Low-Cost Sewer Solutions

  • Pat Lindemann is the drain commissioner for Ingham County, Michigan. He uses “low-impact design” in drainage reconstruction projects. Behind Lindemann, work crews are digging one of several rain gardens that will be installed in this suburban neighborhood. Rain gardens serve as retention areas for storm water, and are a natural filter for pollution. (Photo by Erin Toner)

Many communities throughout the country are rebuilding their sewer systems to comply with federal pollution regulations. Nationwide, the work is costing taxpayers billions of dollars. But in some communities, a concept called “low-impact” design is making the projects cheaper and better for the environment. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

Many communities throughout the country are rebuilding their sewer
systems to comply with federal pollution regulations. Nationwide, the
work is costing taxpayers billions of dollars. But in some communities, a
concept called “low-impact” design is making the projects cheaper and
better for the environment. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:


Dump trucks, black plastic pipes and huge piles of dirt line the streets of
this suburban neighborhood. It was built on very flat land and water
doesn’t run off. It used to be covered in ponds of wetlands. Now, that’s
causing big problems for people who live here. Their basements are
nearly always flooded and after it rains, they have pools of water in their
backyards for weeks, or months. Many run sump pumps all day and all
night.


Jesse Ramos lives in a white ranch house in the neighborhood.


“Actually, this past couple of months I’ve had a lot of problems with
water in my basement. I’ve actually already been through one sump
pump and I’ve went out and purchased another, just so I could keep up
with that. Right now that it hasn’t rained I’m okay. So, I’m a little
nervous when it starts to rain.”


Fixing these problems the traditional way – with concrete pipes, curbs
and gutters – would have cost 20 million dollars, and it would have
sent polluted storm water straight to the river, but Pat Lindemann wanted
to do the project differently. He wanted to save people money and clean
up the environment. Lindemann often sounds more like the head of a big
environmental group, than what he actually is – the county drain
commissioner for this neighborhood near Lansing, Michigan.


“A lot of people argue that if I own the wetland, I should be able to
destroy it, but you shouldn’t because… what you do on your property
affects the river, every time you over fertilize your lawn, every time you
do not pick up your domestic pet waste… this country has such a vast
amount of beautiful resources, and for 150 years, we’ve done everything
that we could to beat up on it.”


In Jesse Ramos’ neighborhood, Lindemann’s using low-impact design to
rebuild the drain system. It’s costing half as much as concrete curbs and
gutters.


“In the case of low-impact design, we force the water to go through soils,
to interact with plant roots, to stay on the land slightly longer and
become treated before it leaves to make its way to the river.”


The main way that happens is through rain gardens, one of the main
features of low-impact design. They’re bowl-shaped gardens planted
with native flowers and grasses. Native plants have long roots that draw
water deep into the ground and provide a natural filter for pollution.
Rain water collects in the gardens and becomes cleaner before eventually
reaching the pipe that takes it to the river.


Lindemann’s installing more than seven acres of gardens in the
neighborhood. He says people will have a few hours of standing water in
rain gardens, instead of weeks of water in their backyards.


Jesse Ramos is hearing this good news for the first time today…


“…now you’ll be flooded for about an hour and a half…an hour and a
half…that’s wonderful…and it’s pretty flowers…”


There’s another low-impact design project across town. Drainage
problems were causing backups in peoples’ homes. So, Drain
Commissioner Pat Lindemann built 20 acres of wetlands – right in the
middle of the city.


“It dawned on me, why take the water anywhere, why not just keep it. If
I can find a place to store it, put it and manipulate it, and not take it
anywhere, than I could manage it.”


This site is technically a series of retention ponds, but it’s really more
like a park. A paved walking path weaves around ponds and trees and
over bridges. It’s a place you’d bring school kids to learn about frogs
and birds and about being good to the environment.


This low-impact design project, like the one in Jesse Ramos’
neighborhood, was about half the cost of installing new concrete pipes
from the neighborhood to the river.


Low-impact design projects are happening all over – in Chicago and
Seattle, to more rural communities, and they’re likely to become more
common as cities consider how to cut non-point source pollution – the
leading cause of poor water quality. Non-point source pollution is a lot
of things – the fertilizer we use on our lawns or bacteria from animal
waste.


