GLIN==> Major Great Lakes Polluter?s Plan Needs Closer Scrutiny

Alliance for the Great Lakes

For Immediate Release				
Monday, Feb. 8, 2010 					     
   								
Contact: Lyman Welch
312-939-0838 x230

Major Great Lakes Polluter’s Plan Needs Closer Scrutiny 

A public hearing is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10 to hear concerns about Detroit’s scaled-down proposal to address sewage and stormwater overflows into the Detroit River and beyond to Lake Erie.

Known to release billions of gallons of combined untreated sewage and runoff into the Great Lakes each year during heavy rains, Detroit’s sewage plant is the Great Lakes’ largest source of such pollution.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment is hosting the hearing to hear comments on the treatment plant’s new, less-costly plan for curbing so-called “Combined Sewer Overflows.”

The city’s financial difficulties, fueled by the national economic crisis that left Detroit’s major auto companies especially hard hit, led the city to abandon a $1.7 billion plan it committed to in 1996. That plan involved building a stormwater storage tunnel to handle the overflow.

Instead, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department is asking state environmental regulators to permit a green-infrastructure plan to reduce the stormwater and agricultural runoff that ultimately makes its way to the treatment plant. 

The new plan -- estimated at $33 million annually instead of $190 million – calls for building swales and tree trenches along roadways, parking lots and open spaces; disconnecting residential and municipal downspouts; and demolishing vacant structures and replacing them with native plantings.

“The changes proposed to the city’s plans to reduce pollution are important in protecting the health of Lake Erie,” said Alliance Water Quality Program Manager Lyman Welch.

“Key issues in this alternative program need to be given more thought,” he said, adding that Michigan regulators must assess the validity of the proposal’s financial and environmental benefits. “As the Great Lakes’ largest contributor of combined sewer overflows, the new changes could affect water quality in all the lakes for years to come."

In 2007 the Detroit plant reported that such overflows sent 23 billion gallons of combined untreated and partially treated sewage with storm runoff into the Detroit River and beyond to the Great Lakes. 

The hearing will be held at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Environmental Interpretive Center, 4901 Evergreen Road in Dearborn, Mich. 

Public comments will be accepted through Friday, Feb. 12. Send written comments to Thomas Knueve, Permits Section, Water Bureau, Department of Natural Resources and Environment, P.O. Box 30273, Lansing, MI 48909. E-mail comments to knuevet at michigan.gov, or call 517-241-9535.

For more information about the revised CSO plan, see: http://www.dwsd.org/announce/dwsdurtexecsummaryFINAL121509.pdf 

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Formed in 1970, the Alliance for the Great Lakes is the oldest independent Great Lakes citizens’ organization in North America. Our mission is to: conserve and restore the world's largest freshwater resource using policy, education and local efforts, ensuring a healthy Great Lakes and clean water for generations of people and wildlife. More about the Alliance for the Great Lakes is online at www.greatlakes.org. 



Susan Campbell
Communications Manager
Alliance for the Great Lakes
414-540-0699
Visit http://www.greatlakes.org



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