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 “This is going to become more normal and we need to understand that ‘100-year storm’ is an outdated term.”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
When looking at plots of the frequency of 2″+ rain in a day, as shown above, it is very important to take into account the TOBS (time of observation) factor. It used to be that the measurements were taken in the late afternoon, but over the decades virtually all stations have been switched to morning measurements.
Since heavy rainfall events are very often late afternoon thunderstorms, the old measurement timing was likely to split the storm’s precipitation into two separate days. This is much less common with morning observation.
Stormwater piped systems are seldom designed for more than a 20 year storm. In fact, with the advent of storm water retention systems including roof, parking lot, and storm water ponds, local piped systems may only be capable of carrying a 5 year event, with the overland flow carrying up to a 1:100 event. After that, it is between you and your insurer. Buy on high ground.
From the current City of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada:
Storm Drainage Design Criteria:
Major/Minor System Concept: An urban area will have two separate storm drainage systems, the minor system and the major system. The minor system consists of the pipe network, plus gutters and inlets which provide a convenience system to rapidly carry away storm runoff from road surfaces for minor rainfall events. The major system conveys runoff rates and volumes for a 1 in 100 year rainfall event which exceed the capacity of the minor system. The major drainage system consists mainly of overland drainage conveyance elements.
Minor System Level of Service: Storm mains which service areas of 30 hectares or less are to be designed to convey runoff from 1 in 5 year and more frequent rainfall events. Mains servicing areas greater than 30 hectares are to be designed to convey 1.25 times the rate of runoff which would occur in a 1 in 5 year rainfall event.
Ponding Depths: The minor system should be designed such that the depth of ponding in the street does not exceed 0.15 metres in a 1 in 5 year rainfall event. The major system should be designed to limit the depth of ponding in the street to 0.35 metres in a 1 in 100 year rainfall event.
it’s bigger than Detroit:
11 Aug: Bloomberg: James Nash: L.A. Faces $15 Billion Bill as Pipes Spring Leaks: Cities
From buckling sidewalks to potholed thoroughfares to storm drains that can’t handle a little rain, the infrastructure that holds the second-largest U.S. city together is suffering from years of deferred maintenance. Bringing pipes that deliver water to 3.9 million people up to snuff could cost $4 billion — more than half the city’s annual operating budget. The bill for repaving streets will be almost that much, according to estimates from a city consultant, and patching or replacing cracked sidewalks will require $640 million…
Many cities and states are in the same rusty boat, having put off investing in bridges, wastewater systems, dams and other public works that need regular maintenance and upgrades. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the country would have to spend $3.6 trillion to get the nation’s infrastructure in decent working order by 2020. ..
“Our children will inherit this problem unless we do something about it soon,” he said. “The cost doubles about every 10 years.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-11/l-a-faces-15-billion-bill-as-pipes-spring-leaks-cities.html
Could I suggest that bloggers on WUWT give an indication of their country when using geographical references? It seems that the larger the country, the more likely the commentator is to disregard the fact that readers are spread all over the globe so do not necessarily know which “Windsor” someone may be referring to. Adding “Ontario” or “UK” would be so helpful.
Mike, in little New Zealand.
Jimmy Carter has the answer: raise your taxes!
http://poorrichardsnews.com/post/94627639268/jimmy-carter-the-only-reasonable-solution-to-global
Man-bear-pig owned a Chevy, once, and that experience of owning one caused man-bear-pig to hold a grudge against the city of Detroit which can only result in man-bear-pig’s wrath being brought against the city.
Detroit.
Speaking of “100 year”, after our local flooding last year I was explaining to someone that, contrary to their belief that it was the worst flood in the city’s history, it was actually rated as a “20 year flood”. Their smug, self-assured response was, “That’s not true, there wasn’t any flooding in 1993”.
As Bill Engvall would say, “there’s your sign”.
I live in the Metro Detroit area and commute through the affected area. I was just glad that 8 Mile road was fully open this morning on my way into work. Yesterday it looked kind of like a zombie apocalypse with all the abandoned cars all over the place. I had to drive through the Ghetto to get back home.
One of the problems in this area is all the major highways like 696, I75, M39, M10 are built like ditches with 20 foot tall concrete walls on each side. As you can imagine with roads constructed like that the biggest flooding happened at the lowest points in the system where these road cross and one is forced under the other one. I believe I75 at 696 had about 15 feet of water on it Tuesday morning, looked more like a river than a highway. That area also had multiple bank failures where the earth underneath the service drives were washed away.
Taphonomic says (August 13, 2014 at 9:44 am): “Now Detroit’s woes are being blamed on global warming; didn’t they used to be Bush’s fault?”
Global warming is Bush’s fault, so by the transitive property of political fault, Detroit’s woes are Bush’s fault. 🙂
M.J. Wise (August 13, 2014 at 6:34 am) “The only really comparable recorded event for Detroit occurred on July 31, 1925. Still sounds like a 100-year event to me.”
The event in 1925 and the one in 1926 are both comparable. As I posted at the Washpost, both of those events were caused by the rapid growth of Detroit in the roaring 20’s, especially the large number of new automobiles in and around Detroit which caused local climate disruption. I’m not sure I should have posted that there as some readers might miss the sarcasm.
I dont know about Detroit, but in most countries I am familliar with, the local authorities make a careful division between storm water and sewerage systems.
This is to prevent the very problem that Detroit appears to be suffering from right now.