Pat Lindemann says his philosophy is that our dirty rivers will recover if
we start developing the land or rebuilding it the right way – one rain
garden or wetland at a time.


For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

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LOW-COST SEWER SOLUTIONS (Short Version)

Cities throughout the country are spending millions of dollars to rebuild aging sewer systems. But in some communities, a trend called “low-impact design” is making these projects more affordable for taxpayers, and better for nature. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

Cities throughout the country are spending millions of dollars to rebuild
aging sewer systems. But in some communities, a trend called “low-
impact design” is making these projects more affordable for taxpayers,
and better for nature. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:


Low-impact design focuses on restoring natural ways to manage storm
water, instead of building sewer systems that send polluted water straight
to rivers and streams.


Rain gardens are one feature of low-impact design. They’re bowl-
shaped gardens planted with native flowers and grasses. Water collects
in the gardens and becomes cleaner as it seeps through the soil.


Pat Lindemann is a county drain commissioner in Michigan. He’s using
low-impact design to deal with flooding problems, and to clean up local
waterways.


“If we can take neighborhood by neighborhood, one rain garden at a
time, one constructed wetland at a time, manage our storm water, polish
it, clean it, discharge it at a lower rate, our rivers will start to recover.”


Lindemann says he’s done two low-impact design projects at half the
cost of rebuilding drainage systems with concrete pipes, curbs and
gutters.


For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

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RACE’S ROLE IN URBAN SPRAWL (Part I)

  • Urban sprawl sometimes conjures up images of subdivisions sprouting up in cornfields. But land use experts say the term should also include a focus on the central cities that are left behind. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Experts seldom talk about one of the driving forces behind urban sprawl. White flight began the exodus of whites from city centers, and racial segregation is still a factor in perpetuating sprawl. In the first of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on the issue that’s often overlooked:

Transcript

Experts seldom talk about one of the driving forces behind urban sprawl. White
flight began the
exodus of whites from city centers, and racial segregation is still a factor in
perpetuating sprawl.
In the first of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on the issue that’s often
overlooked:


Land use advocates argue that urban sprawl and deteriorating inner cities are two
sides of the
same coin. The tax money that pays for new roads and sewer systems for sprawl and the
investments that pay for new strip malls is money that’s spent at the expense of
city centers
because it’s not invested there.


For the most part, all of that investment is made in communities that are
overwhelmingly white.
Those left behind in the cities are often people of color who are struggling with
high taxes to pay
for the deteriorating infrastructure and government services designed for
populations much larger
than are left today.


White flight was aided by government and business institutions. Government home
loans for
veterans of World War II that made those nice subdivisions possible didn’t seem to
make it into
the hands of black veterans. Banks often followed a practice of redlining. And
real estate
brokers also worked to make sure the races remained segregated.


Reynolds Farley is a research professor at the University of Michigan’s Population
Studies
Center. Farley says today, when planners and government officials talk about white
flight and
segregation, they talk in the past tense. They don’t like to acknowledge that
racism like that
still exists…


“Well, I think there is a lot of effort to underestimate the continued importance of
racial
discrimination and the importance of race in choosing a place to live. There’s been
a modest
decrease in segregation in the last 20 years. Nevertheless, it would be a serious
mistake to
overlook the importance of race in the future of the older cities of the Northeast
and Midwest.”


Farley says as recently as two years ago a federal government study looked at real
estate
marketing practices and found there were still “code phrases” that indicated whether
neighborhoods were white or black.


“Subtle words would clearly convey to white customers the possibility that there are
blacks
living there, the schools aren’t in good quality. And the subtle words could convey
to blacks
that they wouldn’t be welcomed in living in a white neighborhood.”


In the North… racism has evolved from overt to covert. It’s a wariness between
the races not talked about in polite society. It becomes more evident as solidly
middle-class blacks begin to move into older suburbs and whites flee once again to
newer
subdivisions even farther from the city core.


Land Use and ‘Smart Growth’ advocates say it’s time to face up to the continuing
practice of
segregation. Charlene Crowell is with the Michigan Land Use Institute. She says it
starts by
talking about the fears between white people and black people.


