By Jeff Alexander  

            Spring got off to an ugly start this year in metro Detroit, where torrential rainfall highlighted one of the most serious problems facing the Great Lakes.  Stormwater that drained off streets and parking lots in southeast Michigan overwhelmed Detroit’s massive sewage treatment facility, which collects and treats stormwater runoff and sanitary sewage in combined pipes.  To avoid flooding basements, city officials discharged 3-billion gallons of raw and partially treated sewage mixed with polluted stormwater into the Rouge and Detroit rivers, according to government data.  That problem, known as a combined sewer overflow (CSO), wasn’t an isolated incident.            

A month later, rainfall again overwhelmed the sewer system and Detroit dumped 6.2 billion gallons of raw and partially treated sewage mixed with stormwater into the Detroit and Rouge rivers.  That was followed by a 2-billion gallon discharge on May 14, a 6.9-billion gallon discharge on May 23 and a 6-billion gallon discharge on June 11. 

 The problem isn’t unique to Detroit.  Four decades after Congress passed the landmark Clean Water Act, many cities with inadequate sewer systems continue to use the Great Lakes as toilets following periods of heavy rainfall.  From January 2009 through January 2010, just five cities on the U.S. side of the Great Lakes — Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Milwaukee and Gary, Ind. — discharged 41-billion gallons of raw and partially treated sewage mixed with filthy storm water into the lakes. That volume equaled the amount of water that flows over Niagara Falls during a 15-hour period.  Nearly 200 communities on the U.S. side of the Great Lakes basin have combined sewer systems, many of which routinely discharge untreated sewage into the lakes, according to government data. Many Canadian cities have similar problems.  Sewer overflows contribute to beach closures, fuel nuisance algae blooms, threaten public health and harm the region’s tourism economy.           

Detroit gets much of the bad press for CSOs but Chicago may be the poster child for the problem.  In September 2008, a record storm that dumped 6.6 inches of rain on Chicago forced the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District to open emergency floodgates to prevent urban flooding.  Over the course of two days, Chicago discharged 99 billion gallons of stormwater and diluted sewage into Lake Michigan. It was the city’s largest discharge of untreated sewage into the lake since 1985, when Chicago opened the first section of a huge deep tunnel storage system that was supposed to prevent discharges of untreated sewage into Lake Michigan.  Chicago spent $3 billion on the deep tunnel storage system but the CSO problem has worsened in recent years, according to a Chicago Tribune article.           

The city of Detroit has spent $758 million since the 1980s on projects that have brought about a 65 percent reduction in raw sewage discharges to the Detroit and Rouge rivers. But the city still discharges billions of gallons of raw and partially treated sewage into the rivers each year, according to government data.            

Grand Rapids is one of the few bright spots in the war on CSOs. The city reduced its sewer overflows by 99 percent over the past two decades by spending more than $200 million to separate sanitary and storm sewer pipes and upgrade its sewage treatment facility.           

The U.S. EPA estimates that the nation faces a $298 billion backlog in wastewater infrastructure improvements — with communities in the Great Lakes basin facing a $23.3 billion tab. Reducing the incidence of CSOs to a level the EPA considers acceptable would collectively cost the cities of Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Milwaukee and Gary, Ind., about $3.7 billion.            

Unfortunately, most cities lack the funds needed to eliminate CSOs and federal funding for sewer upgrades has decreased sharply in recent years.  Federal appropriations for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund — which provides low-interest loans to communities for sewer upgrades — has declined from $1.35 billion in 1998 to $689 million in 2008.  While Congress increased funding to the Clean Water State Revolving Fund last year  — appropriating $2 billion in the 2010 fiscal budget and $4 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — there is a long way to go to meet the region’s wastewater infrastructure needs.            

Beach closures in Michigan due to bacterial pollution — contamination linked to fecal matter — have doubled in the last decade. Some of those beach closures were caused by CSOs; some were caused by polluted storm water runoff, according to state officials.  According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, 15 percent of Great Lakes beaches that were monitored in 2010 had high levels of bacterial pollution. 

Climate change could worsen the CSO problem.  That’s because the annual volume of CSOs is directly related to the amount of precipitation: The more it rains, the greater the likelihood that storm water will inundate combined sewer systems and cause a discharge of untreated sewage.  With climate change expected to increase precipitation and the incidence of severe storms in the Great Lakes region, the incidence of CSOs will likely increase unless dramatic actions are taken to better manage stormwater runoff.           

Combined sewer overflows are a vexing problem, but it’s important to remember that we’re talking about protecting lakes that provide drinking water for 30 million people and support one of the world’s largest regional economies.  It’s no secret that America’s infrastructure — roads, bridges, sewer pipes and water mains — are crumbling. Securing more funding for sewer upgrades and improving other infrastructure is a tall order amid the federal government’s current budget crisis.  Congress and President Obama have provided $775 million over the past two years for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The GLRI is an unprecedented effort to clean up toxic hot spots, reduce polluted runoff, restore fish and wildlife habitat and prevent new invasive species from storming the Great Lakes.         

Investing in Great Lakes restoration is long overdue. But spending hundreds of millions of dollars to heal the lakes while cities continue to use these them as toilets is akin to giving a liver transplant to a hardened alcoholic.  The Great Lakes and all who rely on these nonpareil waters deserve better.                                            

             Jeff Alexander is an award winning writer based in Grand Haven and the author of “Pandora’s Locks: The Opening of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway.” You may purchase his book at www.jeffalexander.org/books.

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