
North and South tunnel sections.
The tunnel was designed to be 30 feet in
diameter. It would have run parallel the
Rouge River, mostly under park space, 160
feet below ground from Pembroke Avenue
and Berg to Warren Avenue and West Outer
Drive. The tunnel was intended to cut the
frequency of overflow events from about 50
a year to fewer than one a year, reducing the
overflow from an average of 1.3 billion
gallons to 250 million gallons annually.
Copyright Environment News Service [[ENS) 2009.

[DTWflyer]

Willi - thanks for joining you bring a lot of interesting points and data to discussion.

However, you lost me with the last post.

The biggest drainage and sewer issues in Oakland County are not in the "rich" enclaves of the Bloomfields, or Birmingham. The areas that cause the biggest problem and throw their problems over to Macomb County are in the Red Run drainage - Royal Oak, Berkley, Huntington Woods, etc.

Even if you were to cross-feed back to the Rouge Basin, this would impact areas more like Southfield not the 'Hills or Birmingham.

Plus, I know it is in style to pile-on the "rich" but Country Clubs are private clubs and owned by their members. If people want to pay to join something and the clubs own the property, who is anyone to question how people spend their money or privately held land is used. It is a silly idea to think that Country Clubs are the root of all evils, when in fact actually much of the greenspace associated with the golf course actually helps drainage and prevent run-off.

[Willi]

There are plenty of sewer issues in Oakland County and those issues need
to stay in their county, instead of being exported elsewhere.
The Clinton River is NOT the only solution for stormwater control in OAKLAND COUNTY.
It's interesting to see where the WTP are , and where they are noticeably absent.

Why is Southfield part of the Red Run district, why do they pay into the fund ?
The twelve towns drain is more like 14 or 15 cities.
Scroll down to last page of this link ...........and see the truth for yourself.
http://ferndale-mi.granicus.com/Meta...8&meta_id=7325
http://www.crwc.org/watershed/subwatersheds/redrun/

Pontiac has come to play a KEY role in it ALL.....money $$$$$$
http://www.theoaklandpress.com/gener...maker-for-city

CAN'T forget the wonderful INTERCEPTOR project to add another layer of complexity

Let us examine in detail the Rouge River
http://www.bloomfieldhillsmi.net/res...rWatershed.pdf

[mam2009]

Willi and I are buddies from a past life. He offers a lot of great information about water and drainage, a topic that is on the minds of many metro-Detroiters these days.

I have a hard time interpreting some of the data, but I do find that which I can interpret to be fascinating.

There's a large amount of infrastructure that we are blissfully unaware of that is critical to how we live.

I enjoy learning about new topics and am interested in this subject particularly since heavy rainfall has caused my entire lower east side Detroit neighborhood to have basement backups twice in the last three years. The information being shared here is probably very useful, but could you please recommend a link to the "Rainwater and Sewage Overflow 101 & 102" courses, please? For us non-civil engineers, this thread is hard to follow.

[Willi]

Unfortunately I can't because governmental officials are paranoid:

http://redrundrain.wordpress.com/201...ucture-safety/

http://fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL32189.pdf

They don't want you to know how it all works, and you'll have a damn hard time
putting the puzzle pieces together without digging in a lot of archived material.

Underground stuff is not sexy, flambouyant, etc. so its rarely on the TV news
and once the billions of $$$ are buried you can't see it anymore, it's a great scam.

Don't let anyone tell you WARREN doesn't have creeks, streams, and rivers
It is just as wet as many of those cities by the lakes back in Oakland County.
The catch is the USA Arsenal and GM will never tell all the truth about the early years.