16980 Kercheval Pl • McCourt Building • Grosse Pointe, MI 48230 • 313.882.6900 • Office Hours: Monday-Friday 9am-5pm

16980 Kercheval Pl. • Grosse Pointe, Michigan 48236 • 313.882.6900 • Monday-Friday 9am-4pm

By Brad Lindberg | on March 23, 2022

Photo by Brad Lindberg Former congresswoman and now Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Candice Miller, left, and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., announce $4.5 million in federal funding to jumpstart a $17 million infrastructure project in St. Clair Shores intended to reduce combined sewage overflows into Lake St. Clair and, thereby, along the Grosse Pointe shoreline.

THE GROSSE POINTES — Smokey Yunick, the mad genius of American auto racing, pulled a stunt during the 1968 NASCAR season that parallels mainstream efforts by municipalities to increase storm water sewer capacity and reduce backup flooding during flash rains.

Always trying to outmaneuver regulators — you don’t race cars; you race the rule book, Yunick said — he complied with limitations on fuel tank capacity.

At the same time, he capitalized on the rule book’s lack of specifications for the length and diameter of the fuel line.

Yunick thereby rolled out a race car with a regulation tank fitted to an 11-foot-long, two-inch diameter fuel hose that held five more gallons than otherwise.

The theory: more gasoline, fewer pit stops, finish first.

The same kind of thinking is behind work in Grosse Pointe Park to increase storm sewer capacity by cleaning pipes of debris and obstructions. The cleaner the pipes, the more runoff they hold before the system is filled or things go wrong at pump stations in Detroit, causing water to back into basements, as happened last summer to thousands of residents.

Similar thinking convinced federal officials to partially fund a $17 million Macomb County project to maximize sewer capacity and control flow in a 12-foot diameter pipe feeding a crucial pump station one mile north of the Grosse Pointes.

“An enormous pipe goes down from Eastpointe to Nine Mile into this facility,” said Candice Miller, Macomb’s public works commissioner and former congresswoman, standing among three, 2,750-horsepower storm pumps capable of pumping nearly 250,000 gallons per minute at the Chapaton station on Nine Mile below Jefferson. “It’s servicing all of Eastpointe and most of St. Clair Shores.”

Contractors already have been invited to bid on rigging the Nine Mile pipe to increase its holding capacity and manage flow.

“It assists in (water) storage,” Miller said during a news conference Friday, March 18. “We’re going to be installing weirs, rubberized bladders if you will. During a heavy rain when you have all this flow, we’ll be able to put those bladders up, hold the flow back and gently release it so we are able to send the flow down to Detroit for proper treatment.”

The new system is intended to reduce combined sewer overflows into Lake St. Clair. Overflows contaminate the Grosse Pointe shoreline manifested by beach closings at Farms Pier Park.

“This will not eliminate overflows,” said Miller, commissioner since 2017. “In the time I’ve been here, we have done a number of changes to our operational processes which we think have reduced the overflows by about 30 percent. This project, we think, will reduce overflows by another 30 percent.”

Step-by-step improvements to the sewer network are the most affordable and practical method of reducing discharges, she said.

“The optimal way to change these things is to separate sewers, but to separate sewers in this particular area you’re probably looking at well over $400 million,” Miller said. “That’s not going to happen, probably. My approach to this is how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

Although work takes place underground and could start within two months, construction won’t require digging up Nine Mile and disrupting traffic.

“You’re never going to see it,” Miller said. “We’re using existing infrastructure. We tried to think about value engineering and the way we can design something using existing infrastructure to its capacity.”

About one-third of the project is being paid with federal funds obtained by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., with whom Miller served in Washington.

“We started talking about this four years ago — how could we work to stop this sewage from ending up in Lake St. Clair and keeping the beaches open,” Stabenow said. “Today, in addition to passing the infrastructure bill, which is going to help Michigan broadly, we have specific help for this project. This one will receive $4.5 million to jump-start what needs to happen.”

The source of money to pay the balance hasn’t been found, although the state could be tapped.

“Because the federal government passed the American Rescue Plan, the states have some money,” Miller said. “We don’t plan on bonding. We think we’re going to be in good shape here, hopefully.”

Another facility in St. Clair Shores, the Martin Drain Pump Station on Jefferson at Bon Brae Street, also is due for upgrades.

“There’s $1 million earmarked for about a $5 million project,” Miller said.

“My experience in solving problems is you step forward, you make progress, you keep it going,” Stabenow said. “The commitment has been made — $4.5 million plus the other $1 million is not a small amount of money. Other opportunities are there to add to it. We’re going to get it done.”

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