In recognition of Great Lakes and Fresh Water Week, I’m taking over the SEMCOG blog with a few posts on underground infrastructure – something I’m really passionate about. I’ve been working on water infrastructure systems since college, and I love talking about things like storm drains, manholes, and valves. While they might seem mundane, these are essential parts of how we manage water. It’s all One Water. Let’s keep it fresh and keep it flowing.
As summer begins, many of us are working hard in our yards. I’m planting veggies, splitting hostas, and cleaning out my garage. It’s been raining fairly frequently here in Southeast Michigan, and my plants are loving it.
Only rain down the storm drain
While spring was a great time for DIY projects at my house, I have accumulated quite a pile of hazardous waste. Specifically, there is the remainder from when I thought it was good idea to change my own motorcycle oil and when I decided to repaint my whole house. I added it to my to-do list to call SOCCRA (Southeastern Oakland County Resource Recovery) and figure out where I can safely discard the used motor oil and paint leftovers. While I’m super thankful for a resource like this, I’m also nervous that many people in our region don’t know about these resources.
If I were to have spilled that motor oil in this rainy weather, it would have been drawn into the storm drain that is just east of my driveway. That oil would have gone into either a combined sewer system, or a stormwater collection system that eventually makes its way to our natural water bodies. Bear with me as I dive deeper into this scenario. Imagine that my oil was collected into this catch basin, but also that my neighbor was washing his car with that soapy residual water joining up with my motor oil. Now our other neighbor is weeding her yard with weed killer and tossing plant fertilizer all over her lawn. Finally, our across-the-street neighbor is walking her dog and – oops! – forgot the poop bags…again.
This pet waste, fertilizer, weed killer, car wash, and motor oil is all going into a single storm drain, on a single block, of a single street, in a single neighborhood, in a single county of our seven-county region in one part of the state. Now imagine if every resident and property owner were also dumping not-so-safe things on their yard, then multiply that by the 4.7 million people in Southeast Michigan. WHOA. We have a lot of gunk going right into our waterways untreated!
How do we prevent this from happening? Well, we can take small steps on our own properties. Figure out where you can properly dispose of your hazardous waste. Plant lots of native plants in your yard to soak up the rain and contaminants instead of letting it flow to the sewer. Pick up your pet waste. Use compost instead of chemical fertilizer. Do your best to educate your neighbors and communities!
Storm drain backup?
As long as we’re talking storm drains, why isn’t mine working? There’s still a pool of water even though it hasn’t rained for hours! This can be explained. Sometimes our streets are actually SUPPOSED to be flooded. The streets can act as surface storage when sewers are too full after a large rain event. These stormwater collection sewers are often times combined with the sewers that collect what we flush from our homes and businesses. Now, I would definitely prefer that the relatively clean rainwater floods my street a little bit rather than the wastewater mix in the pipes backing up into my basement or overflowing into our rivers and lakes.
As rain events get more frequent and the amount of rain falling gets larger, we need to be aware of how our infrastructure systems are designed to handle this rain. My house was built in 1940, and my community was almost fully developed by 1960. The frequency of rain they had back then wasn’t nearly as high as it is now, so the sewers were smaller. All the communities in our region and, frankly, our country, are dealing with these issues.
Let’s try to do our best to keep the runoff clean, or better yet, allow it to soak into the ground so it doesn’t even overwhelm the drain! Rain barrels, rain gardens, native plants, and proper disposal of waste will help to maintain our stormwater systems. The result? Safer and more enjoyable lakes, rivers, and streams.
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