The 124 million gallons of sewage dumped into Lake St. Clair in March was chemically treated and presents no danger to the public, according to the state Department of Environmental Quality.
An environmental group, Save Lake St. Clair, had scrutinized DEQ documentation and declared that the four discharges from the Martin retention basin in St. Clair Shores consisted of raw sewage. But a DEQ official said the labeling of the discharge contents is admittedly misleading to the public.
“It isn’t an untreated wastewater discharge. Right now … there’s not a category that fits it to a T,” said Dan Beauchamp, an acting district supervisor for the DEQ.
The department’s online information refers to the Martin sewage discharges as a sewage system overflow, an SSO, which typically refers to raw sewage. The DEQ added footnotes to its website chart to indicate that the outflow consisted of “partially treated sewage.”
The Martin basin, located by the shoreline of Lake St. Clair, is in a technical category by itself because of the ratio of sewage vs. rainwater that it takes in during storms. As a result, Beauchamp said, its secondary treatment process, which includes a sanitizing system to kill E.coli bacteria, is fairly unique.
The massive basin is operated by the Macomb County Public Works Commissioner’s Office and the Martin operations manager has been trying to reach a resolution with the DEQ for a few years.
“It’s been something of a point of contention, and something that’s under negotiation,” said Brent Avery. “These are not SSOs. The DEQ is having trouble with the language. They’re dragging their feet.”
Martin’s state operating permit is up for renewal later this year and the confusion may be ironed out by then. Beauchamp explained that, in the south Macomb area handled by Martin, about 85 percent of the homes and businesses have separated sewer lines – one for sewage and one for rainwater. The other 15 percent have combined sewer pipes that handle both.
Avery argues that Martin should be classified as a combined sewer overflow facility — not an SSO site — just like the Chapaton retention basin that his department operates just a few miles away, also on the Lake St. Clair shoreline in St. Clair Shores. The treatment process for discharges at Martin, Avery asserted, remains superior to those at Chapaton and at most sewage basins in southeast Michigan.
Beuchamp said that both facilities have passed a water quality evaluation test – most recently in 2007 at Martin – and both meet DEQ treatment standards.
Photo/Flickr/Mike Boening
The syntax, the wording, the “”classification””, is EXACTLY what messes everyone up. Years ago people dumped their nightpot feces/piss out the window, onto the street. Horses crapped on tbe streets. A janitor sweeped the “sewage” into the street Drain. * It’s now 2016, and rain goes into the metal street grate – but all in the neighborhood call it a sewer ??!!! The actual “sewer” is for toilet water, bath water, laundry water, dishwasher water, yeah a lot of water – mixed with nasty stuff.
This is the reply from Save Lake St. Clair on their Facebook page. The DEQ is now saying that the sewage dumped into Lake St. Clair is safe. Furthermore, the DEQ is stating that Save Lake St. Clair organization is misleading the public based on our recent activity. Please read this article written by Chad Selweski
First, let us point out that Save Lake St. Clair’s mission is not to mislead the general public but rather to raise the overall awareness of our flawed sewage systems. They have been neglected. Witness the past events that shut down our beaches, threaten our lake’s ecology and fishery, and, most importantly, put our drinking water at risk. Remember, 40% of the state of Michigan uses Lake St. Clair as its drinking water source.
Now here are the facts….
Save Lake St. Clair reports exactly what is on the DEQ website. Here is where we get our information. Please click on the link to verify that we are quoting accurately what the DEQ itself reported. Please see in the comment section below the picture we took from that site to verify.
The discharges in question were labeled “SSO” discharges. Per the DEQ website a SSO discharge is “Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSOs):
If anyone else out there reads this and sees something other than what we are reading please advise because we are having a hard time understanding how the DEQ can state that Save Lake St. Clair is misleading the public when, in fact, Save Lake St. Clair is taking the numbers and the information directly from the DEQ’s own site.
Fact, even during a CSO (combined sewage overflow) the DEQ says they meet their standards, which reports have shown DEQ works only to ensure a technical minimal compliance.
