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Fairway Park Streambank Stabilization, October 28, 2006

Slideshow
On a cold, drizzly Saturday morning about 15 volunteers gathered under two small tents on the edge of the Rouge River in Birmingham to celebrate the successful completion of the stream bank stabilization and buffer project begun one year ago.

A local volunteer, who had seen the results of a similar project in Farmington, instigated the project by contacting Friends of the Rouge, an organization focused on the restoration of the Rouge River.

Once FOTR got involved, the City of Birmingham stepped up.

Bill Craig, a technical advisor for FOTR worried that he will be spoiled after working on this project.

“Sometimes, you go into a community and they don’t want to hear you, they don’t have a budget, they don’t have any people and it’s hard to get something going. This one they were like, ‘What do you want? What do you need?’ I’m not used to this.”

Two sections of this small park have been overhauled. The city parks department lent the heavy equipment like earth movers to lessen the grade of the banks. The city also helped locate large trees for benches and huge boulders to shore up the banks. The soil was eroding at the end of a private seawall and where a large bend caused fast water to eat away at the bank. The group also recieved a $10,000 Great Lakes Commission Soil Erosion Control Grant to cover some of the costs.

Scott Moore, the Mayor of Birmingham said the Rouge will no longer be considered the backyard of the city if projects like this one continue.

The project had three phases according to Cyndi Ross an involvement coordinator at FOTR:

• Woody Debris Management: Placing logs and smaller pieces of wood in the river to slow the water down, stabilize the banks and provide habitat for aquatic organisms.
• Soft Soil Bioengineering: Using live plant material to stabilize the bank. In this case they bundled cuttings from shrubs and laid them in trenches along the base of the bank. The plants will take root and hold the soil in.
• Riparian Buffer Planting: Placing native plants further up the banks to hold the soil, filter runoff and provide habitat.

The first step is what usually throws people. Why put wood into the river? Craig said FOTR has had to learn a lot about river maintenance since their first Rouge Rescue clean up 20 years ago. He explained that when they started out, FOTR took everything out of the river that wasn’t water. Now they go so far as to actually put wood into the river.
“The concept of putting wood in the river is such a strange thing for the general public to understand, because most of the people see logjams as something that needs to be removed because of the aesthetic of it. It’s a jumble, it’s a mess, it doesn’t seem like it should be there. They’re so used to seeing rivers as free flowing.”

Craig said the group will break up logjams but they move the wood to the sides to protect the banks and provide habitat. Of the completion of the project Craig said: “It needs caring. It needs tending. Just like we mow the lawn.”

Status of the River

At a recent conference at University of Michigan, Dearborn, Rouge 2006 was held to discuss the current status of the river. According to the presenters, the biggest sources of pollution are inadequate sewer capacity, illicit connections, stormwater runoff, improper disposal of septage industrial discharges, treatment plants failing septic systems, wildlife and animal wastes, sanitary sewer overflows, combined sewer overflows, illicit connections, and inadequate treatment capacity. A panel discussion was held to discuss river's sustainabilty and the legal efforts and rulings. The panel included Judge John Feikens, U.S. District Court, John Dingell, U.S. Representative, District 15, John Conyers, U.S. Representative, District 14, Joe Knollenberg, U.S. Representative District 9, and Thaddeus McCotter, U.S Representative, District 11.

Sewage Control

There have recently been twenty cities surround the Great Lakes that have “an appalling record of handling their sewage” (Gorrie, 2006). Reporter Peter Gorrie wrote an article today (Nov 29, 2006) listing a couple of the cities with horrible grades, marked by a group studying the Great Lakes’ water management.

Toronto, for example was graded a “C.” The best score among these Canadian and U.S. urban centers was Green Bay, Wisconsin, with a marking of a “B ”. Detroit received the worst grade, a “D” (Gorrie, 2006). An article from CBS news, “Sewage Seeps into Great Lakes,” by Joe Fivas, states: “Most municipal systems in six Great Lakes states that combine stormwater with domestic and industrial sewage haven't met minimum federal standards for preventing such discharges, nor have they received approval for long-term plans to control overflows, the report said.” (2005)These sewage overflows cause highly potential health risks, as the Great Lakes provide our drinking water. Fivas also remarks, “The pollution ranges from bacteria, viruses and parasites to metals such as mercury and lead” (2005).

“It is estimated that the 20 cities — home to about one-third of the 35 million residents of the Great Lakes basin — dump more than 90 billion litres of untreated sewage into the lakes each year, the report says” (Gorrie, 2006). Unfortunately, only about 1% of the water flow changes each year, reports Gorrie. This leaves most of the pollution in our Great Lakes.

In 1997, nine steps were created, and made mandatory, for communities to follow regarding water clean up. However, nearly 62% of these communities have failed to follow them. “Only Michigan and Indiana require immediate reporting of overflows” (Fivas, 2005). Even so, the regulatory commissions in these areas do a horrible job inspecting and punishing communities for violating these rules. The CBS report states the reason for this lack of water clean up, is money. Therefore, the government will need to lend its support soon if we wish for any resolve. Unfortunately, the Bush administration “made a recent proposal to cut a federal loan program for upgrading treatment plants from $1.09 billion this year to $730 million in fiscal 2006” (Fivas, 2005).

Resources

Gorrie, P. (2006, November 29). Toronto gets 'C' for sewage control. Retrieved November 29, 2006, from http://www.thestar.com

Fivas, J. (2005, May 18). Sewage Seeps Into Great Lakes. Retrieved November 29, 2006, from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/05/18/tech/main696171.shtml

Related Pages

Combined sewers
Pollution Rouge River
Areas of Concern
Great Lakes Organizations
Rouge River Pictures

External Links

Friends of the Rouge
Rouge River Bird Observatory