Storm water, which is relatively clean, is/should be ducted by gutters and pipes to natural storm water channels such as streams, rivers and the sea.
Sewerage goes to the sewerage treatment facility.
Makes a lot of sense keeping the sewerage seperate from storm water – no chance of flooding – unless residents take short cuts and direct storm water into sewers.
Anyway I must say the article confuses me somewhat. Does Detroit actually have sewerage overflowing on the streets or is there just an excess of storm water?
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Here in Phoenix the older freeways have pumps installed to get rid of the rainwater that would otherwise flood the roads. I wonder if Detroit’s roads also have pumps for the same purpose or perhaps they need to add them.
So how do we account for the increasing population in the sunbelt states? If global warming is such an issue, shouldn’t people be migrating out of the sunbelt?
Could this just simply be a grab for the EPA’s budgeted funding earmarked for just such events in the FY14 request to congress? An excerpt from the Testimony of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy before Congress, discussing the EPA’s 2015 FY budget proposal (from the EPA Press Release of 9 April 2014):
“Building on existing efforts and base budget resources, the Agency has added $10 million and dedicates 24 FTE’s in FY 2015 to support the President’s climate action plan. $2 million is designated for technical assistance for adaptation planning for water utilities at greatest risk from storm surges. Research and development efforts will focus on support tools for at-risk communities and tribes in preparing for the impacts of climate change.”
Hmmmmmmm – one must wonder……probably part of the issue……
“Climate Change” aka weather, is the politician’s dream come true. It can either be a convenient excuse for failure or a reason to grab funds. It’s also a great bandwagon issue, since many people have been stirred into a frenzy by the lamestream sleaze media about “extreme” or “crazy” weather.
Thus, they can puff themselves up in importance by appearing to “care” about the planet, and helping to bring our weather back to “normal”.
Climate hysteria articles based on whatever is happening outside today.
http://news.yahoo.com/heavy-downpours-increasing-scientists-214639515–abc-news-topstories.html
Wasn’t it due to an unusually cold air mass driving the cold front?
Back in the 1920’s Detroit had a good public transit system so many did not own automobiles.
There is no raw sewage water on the streets. Flooding is from water running off from buildings and paved surfaces into a system that can’t handle that much rain in a short time.
Detroit has a network of old railway spur lines that cross city streets. Large amounts of rain flood these railroad underpasses cutting off the streets to vehicle and pedestrian traffic. Creates a traffic nightmare to find a way around these flooded underpasses. This is an old problem in Detroit which goes back years and years and long before Detroit was broke.
While politicians and environmentalists are blaming everything including clogged drainage to climate change, it is refreshing to hear that Bjorn Lomborg “the skeptical environmentalist” surveyed 60 eminent economists, including four Nobel Laureates, to list the most serious world problems that needed immediate solutions. Deworming of schoolchildren ranked higher than climate change. LOL Finally economists that made sense!
rogerthesurf says:
August 13, 2014 at 3:19 pm
In the US, developments since say 1970 (the timing varies by state) carefully keep storm drainage separate from sewage. As cities installed systems, some were combined systems with both sanitary and storm drainage. If there was treatment, excess flows from storm drainage was bypassed to the waterway. In the 1970’s treatment requirements became more strict and the systems began to be separated depending on whether it was more economical to treat almost all or construct the separation process. It is not an easy task to separate a sanitary sewer system from a storm water system. The process continues to today. As treatment requirements become more strict, it becomes more economical to separate more and more systems.
It is in the largest cities, such as Detroit, where the process to separate is the most difficult and therefore has been deferred the longest. Those are also the areas where the whining is the loudest and the political leverage is the greatest.
Some of us or maybe just me, need charts explained. Frequency .005 means what?
Michigan warming? My relatives will be glad to hear that.
My sister and brother-in-law in Grand Rapids MI have not even uncovered their trailered Sea-Doos this summer.
Let alone taken them out to any of their favorite spots like Grand Haven. I spoke to them today.
“Why bother? It’s too cold”, they said.
I’ve been there several times in the summer and it was magnificently warm weather and water temperature.
Not so much now. Water only 48 degrees? Air temp low 52 & high of 65?
http://www.surfgrandhaven.com/cms/
Tuesday August 12
The water temperature in the swimming area of the Grand Haven City Beach is 48 degrees.
Wednesday August 13
Sunrise 6:48 am. Partly cloudy and unseasonably cool once again. Cold Lake Michigan water is making it a very comfortable summer, and not much need for a/c. High 65. Low 52. Winds northwest 7-13 mph. Sunset 8:50 pm.
Wednesday August 13
The water temperature in the swimming area of the Grand Haven City Beach is 47 degrees.
Thursday August 14
image
Sunrise 6:49 am. Mostly sunny and pleasant. A little more sun and a little less wind will make for nice conditions. High 68. Low 52. Winds west 7-13 mph. Sunset 8:49 pm.
MarkW says:
August 13, 2014 at 8:42 am
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.)
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I’ll second that.
PS: In my 67 years, I can clearly recall six 100 year floods: Judy, Hazel, Camille, Agnes, Floyd and Gaston. There are probably a few more that I can’t recall exactly, but the point is made.
He’ll be claiming the ‘extreme’ weather is to blame for the Lions sucking ass and not making the playoffs since 1999 next. It must of course be all that ‘unprecedented’ rain, snow and hot sunshine on that field when they play. Ahem…
GO BEARS!