Red Cedar Storm

From Great Lakes Wiki

By Andrew Engel

On a sunny day late last October, a cloudy substance fouled the Red Cedar River.

It came from a pipe located along a secluded strip of MSU property within a half mile of the WKAR tower. The plume had a green tint near its edges and spread slowly downstream, blanketing the river’s width as the clear water turned the color of coffee and cream.

The discharge discovered by a group of MSU students was neither sewage nor industrial waste, but an extremely common pollutant in the Red Cedar and throughout many of Michigan’s rivers: A mixture of soil and other particles washed from city streets, parking lots, roofs and ditches.

It’s a mixture that experts call the number one stream pollutant in the United States.

In this case, a Meridian Township water main had broken and sprayed water into the street, according to Patrick Lindemann, the Ingham County Drain Commissioner. That water mixed with dirt and other particles before draining into a storm sewer and eventually the river. This stormwater pipe was discharging sediment into the Red Cedar River in the fall of 2005. It is on MSU property upriver and separate from the main campus]] But it doesn’t take a water main break to get sediment into the Red Cedar.

“Anything that’s on a parking lot is going to get washed off with our storm water,” said Ruth Kline-Robach, a specialist at the MSU Water Research Institute.

Sediment clouds like the one in Meridian Township can be seen exiting storm sewer pipes after a heavy rain, she said. And it’s bad for the environment.

Such a discharge reduces how well light can penetrate the water, making it hard for fish and other organisms to see.

“Fish are sight hunters,” Kline-Robach said. “They’re not going to be able to see their prey.”

Particles clog fish gills and increase the temperature of the water. That can make the water uninhabitable for certain types of fish or other organisms.

Aside from the direct harm sediment causes, it can also carry other substances into the river.

Contents 1 Fighting the wet burrito 2 Road runoff 3 Down the Lake Michigan drain 4 Stormwater permits 5 Related Links

Fighting the wet burrito

When someone fertilizes their lawn, phosphorus can attach to sediment and be carried into the river, Kline-Robach said. These nutrients feed the plants that grow in the river. Algae growth can flare up, blocking out sunlight needed by other plants that are home to other organisms. And when algae die, the bacteria that feed on it use up the oxygen animals like fish need to survive.

Even East Lansing’s policy of raking leaves to the curb contributes to the problem – something Lindemann likes to call the “wet burrito syndrome.”

Before they’re removed, the leaves can be washed into storm sewers. That means there are thousands of trees dumping organic matter into the river that are normally too far away to contribute.

It’s like force feeding someone 1,000 wet burritos instead of them eating one or two, Lindemann said. It can kill you.

For the river, all that additional organic material becomes food for microbes that use up oxygen needed by fish and other organisms. “I’m shoving wet burritos down the throat of that river and it can’t survive,” Lindemann said.

Road runoff

Other pollutants entering a river from urban run-off include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons – PAHs. They can be found in asphalt and are also produced by combustion processes like running a car engine said Thomas Voice, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan State University who has been monitoring chemicals within the Red Cedar.

These toxic materials come from such things as motor oil, exhaust and particles worn from tires – all abundant on urban roads and parking lots.

“(PAHs) don’t dissolve in water very well. Oil and water don’t mix well, the old adage goes,” Voice said.

What is it about developed areas that lead to nearby rivers being harmed?

When a storm occurs in an undeveloped area, the rain is soaked up by the ground and eventually enters groundwater. Groundwater is water that has saturated soil well below the ground and can eventually end up in rivers and lakes. Some rain evaporates before it’s soaked up. Some is taken in by plants, which release it to the atmosphere. The remainder, typically about 10 percent, moves over the ground and flows into a lake or river.

But hard surfaces like roads, roofs and parking lots stop water from entering the ground. That can increase the amount of run-off to as much as 55 percent, according to a Lansing area committee working on a stormwater management plan.

About 10.8 percent of the roughly 300,000 acres within the Red Cedar watershed is urbanized, according to one state study. But there are areas where hard surfaces are much more dense.

