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 “This is going to become more normal and we need to understand that ‘100-year storm’ is an outdated term.”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
“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…”
So does regular cleaning make the storm water systems overflow (not logical) or is it the clogged drains and storm drain inlets?
*********Typo alert!*********
The downturn in the economy hits everywhere and with nearly equal force
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Detroit has what, 90,000 abandoned buildings? Houses for sale for $1.00? Population has fallen by 1/2 since 1950. When people move out there is no demand for real estate, prices fall, everyone left loses their shirts.
The solution? The city government is bulldozing the city. For real. You can’t make this up. Civic improvement in action.
do not necessarily know which “Windsor” someone may be referring to
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the monarch’s preferred weekend home
they have this mysterious compulsion to seek to blame problems on somebody else rather than to seek solutions.
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if you don’t do anything you can never make a mistake. only people that actually do something are at risk of mistakes. therefore politicians concentrate of finding error, not on getting things done.
This is exactly the same as the flooding in South-West England – blame it on global warming when it was actually a deliberate policy of not clearing the flood drains.
This coupled with the less publicised closure of an MOD facility that used a very large quantity of water and as a result did a considerable amount of river maintenance that just stopped when it closed. This in spite of the management warning all the politicians that this would be a severe problem if the responsibility was not passed on properly. The politicians wanted the problems, to be able to blame global warming given the political capital invested in global warming / climate change.
@David Cage – Absolutely right. In the Somerset levels, they have put aside a large area as habitat as wetlands. because the climate is getting warmer and the computer says the water fowl will have no where to live. The UK met office predicted a dryer than usual winter, and since the UK Met Office has such an examplary record on predicting weather, the authorities preflooded the aforementioned wetlands.
Of course when the rains came, this area was already saturated and could not play it’s part in absorbing the rain to stop flooding. There is also a lot of evidence the UK Gov made a concious choice to stop the dredging that has been going on in teh levels since the Ducth engineers did their stuff in the 17th century to transform them from being marshes.
Apparently the silt from dredging operations, which has been spread on farmland for centuries, is now classedby the EU as a waste material and so costs to get rid of the have risen sharply – it can no longer be used to fertislise the land – so the goverment have stopped the dredging on costs grounds.
See what an unfortunate combination of idiots in charge can accomplish?
This has been used by liar politicians with poor policies since Katrina. The failure to maintain infrastructure now has the perfect ‘Stay’ out of Jail card. It is sufficiently nebulous but also sufficiently accepted by the man in the street to prevent most people looking further. Allow building on a flood plain – which floods – not the planning departments fault – its AGW. Don’t maintain 100 year old coastal defences, that then fail – its AGW.
Some astonishing extreme rainfall events:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/what-is-the-most-rain-to-ever-fall-in-one-minute-or-one-hour
“Commissioner Craig S. Covey is a graduate of Ohio State University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science and Communications.”
Color me gobsmacked.
Political Science. Because maths are hard!
pat says:
“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”
This problem cannot be overstated. After last Winter’s brutal conditions in the US, caused many billions in additional costs (road repairs, heating bills) it should be obvious that we are flushing multiple billions down the drain each year to address increasing CO2, a beneficial gas that is increasing global vegetative health/plant growth and crop yields/food supplies.
Funny, oh Big Ed never mentions that Detroit’s leaders have lined their own pockets for years, raised taxes to the max limit allowed, spent profligately on horribly under-performing municipal services, and chased away their tax base. Nope, he just sticks it to the Gipper!
http://touch.sun-sentinel.com/#story/sfl-chan-lowe-the-death-of-trickledown-economi-001/
Powerful ‘Big George Shultz’ of Ronald Reagan, Secretary of State and Hoover Institute fame wants Republicans to lead on global warming and carbon taxation. You have to remember that George Shultz and Hoover institute buddies Michael Boskin, John Taylor and Condoleeza Rice selected GW Bush. I’d be concerned about who they pick next. You cannot trust any of them anymore. Mr Fix-it Romney got their backing. Yeah, he’d have fixed it alright. Carbon taxes and war with Iran & Syria costing another 5-8 trillion.
We need a third party of skeptics with common sense.
Maybe the sewer system was overwhelmed due to the trash, bodies, and rats that are clogging them up? Nature just gave Detroit a good flushing – long overdue.
I would recommend Detroit City adopt a periodic maintenance schedule and that the Managers require the workers to accomplish this,. Starting with the pumping stations would be good. If this city were run by private enterprise, periodic maintenance procedures would have already existed.
Mike Maguire,
The major part of the problem is that bureaucrats and special interests have learned to game the system. It used to be that infrastructure was the top priority for tax money. But groups like the teachers’ unions, police unions, etc., have learned that they can trade their votes for taxpayer loot. So our tax money goes for ever higher salaries [while test scores stagnate and it takes ten minutes to respond to a 911 call], and the potholes never get filled.
