Erb Family Foundation Support
Training & Investigational Sampling to Improve Water Quality
The goal of this project, funded with a grant from the Fred and Barbara Erb Family Foundation, was to improve water quality through stewardship, education, and collaboration throughout Wayne County’s portion of the Rouge River watershed. Field data collection and comprehensive training will be used as the basis for understanding existing water-quality conditions, while simultaneously educating municipal staff on the requirements of the municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4) permit procedures. These two activities are intended to help support the Foundation’s Great Lakes goal by creating a sustainable and repeatable process that integrates investigational data on water quality with a training program that covers all elements of the MS4 permit process and best management practices.
Although water quality in the Rouge River has improved dramatically due to the reduction in combined sewer overflows, most of the river still does not meet water quality standards that allow for consistent safe recreation. Results of the field data collected and analyzed under the Project suggests that the Rouge River’s remaining bacteria (water quality) challenge, upstream of remaining CSO areas, may be predominately from animal waste washing off impervious surfaces (sidewalks and streets), into and through storm sewers. The remaining human sources are likely a combination of poor dirty diaper disposal practices, improper RV waste disposal, aging/leaking sanitary sewer leads, and hard to find illicit connections of sanitary sewer leads into the storm sewers. While weather dependent “end of pipe” stormwater outfall screening has a role to play in municipal stormwater permit compliance there are other more efficient/effective approaches that should be recognized as solutions to the problem. These include:
• Public education and outreach (pet waste & don’t feed the birds),
• Urban wildlife control measures (deer, raccoon, geese, and rodent control),
• Green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) retrofits and post construction controls (PCC) to infiltrate and filter out water pollution,
• GSI & PCC monitoring & maintenance, and
• Sanitary sewer service integrity inspections (e.g. plumbing fixture dye testing),
Another challenge that the region faces is the constant turnover of municipal staff charged with maintaining the sanitary and storm sewer systems and implementing the community stormwater permits. Minimal training is available on this topic, which leads to poor implementation of stormwater best management measures. Therefore, providing detailed educational materials and training sessions for municipal staff is an important strategy to ensuring comprehensive and ubiquitous understanding of how the permitting process works, tools to implement, and connections between improved water quality and quality of life.