“By not addressing those fears, the isolation and the separation has grown. So,
until we are able
to talk and communicate candidly, then we’ll continue to have our problems.”


But it’s uncomfortable for most people to talk about race with people of another
race. Often we
don’t talk frankly. Crowell says we’ll be forced to deal with our feelings about
race sooner or
later. That’s because as more African-Americans join the middle-class, the suburbs
are no longer
exclusively white…


“My hope is that those who feel comfortable in moving further and further away from
the urban
core will come to understand that they cannot run, that there are in fact black
homeowners who
are in the suburbs and moving into the McMansions just as many whites are. And we
all have to
look at each other. And we all have to understand that this is one country and we
are one
people.”


In cities such as Detroit, white flight led to rampant urban sprawl in the
surrounding areas
and left huge pockets of poverty and streets of abandoned houses in the inner city.
Heaster
Wheeler is the Executive Director of the Detroit chapter of the NAACP. He says
while his
constituents often worry about more pressing urban issues, he knows that it’s
important that
African-Americans living in the city recognize farmland preservation and urban
revitalization
are connected. The investment that paves over a corn field is investment that’s not
going to
rebuild the city. But… black politicians largely have not been
involved in land use issues and usually they’re not asked to get involved…


“There is a racial divide on this particular issue. Often times African-Americans,
people of color and folk who live in the urban centers are not present at the
discussions about
Smart Growth.”


Wheeler says policymakers on both sides of the racial divide need to recognize that
land use
issues are as much about abandoned city centers as they are about disappearing
farmland…
which could put urban legislators and rural legislators on the same team. That’s a
coalition
that could carry a lot of sway in many states.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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IS IT SPRAWL? OR URBAN ABANDONMENT? (Part II)

  • Urban sprawl doesn't just alter the land in the suburbs. Central cities are affected by the loss of investment when people leave the cities and tax dollars are instead invested in building roads and sewers in the surrounding areas. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Concern about urban sprawl is often limited to the loss of farmland, traffic congestion, and unattractive development. But urban sprawl has other impacts. Building the roads and sewers to serve new subdivisions uses state and federal tax money, often at the expense of the large cities that are losing population to the suburbs. In the second of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham looks at the divide between city and suburb:

Transcript

Concern about urban sprawl is often limited to the loss of farmland, traffic
congestion, and unattractive development. But urban sprawl has other impacts.
Building the roads and sewers to serve new subdivisions uses state and federal tax
money, often at the expense of the large cities that are losing population to the
suburbs. In the second of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
looks at the divide between city and suburb:


What some people call urban sprawl got started as the federal government’s answer to
a severe housing shortage. There wasn’t a lot of building going
on during the Great Depression. At the end of World War II, returning GIs needed
houses.


Reynolds Farley is a research professor at the University of Michigan’s Population
Studies Center. Farley says the federal government offered veterans low-interest
loans and developers started building modest homes on green lawns on the edge of
cities. But because of discrimination, the loans didn’t as often make it into the
hands of African-American veterans. Instead of segregated neighborhoods in the
city, segregation lines were newly drawn between city and
suburb.


“Very low-cost mortgages accelerated the movement of whites from the central city
out to the suburbs… built upon the long racial animosity that characterized cities
beginning at the time of the first World War and continuing, perhaps up to the
present.”


With segregation, there was a shift of wealth. Farley says jobs and purchasing
power were exported to the suburbs with the help of the interstate highway system.
And big new shopping centers displaced retail in downtowns.


People with low-incomes, often people of color, were left behind in cities of
abandoned houses and vacant storefronts that often didn’t have enough tax base to
maintain roads and services.


John Powell is a professor at Ohio State University. He’s written extensively on
urban sprawl and its effects on urban centers.


“So, we move jobs away, we move tax base away, we move good schools away and then
the city becomes really desperate and they’re trying to fix the problems, but all
the resources have been moved away.”


With no way found to fix the cities, whites have been moving out of cities to the
suburbs for decades. And now, middle-class blacks are moving out too. For some
metropolitan areas, leaving the city has become a
matter of income… although Powell says even then African-Americans have a more
difficult time finding a way out.


“Race never drops out of the equation. In reality, even middle-class blacks don’t
have the same mobility to move to opportunity that even working-class whites do
because of the way race works in our society.”


