The broken sewer pipe at the Fraser sinkhole released more than 12 million gallons of raw sewage into the Clinton River and Lake St. Clair, according to new information released by the state Department of Environmental Quality.

The Macomb County Public Works Commissioner’s Office had reported that heavy rain and snowmelt on Dec. 26-27 forced the discharge of sewer waste into the waterways near the 15 Mile Road collapse. But engineers working on the project did not reveal the amount.

In its year-end figures for sewage discharges in Macomb County, the DEQ pegged the volume at 12.6 million gallons.

That is the equivalent of 933 backyard swimming pools, based on an average size.

According to the DEQ, the dumping occurred near three locations: a sewage pump station at 15 Mile and Garfield Road in Fraser, a pump station at Garfield and Clinton River Road in Clinton Township, and a pump station at Garfield and Millar Road, also in Clinton Township.

Work crews diverted untreated sewage away from the sinkhole to the waterways because of concerns that it would back up into basements of nearby homeowners. Officials hope no further discharges will be needed.

The troubled 15 Mile section of the massive Oakland-Macomb Interceptor, which runs through Fraser, Clinton Township and Sterling Heights, has collapsed four times since 1978 due to poor soil conditions.

The 100-feet by 250-feet underground sinkhole that was discovered on Christmas Eve has resulted in the evacuation of 22 homes. The damages are expected to take at least several months to repair.

The raw sewage that was pumped to avoid disastrous conditions at the sinkhole site flowed through residential areas, via the Faulman Drain and the Clinton River, to Lake St. Clair.

All of this is occurring as the new Public Works Commissioner Candice Miller took office on Sunday. The former longtime commissioner whom she defeated in the November elections, Tony Marrocco, has not commented on the sinkhole. He has reportedly spent the past two weeks in Florida.

A grassroots environmental group, Save Lake St. Clair, reported today that 2.3 billion gallons of sewage was dumped into the Macomb County sections of the river and the lake in 2016. DEQ annual data indicates that most of that wastewater was discharged by the GWK Drain (formerly known as the Twelve Towns Drain) in neighboring Oakland County and by the Chapaton sewage retention basin in St. Clair Shores, which is operated by Macomb Public Works.

Most of the sewer overflows were partially treated with chlorine before being released. More than 300 million gallons was discharged in 2016 from the Martin retention basin, also operated by Macomb County, which is the subject of controversy. A long-running dispute between the DEQ and Macomb centers on the state’s insistence that the treatment methods at Martin, which is located on the Lake St. Clair shoreline, are inadequate. As a result, the DEQ has been labeling the Martin outfalls as SSOs, or sanitary sewer overflows, which means they bare some resemblance to raw sewage.

“Let’s face it, 2016 was a terrible, horrible, no good year for the ‘Heart of the Great Lakes’ known as Lake St. Clair,” said SLSC founder Mike Gutow.

 

Photo: WDIV-TV screenshot