Oakland Justifies Lake St. Clair Pollution

For years, local authorities have treated combined sewer overflows (CSOs) with chlorine to kill bacteria in preparation for diverting the overflow following heavy rains away from wastewater treatment plants and into natural water bodies.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been urging state and local officials to convert combined sewer systems into separate sanitary and stormwater sewer systems.

“Oakland County dumped 2 billion gallons of sewage into Macomb in August storm”“Several hours after the Aug. 11 [2014] storm, the polluted Red Run Drain in Warren was still about 20 feet above its normal level.”
http://www.macombdaily.com/article/MD/20140826/NEWS/140829703

Thereafter, pathogens, toxins and nutrients originating in household wastewater would go to a wastewater treatment plant for removal while the heavy volume of rainwater would flow separately, directly into lakes and streams. Cities like Lansing and Grand Rapids have undertaken such conversions.

 

Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner Jim Nash justifies not planning for separate stormwater and sanitary sewage systems by arguing that separated stormwater runoff is not treated, so whatever pollutants it carries off streets, parking lots and roofs ends up in lakes and streams.

Presently, Nash sends combined storm and sanitary effluent from the giant Kuhn Retention Basin in Madison Heights to a wastewater treatment plant in Detroit.

If heavy rainfall threatens to overwhelm the treatment plant, Nash partially treats the combined fluids with chlorine to control pathogens such as bacteria and sends the deluge into Red Run, through Macomb County to the Clinton River and Lake St. Clair.

But the sanitary sewage component contains the nutrients like phosphorus that are found in human waste. Those nutrients generate algal blooms, some with toxic potential, that contribute to the degradation of Lake St. Clair.

In other words, Nash seems content to pass on to Lake St. Clair the pollutants in the waste of hundreds of thousands of people rather than the separated stormwater running off roofs and pavements.

Go figure.

Dissension over Detroit Water Deal

Concern about secrecy and the public’s right to know caused Macomb County, a principal participant, to balk at ongoing negotiations to create a regional water services authority in southeast Michigan.

A lease of Detroit’s water and sewage treatment facilities by the new Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) was envisioned by bankruptcy officials as a source of revenue necessary to restore Detroit to solvency.

Macomb’s chief executive, Mark Hackel, objects to a gag order imposed on the talks by a bankruptcy judge during Detroit's bankruptcy proceedings.  Court authority for the secret negotiations, administered by a federal district judge as mediator, is set to expire on Sunday, June 14.  

In an editorial in the Detroit News on June 4, Nolan Finley wrote (excerpts):

[The federal mediator] has maintained a gag order on negotiations to finalize the regional water authority agreement, even though a governing board was appointed to publicly conclude its formation after a memorandum of understanding was signed a year ago…

Hackel is dead right that once that public board was in place, the private backroom dealing should have stopped and the gag order lifted.

"It's not about creating an effective water system," [Hackel] says. "It's about how they force this issue through bankruptcy and get what they need for the city of Detroit…”

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/nolan-finley/2015/06/03/finley-hackel-bucks-gag-order/28426647/

In a follow-up note published in the News on June 5, Finley added (excerpts):

Mark Hackel has been on a seven-day rampage since learning he wouldn’t be included in a private mediation session to firm up the regional water authority, which included his Oakland County counterpart, L. Brooks Patterson and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.

Detroit Federal District Judge Sean Cox [mediator] cut the Macomb county executive out of the meeting…

The mediation session may not have moved the parties closer to a deal. But it did accomplish one thing: It drove a wedge between Hackel and Patterson, who had been united in opposition to the water deal as currently proposed.

And perhaps that was the objective.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/nolan-finley/2015/06/05/ed-note-secret-talk-hackel-patterson/28496521/

On June 8 in an opinion piece in the News on the same topic, former Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr said (excerpts):

The mediation process has given all the parties a seat at the table. [Emphasis added.] It provided a forum to air differences and consider counter proposals in an open [sic] and collegial environment without concern that a proposal would be taken out of context and blasted across tomorrow's headline. Those that participated in mediation have enhanced the process to the betterment of the the systems' customers. Those that have withdrawn from it have robbed their constituents of the ability to make any agreement that much better by the value of their participation.

To those not participating in the mediation process, it may seem shrouded in secrecy and unfairly hidden from public view. However, the confidentiality imposed on this process is both common and necessary for the parties to have full and frank discussions...

Some say that mediation is gagging the public discourse. But those who hold this position may be allowing themselves to be stuck in the process instead of being participants in a solution...

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2015/06/08/orr-mediation-best-hope-water-deal/28551457/

It seems obvious to me that “all the parties” are not at the table.  I’m referring to the 120 communities throughout the region that are compelled to rely on and pay for a water and sewage system in the alteration of which they have no voice and can’t even find out what’s being discussed.

UPDATE:  On June 9, 2015, the author wrote Detroit's major newspapers, in part, 

Kevyn Orr’s rationale for secrecy confuses apples with oranges.

The typical bankruptcy case in which secrecy is invoked involves the bankrupt and creditors, i.e. claimants in the case which are commonly savvy, well represented financial institutions, not the public (here in 120 small,unrepresented communities scattered throughout seven counties), which is entitled to transparency.

Furthermore, Mr. Orr’s comments reveal the type of false assumptions that are the undoing of most federal court gag orders.

How NOT to Plan a New Suburban Water System

Distrustful of Detroit’s intentions toward its wholesale customers in the suburbs concerning future water services, Oakland and Macomb counties are considering building their own freshwater intake, treatment and distribution system.

Steps have been taken to study the feasibility of creating a new regional authority that would draw water from Lake St. Clair, treat it and pipe it westward across the two counties.

A similar plan in Chicago’s southern suburbs is a cautionary tale.

In 2011, seven small Chicago suburbs (Alsip, Blue Island, Calumet Park, Harvey, Markham, Midlothian and Robbins), dissatisfied with the rapidly increasing cost of Chicago water, formed an agency to study and plan their own water system.

The South Suburban Joint Action Water Agency borrowed $5.6 million in 2012 to determine feasibility and plan for construction, which was expected to cost $300 million and take three years.

To date, the agency is thought to have spent all but $1 million, and they haven’t even determined the intake site yet.

Major portions of the spending thus far have gone in no-bid contracts to cronies and/or political campaign contributors of the municipal officials running the agency.

Most of the small towns involved are deeply in debt to Chicago for past water consumption.  The $5.6 million meant to finance planning is expected to double by the time the bonds mature.  These are not terribly prosperous communities, but their taxpayers and ratepayers will have to take the hit as the result of the careless, reckless or corrupt spending of community leaders.

Obviously, the circumstances in Detroit’s northern suburbs are significantly different.  The caliber of governance is higher.  The communities are more numerous and many of them enjoy fiscal health. Nevertheless, transparency in contracting and spending should be a high priority as studies about a new water system progress.

Can a Metro Detroit Water Deal Exclude Oakland and Macomb?

Concerning an anticipated metro Detroit water deal that would exclude Oakland and Macomb counties, reported in the Detroit Free Press* on January 22, 2014 by John Wisely:

How likely is it that Gov. Snyder, having in mind a re-election bid, would risk losing Republican campaign money and votes in Oakland and Macomb counties by siding exclusively with 99 percent Democratic Detroit and Wayne County’s discredited executive, a Democrat, on a water pact?

* http://www.freep.com/article/20140122/NEWS05/301220028/detroit-water-sewerage-department-suburbs-cooperation-deal