Oakland County Sewage Issue: A Call for Action
MICHIGAN: An ongoing plume of unrest is rising between two counties bordering each other in the state. Local lawmaker, Doug Wozniak, is urging state officials to intervene and take a closer look at Oakland County’s sewage disposal practices.
Oakland County, a prosperous region in the state, operates under a Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO) permit. Under this system, both stormwater and sewage flow through the same pipes. These pipes often discharge untreated or partially treated wastewater into the Red Run Drain during heavy rainfall, which subsequently snakes its way into Macomb County’s Clinton River and ultimately into Lake St. Clair.
“This can’t go on,” says Wozniak. “Dumping vast amounts of wastewater into our waters isn’t right.”
He points out that there’s no reason influential Oakland County can’t commit resources tooverhaul the wastewater system. In contrast, he is urging the state’s environmental department to force Oakland County to revamp their combined sewage system, thereby ending the discharge of untreated and partially treated sewage into Red Run Drain.
Macomb County representatives have been rallying with this call to action since June, asking the state to legally require Oakland County to substantially decrease or eradicate its CSOs. Currently, legislation is being drafted to penalize Oakland for CSOs, however, Wozniak is urging the department to step in regardless of this pending process.
One of the key objections is that, currently, Oakland is the single county in the state permitted to unleash CSOs directly into a neighboring county, which poses considerable environmental and quality of life problems.
According to Jim Nash, Water Resources Commissioner for Oakland County, separating sewer and water systems is not an economically viable or scientifically justified solution. He also points out that operating under an expired permit is not uncommon while waiting for a renewal.
While this exchange continues, the crux of the matter is the well-being of the waters flowing through these counties, which in turn, impacts innumerable aspects of the residents’ lives, including water quality, recreational activities, and property values. Flooding is also a concern in the densely populated neighbors adjoining Red Run Drain, that are often subjected to the flooding of untreated waters.
With these concerns shadowing, there’s an active plea from the neighboring county to foster a mutually beneficial solution that safeguards shared environmental resources. The ball now is in the state’s court to adjudicate.