But the local stormwater committee found that Lansing is the most highly urbanized area, with hard surfaces making up an average 27.32 percent of its land. Bath Township follows closely with 26.36 percent and East Lansing contains an average of 23.45 percent hard surfaces. Rivers in areas with 10 percent to 25 percent impervious cover can begin to degrade, according to the stormwater committee’s report. Areas with greater than 25 percent impervious cover may reach levels of irreversible damage regarding natural characteristics.

Voice’s work has been restricted to the Red Cedar adjacent to MSU, but he echoed Kline-Robach’s assessment that the river does not stand out as any worse than other rivers in Michigan with similar development. The river has certainly been changed and affected, he said, noting that there is always an impact of bringing storm water into a stream, but that the acceptability of the impact is more of a political judgment: “We have found no smoking guns.”

Down the Lake Michigan drain

While the Red Cedar itself is not in horrible shape, it is just one small piece of a very large jigsaw puzzle. Its watershed – the area it drains – and five others, including the Looking Glass and Maple rivers, drain into the Grand River. All six areas contribute sediment and other urban runoff to the Grand River. And the Grand River watershed, along with 62 similar Michigan watersheds, contributes pollutants and compounds problems in the Great Lakes.

“What is Lake Michigan?” asks Lindemann. “It’s a drain.”

Solutions are challenging. In the case of the water main break, it was a matter of aging infrastructure. “It’s a huge problem across the U.S.,” said Kline-Robach.” So many of these sewer systems were put into place many years ago.” “What did the Romans do when they built Rome?” asks Lindemann. “They built roads and drains.”

Just because infrastructure is the first priority when building, however, does not mean it stays that way.

People pay less to maintain infrastructure than they do for parks, police and other public services, Lindemann said. “The American public tends to think on a crisis basis. If it’s not a problem, don’t worry about it.”

Raymond Severy, director of Engineering and Public Works for Meridian Township, agrees.

“(Citizens) turn on the tap and they get water,” Severy said. “They flush their toilet and it goes away. I don’t think they think about it at all.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began requiring permits to discharge stormwater in 1990. Both communities and private industry that discharge stormwater are required to obtain a permit through the state Department of Environmental Quality.

Stormwater permits

The Red Cedar watershed has 41 different companies permitted to discharge stormwater into the river or the streams that flow into it. There are another 15 municipalities in the watershed with storm sewer systems permitted to discharge.

The EPA has recently begun calling for communities to look at how they manage their stormwater.

Communities within the area where the Red Cedar draws its water are creating a unified management plan. Williamston, Webberville and Fowlerville are opting to follow an approach focusing on meeting measures set out by the EPA within their own jurisdictions, Lindemann said.

Each community is required to list actions it will take to limit stormwater pollution by April 1, 2006. After that, communities will be required by the DEQ to comply with these actions, Kline-Robach said. Annual reports to the DEQ will be required.

These actions can include a variety of “low impact” development guidelines as well as management practices. One example of low impact development that may actually have a large impact is rain gardens.

A rain garden is a bowl-shaped garden of native plants placed where runoff from roofs, driveways or other hard surfaces will flow. The garden absorbs the water, filters it and allows it to return to groundwater rather than enter a storm drain.

Lindemann began two rain garden projects within Meridian Township six years ago that are nearing the construction phase. The two projects combined amount to a $10 million effort that will rebuild 1 percent of the land with neighborhoods utilizing rain gardens. Construction begins in April and will take roughly 18 months.

Other examples of low impact development include plants on top of buildings to absorb water, porous pavement that allows water to pass through to the ground and wetlands – whether they are man-made or simply left in place naturally. Funding remains a major hurdle for such innovations.

“We don’t know how we’re going to pay for them, and that’s true across the state,” Kline-Robach said.

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Related Links

Red Cedar River (Michigan)
Red Cedar Floods
Red Cedar Wetlands
Red_Cedar_Sewers
Red Cedar Farm
Red Cedar Groundwater
Red Cedar Pharmaceuticals