Port Huron CSO work looks to 5 year extension

In 1998, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality gave the city of Port Huron 14 years to stop discharging nearly 309 million gallons of combined sewage and storm water each year into the Black River.

The city started with 19 combined sewer overflow locations - 18 of those have been eliminated as part of a $176 million combined sewer separation project.

The city's original deadline has come and gone, and the four-year extension it was granted is less than seven months away from expiring.

So the city wants another extension.

Held up by the feds 

"They've been very cooperative, we've had a good working relationship with the city of Port Huron," said Dan Beauchamp, acting district supervisor of the MDEQ Water Resources Division. "They've done a lot of work, they've made a lot of progress over the years to eliminate CSOs."

The final overflow location is on the Black River off Riverside Drive at McPherson Street. The final area in the city with combined sewers comprises 12 acres bounded by Hancock Street, the Blue Water Bridge Plaza, Interstate 94/I-69 and Pine Grove Avenue.

"This area was included in the proposed Blue Water Bridge Plaza project and includes seven properties," Eric Witter, the city's utilities manager said in an email. "The city did not perform any sewer separation in this area as part of any other CSO project(s) as the properties were originally going to be demolished by MDOT."

But plans for the bridge plaza expansion are ever changing and on hold due to lack of funding from the federal government.

Beauchamp said language for the extension is still being sorted, but tentatively looks at giving the city until Dec. 31, 2021 to complete the final piece of sewer separation.

"And again, if for some reason the Blue Water Bridge Plaza gets the funding, maybe we could work on schedules to accelerate this time frame," he said.

Once the language is finalized, a public comment period will be held.

"Then after that we'll listen to public comment and make a decision on it," Beauchamp said.

Cleaning up the waterways

The state first started pushing to reduce the number of combined sewer overflows to eliminate the public health and water quality threat of raw sewage in Michigan waterways in 1988.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently approved the removal of the St. Clair River’s Beach Closings beneficial use impairment. The St. Clair River was designated as a Great Lakes Area of Concern in 1987, due to having suffered environmental degradation from industrial and municipal pollution.

"After years of work, beaches along the St. Clair River are no longer impacted by direct discharges from combined sewer overflows, providing Michiganders and visitors with a healthier beach experience and fewer beach closings," the DEQ said in a statement.

Port Huron's last overflow location has had five discharge events so far this year, with the latest being May 14 following more than a half inch of rain. About 18,000 gallons of combined storm water and sanitary wastewater was discharged into the Black River.

City officials said without the prior combined sewer separation work, an additional 845,000 gallons would have flowed into the St. Clair and Black rivers during that storm.

Overflows occur when the combined sewer can't handle the extra precipitation. Separate sanitary sewers are designed to carry only sanitary sewage to a wastewater treatment plant, while storm water was is piped to a nearby waterway.

Combined sewers are generally older systems designed with overflow points carrying both sanitary sewage and storm runoff.

Beauchamp said Port Huron isn't alone in dealing with combined sewers, and the lengthy timeline is not unusual.

"Especially when you're talking large cities," he said. "The amount of money it takes to ... dig up the road, install new sewers, it's very burdensome for a lot of these municipalities, there's a lot of planning that goes into these. ... It's a large amount of money."

Cost of business

The cost of the project has been borne by residents and businesses in the city and townships that utilize Port Huron's water and sewer systems.

In 2014, the city council narrowly approved an $11.79 monthly water flat rate increase, as well as increases to take place in 2015 and this year.

An about 3 percent increase is set to begin this July 1.

The average size meter for residents in the city is five-eighths-inch, with the current average residential monthly water/sewer bill $72.65. The new rates effective July 1 will bring that average monthly bill to $74.92.

Between 1998 and 2014, water rates increased by 165 percent.

City officials have said the rate increases are necessary to keep up with the cost of the sewer separation work.

But rates haven't kept up with the debt, so to make up the difference, the city continues to dip into other funds - like the land purchase fund, which was originally meant as a development tool to be used for projects such as the city's industrial park. That fund currently has $3.5 million in it, with $1.8 million planned to fill the utilities budget hole.

Ed Brennan, the city's director of finance, said the utilities budgets is operating on an about $3.25 million deficit.

In 2014, city officials said the city had about $107 million in debt to the sewer separation project. Brennan estimated that number is now in the $91-92 million range.

Results

Beauchamp said it is hard to break down data to show the project is reducing sewage discharges, as overflows are so weather dependent.

"The volume of the storm and duration, that impacts the volume and also if an event occurs," he said.

Once all sewers are separated, Beauchamp said the goal is to have zero gallons overflowing.

"I'm not saying they'll never have a sanitary sewer overflow if something breaks...but it won't occur frequently," he said.

According to the DEQ, the city was releasing about 309 million gallons of combined sewage each year before the project started.

Last year, the DEQ shows records of 16 overflows resulting in 2.194 million gallons of combined sewage hitting the Black River.

Contact Liz Shepard at (810) 989-6273 or lshepard@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @lvshepard.