A long time blame game between Oakland County and Macomb County over combined sewer overflows is heating up again.
The overflows happen when heavy rains overwhelm combined sewage and stormwater retention basins, and the water is released with only partial treatment with chlorine.
For years, Macomb County's public works commissioner has accused Oakland County of not doing enough to stop those releases from one of the largest retention basins in the country, the Kuhn Treatment Basin, which releases into a Macomb County drain.
Oakland County has between eight and 10 releases of partially treated combined stormwater and sewage each year after heavy rains — which the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy says is in compliance with federal and state discharge regulations.
But Miller blames the discharges for pollution in Lake St. Clair, and says Oakland County has refused to invest as much as her county in sewer overflow system upgrades.
Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner Jim Nash disputed Miller's claims during a press conference on Wednesday.
“Macomb County’s water quality issues did not develop overnight, nor were they caused by Oakland County,” Nash said. “This is nothing more than a political diversion from the real problem — Macomb County's failure to address their own infrastructure issues over the past decade."
Miller also accused Oakland County's combined sewer overflow systems of causing beach closures and bacterial deposits along the beaches of the lake.
"There is no correlation between our retention treatment basin operations and beach closures or the ‘muck’ on Lake St. Clair,” said Nash. “Many federal, state and regional agencies have shown that these problems are primarily caused by runoff from animal waste and fertilizer, as confirmed by Macomb County's own health department data.”
Oakland County Commissioner David Woodward said there was no other county in the state that has invested more in its water and sewage treatment system than Oakland County, including encouraging residents to install rain barrels and rain gardens to keep rain from rushing into stormwater sewers during heavy downpours.
"Enough is enough," Woodward said. "We will continue to do the work, and my call to Macomb County is to do your part and at minimum try to meet us halfway in terms of the investment we're doing here in Oakland County."
The Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, which represents both counties, said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is conducting studies addressing Lake St. Clair water quality and flooding in the region.
The agency said the region needs more than $3 billion annually for drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater improvements to keep its assets in fair to good condition, and that does not include increasing capacity for projected increases in future rainfall events due to climate change.
SEMCOG said it's crucial for the state to pass a bill to allow local communities — most of which do not have a separate funding source for stormwater infrastructure — to assess taxes to fund that infrastructure.
"Without this legislation, we will continue to experience flooding across the region and more water quality challenges," said Kelly Karll, manager of SEMCOG's environment and infrastructure group.
