EERV application spells relief

Oct 26, 2023

By Brad Lindberg | on April 13, 2022

GROSSE POINTE PARK — There's no guessing when the installation of an emergency relief valve will start protecting the community from sewer water backups into basements during big rains, but if the new council's efforts to do so continue at the current pace, it will be sooner than later.

"My philosophy has always been to under promise and over deliver," said Max Wiener, one of six new members, including the mayor, elected in November to the seven-seat Grosse Pointe Park council. "We had an EGLE (the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy) meeting immediately after the election. It was a benefit knowing the new team shared the priority."

City Manager Nick Sizeland announced during the council meeting Monday evening, April 11, the city submitted a state environmental application to attach an extreme emergency relief valve, or EERV, to the city's sewer system.

"I officially signed the Part 41 permit for the EERV today," Sizeland said, referring to a section of state law governing construction of sewage systems.

"The Part 41 permit is the lynchpin that allows everything else to progress," said Wiener, an engineer and chairman of the infrastructure committee. "To get to this point, we had to produce a working model using standard operating procedures. From this, we’re doing cost analysis so we can go out to bid."

Twice during thunderstorms last summer, sewer and storm water backed into thousands of basements in the Park, the Grosse Pointes and a 64-square-mile area of southeast Michigan.

Even without power and equipment failures at sewage pumping stations in Detroit operated by the Great Lakes Water Authority, the downpours — up to 15.5 inches per hour during a five-minute period — were too big for existing sewer systems to handle, according to a GLWA analysis released last November and December.

Knowing it is unaffordable for every community in the region to expand the capacity of their sewer systems, Park officials have been pestering regulators for a less costly but still multi-million-dollar alternative in the name of EERV.

Photo courtesy of Grosse Pointe ParkGrosse Pointe Park's two top administrators and a consulting engineer are all smiles upon submitting a state application Monday, April 11, to install a flood relief valve to protect against sewer backups into basements. From left are Patrick Droze, an engineer with consultant OHM Advisors, Warren Rothe on his first day as the city's new assistant city manager and City Manager Nick Sizeland.

Plans are to connect the valve and new piping to an underground storm water retention tank at Patterson Park.

When a backup looms, the valve is opened manually to divert excess water — runoff combined with untreated sewage originating not only in the Park, but also upstream communities and in Macomb County that flow through the Pointes to a GLWA treatment facility in southwest Detroit — directly into Lake St. Clair.

"The design we’re using is a large diameter pipe that goes from the intersection of Essex and Three Mile to the wet well at the storm water pumping station," said Patrick Droze, an engineer with OHM Advisors, the Park's consulting engineers.

Droze proposed two methods of installation.

One, a traditional open cut involving digging a trench and laying a 66-inch diameter pipe, costs an estimated $1.8 million.

The other is expected to cost $2 million and is accomplished by boring a tunnel through which a pipe is set.

"We’ll continue to refine that cost estimate," Droze said. "This is based on a project I bid last year."

"I’m more excited about a valve than a dozen roses," Mayor Michele Hodges said.

Yet, even in flood control there are downsides.

For Park resident Roger Garrett and his neighbors, the downside is literal.

"We are very fortunate to live on the lake," Garrett told the council. "We’re also not so fortunate to live directly downstream of the storm drain. We are extremely concerned about the EERV. Unless you’ve been down to our homes, you cannot appreciate where we sit relative to that drain. When there is a significant rainstorm, what comes out of that storm drain is like Niagara Falls."

"We are committed to working closely with our residents and making sure EGLE holds us accountable to make sure those releases only occur under certain circumstances, so folks like our lakefront residents are not unnecessarily impacted," Hodges said.

Park officials sought advice, counseling, direction and influence from a number of counterparts, agencies, state administrators and lawmakers about how to design the valve for maximum effectiveness and draft the application for the best chance of approval.

Thanks all around

Hodges credited Sizeland.

"You know how to GSD: get stuff done," she told him. "Nick, you’ve done such a great job of bringing GLWA and EGLE to the table and making them allies rather than opponents. (State) Sen. (Adam) Hollier, (D-Detroit), and Rep. (Joseph) Tate, (D-Detroit), certainly have been helpful. St. Clare of Montefalco is part of the solution."

Turning to Wiener, Hodges said, "We cannot forget our Max. Your skillset couldn't be better timed; your tenacity and willingness to pull a team together toward a really important goal."

Wiener said the application process was a multi-pronged effort.

"Give credit to OHM, the mayor and city manager," Wiener said. "There was a lot of outreach to neighboring communities, to state and federal representatives. A lot of credit is due the Great Lakes Water Authority. It's become an excellent partner to exert pressure, because this isn't something just impacting our city. This relief, if utilized, also benefits neighboring communities, both up and down stream. So, everybody recognized the value and utility of it."

The infrastructure committee, on which also serve first-term councilmen Brian Brenner and Thomas Caufield, was scheduled to meet Thursday, April 14, after the Grosse Pointe News deadline.

"I want to stress that just because we’re advancing the process on the EERV, in no way are we letting off the gas with all the other work we’re doing," Wiener said.

"The words that matter are ‘focus, accountability, performance and result,’" Hodges said. "That's what this team is committed to. None of us have forgotten the devastation that occurred in our community less than a year ago. We’re never going to let that kind of crisis happen again.

"A great thank you to our residents, too, for just being patient through all this and trusting we’re going to get this done. We have a lot more work to do, but this is a huge milestone. It bears a high five."