Detroit blaming global warming instead of poor infrastructure maintenance.
Story submitted by Eric Worrall
The US City of Detroit is currently in the midst of a crisis – a massive rainstorm has overwhelmed the city’s sewer system, causing extensive flooding.
However, Craig Covey, spokesman for Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner Jim Nash, has blamed global warming for the floods.
According to Covey;
“The system worked exactly like it was supposed to, but we’re seeing these rain events that used to be unusual but just aren’t anymore,” Covey said. “This is going to become more normal and we need to understand that ‘100-year storm’ is an outdated term.”
Covey blamed climate change, and said federal and local governments need to make major investments in infrastructure because “this is exactly what Southeast Michigan’s weather is going to be like in the future.”
If the people of Detroit accept the explanation that global warming is to blame for the disaster, then nobody will be looking to blame the politicians who are responsible for maintaining the city’s waste water system.
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The actual rainfall data from the USHCN doesn’t support the claim:
Graph by Tony Heller from original NOAA data.
I wonder how well Detroit is keeping up with keeping the storm sewer system clear of debris? With so much of the city in urban decay, extra debris in the sewers is almost a given.
Even the EPA says regular cleaning is needed for storm water sewer systems to overflow:
Clogged drains and storm drain inlets can cause the drains to overflow…
One thing in the news recently about Detroit is the inability of many residents to pay their water bill. News media seems to have missed the connection in their own headlines.
Source: CBS Detroit
And as any homeowner reading this knows, the water bill also includes the sewage fee. When people aren’t paying the water bill, they also aren’t paying to keep the sewer system running. Here is the latest financial report for Detroit’s sewer system:
Source: http://www.dwsd.org/downloads_n/about_dwsd/financials/2013_sewage_fund.pdf
Note the yellow highlight, almost half of their budget is in “doubtful” aka unpaid accounts. Surely maintenance suffers when such a situation occurs.
No, it couldn’t be that. Why blame your own management of the sewer system when global warming is an easy out? – Anthony
“The system worked exactly like it was supposed to”
So the system was supposed to back up and flood? Interesting design.
The weather station at the Detroit Airport reported over 4 inches of rain in 6 hours. According to Rain Atlas 14, this is, as the article stated, around a 200 year event. Although design practice varies by local ordinances, generally the practice is to design urban stormwater systems for a maximum 2 year to 10 year event, depending on the value of the district. No urban stormwater system will carry a 200 year event, regardless how well maintained the system is. In extreme events such as this there will be localized flooding.
The flooding in this event is due to the magnitude of the event, NOT inadequate maintenance, NOT poor design, NOT poor construction. Maintenance, design, and construction might be contributing factors, but flooding in an event of this size is inevitable.
In the true sense of the term “climate change,” extreme flooding events are consistent with a change towards cooling as evidenced by what happened in Europe when it entered into the Little Ice Age.
Off the subject a bit but…..this Global Warming and its power…..???
Had to take the wife to Dr. over in Dallas, in the waiting room the mag. rack.
Keep in mind this is in “conservative Texas” with Rick Perry as Gov. who appoints the people who run Texas Parks ect. to include who runs this mag..
Texas Parks & Wildlife ,, May 2014
http://www.TPWMAGAZINE.com or http://www.tpwmagazine.com not sure which they have it in all caps on the mag cover.
Starts on page 45, “Unlocking the secrets of a songbird’s amazing journey” by Elaine Robbins
Great stuff on the trip of the birds to Brazil and back to Texas, good info….
but…
on page 49 right side of page….
“They now suspect tat climate change is a major culprit in the bird’s decline, and their last research focuces on whether the birds can adapt. The spring of 2012 was the hottest on record, but purple martins did not adjust their arrival time in North America, as some shorter distance migrants do.
This means they arrived late for the advanced spring…..
Will in never end?
Gotta add a comment here as I live in SE Michigan. Most of the news reports about flooding are concentrated in the suburbs north and west of Detroit – Ferndale, Berkley, Royal Oak, Warren, Sterling Height, and Dearborn and Allen Park to east. These local municipalities maintain their own water and sewer systems that tie into the Detroit water and sewage systems, and charge their own fees for service and system maintenance. The storm was unusual, dumping 5-6 inches, most of it during a few hours in the afternoon, in a swath from Detroit to the north, while I live about 30 miles northwest and got 2.75 inches in the rain gauge. I live in a very well managed township and we would have been flooded with this much rain in such a short time.
This has always been a problem for Detroit. Three times as many people (wealthiest) live in the suburbs, they depend on Detroit but pay no taxes. Not a hard math problem.
Some Detroit officials also place blame on vandals who allegedly stole copper pipe from “several” pumping stations: http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/08/13/copper-theft-a-possible-factor-in-metro-detroit-freeway-flooding/
Pamela Gray says:
August 13, 2014 at 6:24 am
“The downturn in the economy hits everywhere and with nearly equal force from the middle incomers down, and in every state and territory. The replacement of decent wages with service jobs will not get us out of this quagmire. The replacement of town and city sized risky private companies with investment based stock holder international corporations who depress their overhead in order to keep stocks up is a comeback damper as well, not to mention regulations. And to tell you the truth, I don’t know how we are going to get out of it.”