Fact, Save Lake St. Clair knows minimal compliance is resulting in human waste DNA in our water, closing down beaches and having overall negative impacts, yet DEQ instead of trying to make it better continues to argue its “good enough.”
State of Michigan tests confirm human waste build up along Lake St. Clair shoreline.
Unfortunately, according to this article, the DEQ only addresses the Martin retention basin and does not mention the Clinton River (Oakland County 12 towns), Milk River, or Connor Creek to name a few of many sites that have several times in the past had discharges.
We ask this of you and the members of the DEQ. Would you be willing to swim along the shoreline? See the pictures we are showing. Consider the discharges of hundreds of millions or billions of so called “treated” discharges. It’s still gross. We should be working on separating sewage from storm waters and updating our infrastructure to last us the next 100 years instead of putting us 100 years back. Save Lake St. Clair organization was built on the philosophy of working together to accomplish one goal: stop all sewage overflows….no discharge treated or untreated should be “good enough.”
Earlier this week Macomb County Mark Hackel and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder acknowledged that there are massive amounts of sewage entering Lake St. Clair as a result of outdated sewer systems. Is the DEQ calling our state officials liars? Furthermore, as Save Lake St. Clair stated earlier, we receive our information directly from the DEQ website. Does that mean that the DEQ is misleading the public?
What are your thoughts? Comments welcomed.
The DEQ is now saying that the sewage dumped into Lake St. Clair is safe. Furthermore, the DEQ is stating that Save Lake St. Clair organization is misleading the public based on our recent activity. Please read this article written by Chad Selweski
First, let us point out that Save Lake St. Clair’s mission is not to mislead the general public but rather to raise the overall awareness of our flawed sewage systems. They have been neglected. Witness the past events that shut down our beaches, threaten our lake’s ecology and fishery, and, most importantly, put our drinking water at risk. Remember, 40% of the state of Michigan uses Lake St. Clair as its drinking water source.
Now here are the facts….
Save Lake St. Clair reports exactly what is on the DEQ website. Here is where we get our information. Please click on the link to verify that we are quoting accurately what the DEQ itself reported. Please see in the comment section below the picture we took from that site to verify.
The discharges in question were labeled “SSO” discharges. Per the DEQ website a SSO discharge is “Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSOs):
If anyone else out there reads this and sees something other than what we are reading please advise because we are having a hard time understanding how the DEQ can state that Save Lake St. Clair is misleading the public when, in fact, Save Lake St. Clair is taking the numbers and the information directly from the DEQ’s own site.
Fact, even during a CSO (combined sewage overflow) the DEQ says they meet their standards, which reports have shown DEQ works only to ensure a technical minimal compliance.
Fact, Save Lake St. Clair knows minimal compliance is resulting in human waste DNA in our water, closing down beaches and having overall negative impacts, yet DEQ instead of trying to make it better continues to argue its “good enough.”
State of Michigan tests confirm human waste build up along Lake St. Clair shoreline.
Unfortunately, according to this article, the DEQ only addresses the Martin retention basin and does not mention the Clinton River (Oakland County 12 towns), Milk River, or Connor Creek to name a few of many sites that have several times in the past had discharges.
We ask this of you and the members of the DEQ. Would you be willing to swim along the shoreline? See the pictures we are showing. Consider the discharges of hundreds of millions or billions of so called “treated” discharges. It’s still gross. We should be working on separating sewage from storm waters and updating our infrastructure to last us the next 100 years instead of putting us 100 years back. Save Lake St. Clair organization was built on the philosophy of working together to accomplish one goal: stop all sewage overflows….no discharge treated or untreated should be “good enough.”
Earlier this week Macomb County Mark Hackel and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder acknowledged that there are massive amounts of sewage entering Lake St. Clair as a result of outdated sewer systems. Is the DEQ calling our state officials liars? Furthermore, as Save Lake St. Clair stated earlier, we receive our information directly from the DEQ website. Does that mean that the DEQ is misleading the public?
Save Lake St. Clair has answered many questions of mine without even trying. The information I’ve read has been very valuable & logical and explains what the heck has been happening over the years to the safety of Lake St. Clair.
Why has it been 10 years since the either facility has passed a water quality test?