Homeowner Paul Gutierrez stands at his Lake St. Clair seawall,
 which is now overwhelmed by a swampy area with huge weeds and green water.
 Photos by Ray J. Skowronek/Macomb Daily

 

Two days after Oakland County officials admitted that they dumped an unprecedented 2.1 billion gallons of partially treated sewage into the Macomb County waterways during the massive Aug. 11 storm, environmental activists on Thursday called for a return to the policing of polluters that was in place several years ago.
These activists warned that drenching rainstorms are becoming more common, and sewage system overflows packed with fertilizers and other “nutrient-rich” discharges will increasingly lead to a Lake St. Clair shoreline plagued by algae, tainted water and seaweed-style aquatic plants dominating the water surface.
“The citizens of Macomb County and Michigan want to be a part of the solution. Unfortunately, we are kept in the dark. But, ‘No news is not good news.’ Is it really Pure Michigan? Do we really have a Blue Economy? Who knows?” said Doug Martz, who served for 14 years as the first and only chairman of the now-defunct Macomb County Water Quality Board.
The recommendations of the 1997 Blue Ribbon Commission on Lake St. Clair – which were updated a decade later – established a Water Quality Board to oversee pollution problems, a special prosecutor to crack down on polluters, and a special Health Department team that inspected hundreds of miles of drains tracking down pollution “hot spots.”
All of the enforcement operations within that “three-legged stool” have been eliminated or sharply curtailed over the past several years.
Meanwhile, officials who oversee Oakland and Macomb sewer facilities say that the unrelenting storm of Aug. 11, which dumped 5 inches or more of rain in many of the suburbs, would have overwhelmed any sewage system.
Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner Jim Nash and Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Anthony Marrocco have cautioned that their drainage systems are not built for such a downpour in a relatively short amount of time.
Carl Freeman, professor of biology at Wayne State (foreground) and 
Mike Gutow of a new environmental group, Save Lake St. Clair, address the media.
Martz and others spoke at a press conference held at the Harrison Township lakefront home of Paul Gutierrez, with a swampy patch of weeds in the background jutting out from the seawall in a space equivalent to a large back yard.
The towering phragmites, similar to cattails, combined with other invasive species of plants growing in green water, have eliminated the Gutierrez family’s view of Lake St. Clair. Sometimes, they have to keep their windows closed due to the stench of human waste coming from their waterfront.
Critics say Oakland and Macomb county communities that discharge raw sewage into the drains and streams that flow into Lake St. Clair — owe some relief to those who live “at the end of the pipe.”
Gutierrez said he wants to see sewer relief valves shut down and all communities in the drainage area of Lake St. Clair engage in improvements that separate rain water from toilet water in two distinct networks of pipes.
“People say we can’t afford it. Well, how much did (the storm) cost all of those people in this area who had their basements flooded,” said Gutierrez, whose home is located in a stagnant section of the shoreline just south of the flush created by the mouth of the Clinton River Spillway. “It’s not until you live on the lake that you learn what the problem is.”
The 2.1 billion gallons flushed from southeast Oakland County on Aug. 11 occurred at the GWK Drain, traditionally known as the Twelve Towns Drain, that dumps directly into Macomb’s Red Run Drain at Dequindre south of 13 Mile Road. From there, the contaminants flow through residential neighborhoods to the Clinton River and then out to Lake St. Clair.
That volume of pollution doubles the tragic 1 billion-gallon discharge by Oakland County in 1994 that led to a summer of beach closings on Lake St. Clair and a buildup of seaweed mounds on the lakeshore. Following the Aug. 11 torrential rains, the Oakland County release through the GWK Drain was nearly seven times larger than all the overflows at sewer facilities in Macomb County combined.
A boat stuck in the muck on the Harrison Township shoreline.
The new figures from Oakland and other revisions bring the total sewage discharges into streams, rivers and eventually the lake on Aug. 11 to 2.5 billion gallons. That is the equivalent of 3,779 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
In addition, the amount of untreated raw sewage dumped into the waters by Macomb County communities during the flood was raised dramatically in the final numbers, from nearly 6 million gallons to 140 million gallons.
It took two weeks after the big storm before the public was made fully aware of all the sewage discharges that occurred in the hours and days of the aftermath.
The new numbers bring the total amount of partially treated and raw sewage spewed into the lake this year to about 4 billion gallons.
Linda Schweitzer, an associate professor of environmental chemistry at Oakland University, told the press on Thursday that low levels of pharmaceuticals and industrial pollutants could be hidden – and never detected – within those massive overflows of sewage-tainted rain water.
Carl Freeman, a Wayne State University biology professor, said that officials should also be worried about viruses in the discharged wastewater and a toxic version of bacteria known as microsystis.
Martz, Freeman and Schweitzer formed a trio about a dozen years ago that routinely warned the public of various pollution problems in the lake. Thursday’s press event marked the first time they have appeared together since County Executive Mark Hackel disbanded the Water Quality Board and replaced it with a new board, which meets privately and is focused on promoting lakefront entertainment events.
In his remarks, Freeman also suggested that the harmful algae blooms that earlier this summer shut down the drinking water systems of Toledo, Ohio, and a small portion of southern Michigan could blossom here due to poor water quality.
A decade ago, Macomb County played the lead role in creating a high-tech drinking water monitoring system that stretched from Port Huron through the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River to Wyandotte. But that protective network, put in place at 13 sites at an initial cost more than $2 million, has largely been shut down. Advocates say it could have been saved by tacking on a $1-per-year surcharge to property owner’s water bills in the tri-county area.
In the 1990s, Oakland County officials balked at spending $950 million to separate the sewers in the 14 communities that rely upon the Twelve Towns Drain. Instead, $144 million was spent to expand the massive sewage retention basin and make other sewer improvements in the surrounding area of Madison Heights.
That expensive project made only a marginal difference, Martz said, adding that several Macomb communities also have to answer for their lack of effort in eliminating the pollution problems.
“Warren is supposed to be a separated sewer system with separate pipes” for rainwater and sewage water, said Martz. “So why do the people in Warren have sewage in their basements … in their yards, in their streets? People shouldn’t have sewage in their basements in 2014. And we shouldn’t have sewage in this lake.”