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ST. CLAIR SHORES — In a press conference on Aug. 9, Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Candice Miller unveiled the two-season construction plan for the Chapaton Retention Basin and a project to update electrical systems at the basin.
The plan shut down the Nine Mile boat launch and other amenities surrounding the basin at the beginning of the month.
Also in attendance were St. Clair Shores Mayor Kip Walby, state Sen. Kevin Hertel and Macomb County Board of Commissioners Chairman Don Brown.
According to Miller, the drain was built in 1968 and Vice President Hubert Humphrey cut the ribbon for it.
“Which was great back in the day, but unfortunately a lot of the infrastructure remains,” Miller said. “And so we have old, antiquated infrastructure.”
Miller said they have an eye toward water quality when it comes to updating the infrastructure of the pump station. Their main goal is to reduce the number of combined sewer overflows they discharge into Lake St. Clair. CSOs occur when combined sewer systems become overwhelmed with rainwater and sewage, and the untreated water flows into nearby lakes and rivers.
They’ve already completed some “operational process changes” to reduce the number of CSOs pumped into the lake and they have another project scheduled to be complete and online by the fall. The project for the Chapaton Retention Basin will expand the canal, giving it an extra 13 million gallons of storage.
Other parts of the project include replacing the sluice gates, separating sanitary sewage from storm water in a 14-acre area, replacing an old pipe and adding a trash collector at the end of the pipe.
The project will cost around $27 million. According to a press release, $25 million comes from the American Rescue Plan Act funds from the state and $2 million was allocated by the state last year.
A $16 million project is going to upgrade the 55-year-old electrical equipment in and around the pump station. They are also going to add three new custom-made 2-megawatt generators.
“So this is a huge complete transformation of our electrical,” Miller said.
According to a press release, $9.5 million comes from ARPA funds allocated by the Macomb County Board of Commissioners and $6 million comes from state ARPA funds.
Miller said these generators will aid in a heavy rain event if the power goes out. She recalled one such event in recent years when the pumps went out in Detroit.
“And everything flooded in the Jefferson/Chalmers area, all of the Grosse Pointes, hundreds of millions of dollars of damage,” Miller said. “Because guess what? We had a storm, and they did not have redundancy for their electrical, and we don’t want that to happen here.”
Miller said she recognizes there is something happening to the weather with large amounts of heavy rainfall occurring. She also said experts say it’s going to continue.
“We want to be very much on the leading edge of being proactive in positioning our county in the right footprint for water quality, for infrastructure investment, for the economics of the blue economy here and certainly to protect our residents to the best of our ability,” Miller said.
Hertel said he is privileged to represent the entire shoreline and it comes with a responsibility to protect it.
“(There is) $1.6 billion in economic activity every single year to our region because of this lake, and more importantly, 4 million people get their drinking water directly out of this water source,” Hertel said. “So we have to make sure we are doing everything we can to invest in our infrastructure so we’re protecting that resource.”
Brown said Macomb County is leading by example and that many people had a part in improving the water quality.
“All hands are on deck to apply the right tools that we need to improve the water quality for today’s generation and future generations to come,” Brown said.
Walby said this is how government should work, pointing out they had both Republicans and Democrats working together to create and execute the project.
“We come together in the right fashion, for the right projects and at the end of the day we’re going to help the people who use this lake, so I applaud that,” Walby said.
He also called the project transformational.
“Make this lake cleaner for the next generation,” Walby said.