So, segregation continues. But now the line is drawn between middle-class blacks in
the older, inner-ring suburbs, whites in the outer-ring suburbs… and for the most
part in cities such as Detroit, poorer blacks left behind in the central city.


Smarth Growth advocates say part of the answer to urban sprawl is finding a way to
get more money back into the central-cities to make them more attractive to
everyone. That’s worked in cities such as Portland, Oregon and Minneapolis-St.
Paul. But those cities and their suburbs are predominantly white. For Northern
cities with greater racial divides, cities such as Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St.
Louis and Detroit it’s different. A lot of white suburbanites don’t want tax
dollars going to blacks in the city. And African-Americans in the city don’t see
urban sprawl as their issue, so ideas such as tax revenue sharing for a metropolitan
region are not a priority. The issue of regional tax equity that
works in predominantly white regions… becomes muddied by racial animosity in
segregated regions.


“Buzz’ Thomas is state senator in Michigan who has taken on the issue of urban
sprawl and its counterpart, the deterioration of city centers. Senator Thomas says
if state legislatures can’t find an answer to help cities, sprawl in the suburbs
will continue, paving over green space and farmland.


“You know, poverty and jobs and access to health care and access to quality
education are very realistic issues for cities like Detroit. But, a reality is they
go hand-in-hand with sprawl. As your black middle-class moves out of the inner city
because they’re not satisfied with those resolution to those issues. You know, it
links sprawl.”


Senator Thomas says legislators from rural areas and from urban areas are beginning
to realize they have a common issue. But before they can get to discussions of
regional tax equity, they first have to talk about the more difficult issue of
race…


“And have a discussion that might make me uncomfortable, that might make those
that I discuss it with uncomfortable. Only then, I think, can we really adequately
figure out how long it’s going to take us to resolve that issue.”


In the meantime, many cities are still losing population and revenue. Suburbs
continue to sprawl. And farms are becoming subdivisions, retail strip malls and
fast food restaurants.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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Report Says Beach Closings at All Time High

A new report says the nation’s beaches were closed a record number of times last year because of high bacteria levels in the water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

A new report says the nation’s beaches were closed a record number
of times last year because of high bacteria levels in the water. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports:


The Natural Resources Defense Council releases a beach report every
year. It’s based on data from the previous summer. The NRDC says,
last season, there were more than 18,000 closings or advisories –
that’s more than any summer in the past 14 years.


Nancy Stoner is with the NRDC. She says health officials are doing a
better job of testing beaches and that has lead to more beach closings.
Stoner says it’s good that more beaches are being tested… but she
says most communities are failing to control pollution sources.


“We know where the problem comes from and that’s contaminated
storm water and sewage. One of the big problems this year is that the
Clean Water State Revolving Fund has been slashed in the White
House budget. And Congress has not restored that funding.”


Stoner calls the funding critical for cities to repair aging sewer and
storm water systems. The NRDC is calling on Congress to restore the
cuts to the fund in the fall.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Doctors Urge Kyoto Sign-On

Some physicians are concerned about the United States not attending the final talks on the Kyoto Protocol on global warming held in early November. The physicians say global warming is already a problem and is adding to a number of public health threats. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Some physicians are concerned about the United States not attending the final talks on the Kyoto Protocol on global warming held in early November. The physicians say global warming is already a problem and is adding to a number of public health threats. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


Some physicians believe the increase in infectious disease outbreaks such as West Nile virus, Lyme disease, and Hantavirus are connected to global warming. They say the warming already seen contributes to the spread of the viruses. The warming also could be causing more volatile weather –such as sudden storms in some parts of the Great Lakes region. That can cause flooding of sewer systems that lead to illnesses. Bob Musil is the Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility. He says the group is encouraging politicians to upgrade sewer systems to cope with the changes.


“There are sudden storm surges, sudden precipitation leads to flooding in combined sewage and storm drains. In the state of Michigan in our report we discussed this problem. And we actually, as physicians, go and talk to the responsible officials.”


But the physician’s group says adapting to the changes only treats the symptoms. Musil says the long-term problem can only be dealt with by reducing air pollutants that cause global warming, something the group says the U-S is refusing to do right now. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Lester Graham.