PROTECTING THE QUALITY OF WATER
In-storage system will hold overflows instead of discharging them into Lake St. Clair
Many Macomb County residents who enjoy Lake St. Clair for one reason or another can remember days during the summer when the only thing on the beach besides the sea gulls were signs stating “beach closed.”
In recent years, while it doesn’t happen as often due to improvements to the county’s infrastructure, beaches at the park and others up and down the lakefront are sometimes off limits. Last June the beach at St. Clair Shores Memorial Park, Walter and Mary Burke Park in New Baltimore as well as Lake St. Clair Metropark were closed because of high levels of bacteria.
Now there’s another project in the works that could make those closures even less frequent.
Macomb County Public Works Commissioner
Candice Miller announced Tuesday that a major underground infrastructure project designed to reduce combined sewer overflows into Lake St. Clair is under construction and expected to be completed by the end of 2023.
“Macomb County is very focused on protecting our Great Lakes water quality,” Miller said. “We are spending the dollars needed to upgrade our infrastructure because we recognize it’s an investment in a cleaner environment for ourselves and future generations.”
The project is called “insystem storage” because it will utilize existing underground infrastructure to store flow during heavy rains instead of discharging it into Lake St. Clair, which has been the practice for decades.
Current excavation is underway on Beaconsfield Avenue, south of Nine Mile Road in Eastpointe, to al
“We are spending the dollars needed to upgrade our infrastructure because we recognize it’s an investment in a cleaner environment for ourselves and future generations.”
— Candice Miller, Macomb County public works commissioner
low workers to reach the 11 ½-foot-diameter sewer pipe that lies about 50 feet below the surface.
A section of the very large concrete pipe will be cut away to allow for the installation of a rubber weir that can be inflated during a heavy rain event, and then slowly released after the rain so that the flow can be sent to the Great Lakes Water Authority’s Detroit wastewater plant for proper treatment, rather than pumping it into Lake St. Clair.
“Although the basic chemical treatment and discharge of CSOs is permitted by the state, it shouldn’t keep going on generation after generation,” Miller said.
She added the new “insystem storage” will cost $12.4 million and will be paid for using federal, state and county funding with no increase in sewer rates passed on to the residents of Eastpointe and St. Clair Shores served by this interceptor.
“Macomb County has the political will to spend the dollars for our environment. We all share a common goal of improving our water quality and our environment,” Miller said.
Under her direction as public works commissioner beginning in 2017, a release from her office stated CSOs have been significantly reduced while other projects are in the works that will continue to reduce CSOs from Macomb County.