Then, when school buildings are falling down from deferred maintenance, the same unions push ballot measures to ‘fix our schools’. The money was always there, but it got intercepted by politicians and diverted into teachers’ pockets in return for votes.
Taxpayers need to vote! That is the only thing politicians listen to. If we don’t vote, then the problem will get worse. Other cities will go the way of Detroit. It can easily happen.
RobRoy says:
August 14, 2014 at 11:29 am
On what basis do you think there is not already an existing maintenance program? The only indication so far of a maintenance issue is with the theft of pipe from pumps stations along the highway. Those may be the responsibility of the State DOT rather than the City. There has been nothing else other than assertions up to this point about the flooding being caused by maintenance problems.
It remains that the rain was above what storm systems are usually designed to handle. Some flooding from such a storm is inevitable regardless of maintenance. More information is needed before it can be concluded that the situation was exacerbated by maintenance issues.
Who am I kidding? It is a lost cause. In California the push is on to waste more than $100 BILLION on a stupid “bullet” train. Construction companies and their unionized workers are pushing for it, and taxpayers be damned.
The so-called ‘bullet’ train will take 4.5 hours to go from S.F. to L.A. because of all the politically necessary stops along the way. The cost will far exceed the claimed “$103 billion”; the time for construction will double or triple, and fares will never be enough: there will have to be permanent taxpayer subsidies.
Worse, there is already an extremely efficient infrastructure in place: airlines. I can fly from S.F. to L.A. in one hour, for about $100. Fares are not subsidized. I have taken airliners on that trip literally hundreds of times. I have taken AMTRACK from S.F. to Sacramento many times, too. Give me planes any time!
The system is so broken that nothing short of a revolution can fix it. So, BOHICA, taxpayers. You’re the sheep, and there is more wool there for the shearing.
And if a “carbon” tax ever passes, taxpayers will get it much worse — doubled and squared.
[Chris, you were probably typing and did not read my previous post. What do you think? Do you think maintenance is a priority? Or are salaries a priority? Which one gets the money first? Because there is never enough money for both.]
dbstealey says:
August 14, 2014 at 12:33 pm
I had read your previous comment when I wrote mine. It remains that there is as yet no reason to conclude that the flooding was largely due to inadequate maintenance. The rainstorm that occurred was larger than any event that storm sewers are designed to handle. Flooding in such an event will happen even if maintenance is perfect.
Most of the cost of maintenance on municipal utilities is labor: i.e. salaries. There is no dichotomy salaries vs maintenance. Salaries are a part of the cost of maintenance.
I know that this may not be the place for a political opinion, but the thing that destroyed
the greatest industrial city on the planet had nothing to do with science and everything to
do with politics. There are a series of photos showing what Hiroshima and Detroit looked
like in late 1945 vs what they look like today. The thriving middle class that used to work
in those now dead factories is now long gone. Decaying infrastructure and abandoned
suburbs is all that is left.
I would say that if you are looking to find an environmental cause for the decay of a
city, look somewhere other than Detroit. Find another city, The disaster that is
Detroit is entirely man made!
Some things to note:
Sewer and Storm are separated, and have been required to be so since the clean water act.
Only some communities in Michigan still have combined systems – most notably Port Huron, which still dumps some amount of sewage into the St. Clair River every time it rains. (They are slowly separating the systems while doing road work in the city, they should be done within the next 2 years.) (http://www.voicenews.com/articles/2012/07/03/news/doc4feb3dd145ad9778473546.txt)
Many of the pumping stations used to keep the freeways clear have been the subject of looting:(http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140813/METRO08/308130024/Detroit-area-roads-start-reopening-after-flooding)
And the aforementioned affluent flight to the suburbs over the past 50 years, have caused the city’s coffers (not to mention the damned corruption) to whittle down to nothing, causing the current bankruptcy issues.
Global warming isn’t the cause of Detroit’s flooding woes – poverty is.
Reblogged this on Norah4you's Weblog and commented:
Too many people needs someone or something to blame on…….
I’m quite sure the Politicians want to blame “climate change” and further the plan to tax us all with a Carbon tax, they conveniently don’t mention that copper plumbing is missing from the freeway stations used to clear the highways of water, rendering them useless. How were they working “as expected” with no plumbing and does anyone else find it terribly convenient that it was not noticed and repaired before this huge storm?
It shouldn’t be surprising how many people have no understanding of what a “100 year flood” means. These people don’t even understand that the chances of throwing a six with a dice doesn’t 6 will turn up every six throws.
Is it ignorance or stupidity or politics?
Get Nicole Curtis on this case! It feeds her rehab addiction (for rehabbing houses and such) and gives her much deserved media attention. Don’t know what her politics are. Don’t care. She can make mold, rot, and mildew look and smell like roses for the cost of a cup of coffee (like she would need the caffeine).
Maybe the author is going to rewrite the part about that link leading to the right post but just hasnt gotten around to it yet.