On the corporate side, allowing CEO’s to sit on one and other’s boards of publicly owned corporations to approve the outlandish compensation packages for themselves needs to be banned. This includes the golden parachute deals they get when they finally leave after screwing the company and stockholders into the ground. On the government side, the jobs are just too sweet and attract greed and slime rather than public service minded individuals. Cut the pay and benefits there and things might improve. Just removing the very high security given many politicians and you could get rid of the cowards, at least. Of course none of this will ever happen with the politicians and corporate fathers with hands in each other’s pockets. But, as usual, one can follow the money to the answers to most problems in this world.
MJ Wise is correct that Detroit is not in Oakland County and that the rain event was unusual.
Anthony was correct to point out that Craig Covey’s relating a 100-year event to global warming was idiotic and not supportable with any actual data.
However, the piling on about Detroit and its property taxes, sewer systems, and corruption seems unnecessary and off-topic for WUWT. There are a multitude of problems that declining cities face – from an inability to afford adequate police and fire protection, inability to fund infrastructure improvements, the poor health of its aging citizenry, and contempt and ridicule from those more fortunate and (often) far away.
What Detroit is facing is not that different from economic collapses faced by many cities over the past 50+ years – Newark NJ, Gary IN, Flint MI, Youngstown OH to name a few. When the jobs go, the people leave and the city struggles to survive. The problems are the same whether the climate is benign or hostile.
How can the system work as it’s supposed to when scrappers have stolen the copper?
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20140812/NEWS/140819961/state-officials-removing-water-doesnt-remove-trouble-freeways-could
In some cases, the pumping has been slowed by power outages and theft. Cross said MDOT has discovered several locations where thieves stripped out the valuable copper pipes from some pumping stations. Because those stations are used only when needed, they are not staffed 24/7. MDOT was unaware the copper had been removed — until now.
Cloaca Maxima is part of the sewer system the Romans built in ancient Rome. Still working.
Chris4692 says:
August 13, 2014 at 7:43 am
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/ohd/hdsc/Technical_papers/TP29P5.pdf
100 year events; page 26; 4.46″ for 6 hours, 5.01″ for 24 hours.
The current event was 4.57″ over “several hours”. The last event of this magnitude was 4.74″ over several hours 1925. Looks like this was right in the 100 year wheelhouse.
We live in the western UP of Michigan, more than 600 miles from Detroit, but Detroit news frequently makes the local radio broadcasts. Detroit’s “flooding” was discussed this morning. Not widely reported were the large number of inoperable storm/sewer system pumping stations… inoperable because of copper (wire) theft by the locals. Copper theft in this area has a long history, but usually it’s the looting of vacant buildings’ wiring, and lighting along highways & interstate bypasses that are hit. If you’ve driven through the Detroit metro area at night the last couple decades or so, you know what I’m talking about. The thieves steal copper wire and cabling and sell as scrap copper to metal recycling centers. I guess the heavy rains have now highlighted the fact that thieves have also been hitting the pumping stations.
“The system worked exactly like it was supposed to, …”
+++++++
Why would you design a system to cause flooding? Maybe all the pavement and concrete roads had something to do with it.
How about 30 years of mayor Coleman Young and his cronies? No one can undo that damage.
One of the reasons politicians cannot accomplish anything productive – ever – is that they have this mysterious compulsion to seek to blame problems on somebody else rather than to seek solutions.
As a practicing meteorologist I can tell you localized heavy rain events occur frequently. Most of them happen away from larger cities. By happenstance this synoptic event took place over a decaying city. These idiot politicians should be tarred and feathered. Unfortunately they get away with it because we have a populace that is scientificically inept.
Fifty years of Democrat control of detroit, with all of their concern for the poor, seems to have done wonders for the city in so may ways. What is that definition of insanity? “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”? I guess that goes for voting as well.
JohnWho – you don’t need a /sarc tag for that statement. It’s unfortunately all too true.
Welcome to the socialist utopia.
Even the EPA says regular cleaning is needed for storm water sewer systems to overflow:
Clogged drains and storm drain inlets can cause the drains to overflow…
(bolding mine)
Umm, oxymoron? How about something like “the lack of needed regular cleaning may cause storm water sewer systems to overflow.”
I hope an intrepid reporter will check this out and nail it down, one way or the other.
In addition to many residents being too poor to pay their bills, Detroit is suffering from significant population loss. This results in both loss of general property tax revenue and municipal utility revenue. Given Detroit’s dismal financial state, it’s no surprise that they can’t properly maintain their storm drain system. It’s also no surprise that politicians and bureaucrats want to make sure blame falls anywhere but on them.
aletho says:
August 13, 2014 at 6:02 am
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It wasn’t the mythical financial elites who drove those jobs out of Detroit.
It was the unions and govt that created the situation that it was too expensive to stay in Detroit.
Tell me, do you deliberately shop at the most expensive store in town? If not, why do you complain when companies do the same thing with their expenses?
Pamela Gray says:
August 13, 2014 at 6:24 am
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First off the “decent paying jobs” only existed in the first place because WWII devasted every first world country except the US. It was inevitable that the rest of the world would eventually recover and start competing with us again. It was also inevitable that 3rd and 2nd world countries would not be content with their poverty and would seek to become 1st world and to compete with us as well.
Secondly, service jobs can pay very well thank you. I’ve become quite comfortable doing such work. (Clue, service jobs are pretty much any job that doesn’t involve manufacturing.)