The dumping of raw sewage into the Detroit River is an old story in southeast Michigan, even though the amount of storm water and sewage that enters the water during storms has been significantly reduced over the past decade.
Scientific American, the highly respected, 168-year-old magazine, puts the dumping in a regional and even global context in an article that originally ran in The Daily Climate.
The rains of today, yesterday, this summer and the past few years are not figments of your imagination: There is evidence the Detroit area is already experiencing the impacts of a changing climate, writes Brian Bienkowski. The year 2011 was the wettest year on record.
"Rain from heavy, flood-causing storms has jumped 45 percent across the Midwest the past five decades, according to federal scientists. Greenhouse gases increase the energy in the atmosphere and tend to concentrate storms. Southeast Michigan, thanks to a quirk of atmospheric currents and geography, has been hard hit: Annual precipitation has increased 10 to 15 percent in and around Detroit the past 30 years."
In a city where services are beyond strained, climate change is compounding the woe, Bienkowski writes.
"Without trying to sensationalize – it's like a slow (Hurricane) Katrina here," Larissa Larsen, an associate professor at the University of Michigan and co author of a report on climate change vulnerability in Detroit by the Detroit Climate Action Collaborative, told Bienkowski. "Whether it's climate caused flooding, a serious blackout or extreme heat, I'm scared … especially for those vulnerable populations."
The rains keep coming. In the wettest year on record, 2011, Detroit spewed about 7 billion gallons of untreated sewage into the Rouge and Detroit rivers, according to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. An additional 25 billion gallons of partially treated sewage – where solids were removed but the water wasn't disinfected – poured into the rivers that year as well.
Ken Kunkel, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist and North Carolina State University professor said: "All models point to bigger storm events in the Midwest.
It's not all bad news: Detroit has seen some successes.
Combined sewer overflow discharges have reduced by more than 80 percent from the pre-1995 levels, according to the 2012 Alliance for the Great Lakes report. The city used to pour about 20 billion gallons of raw sewage into the Detroit River every year; now the average is about 2 billion.
Interesting factoid: In addressing Detroit's vacant land, one expert sees an upside.
Overgrown lots capture water, and as industry has left, the water department has far fewer problems with toxic metals in the incoming water.
