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Sewage overflow raises stink in Oakland, Macomb counties
A heavy rainstorm on April 2, 2025 filled Macomb County’s Red Run Drain with more than one million gallons of raw sewage from Oakland County.
Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Candice Miller described the murky mess she found in the drain the next day.
“It looks like chocolate pudding,” Miller says.
The fetid water came from a sewer pipe that empties into the drain, festooning it with some not-so-festive decorations.
“It almost looks like Christmas trees, because they’re all covered with sanitary wipes, sewer wipes, and some things that are too gross to discuss,” Miller said. “It’s sickening.”
Miller’s counterpart, Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner Jim Nash, confirms the foul water came from one of his department’s sewer lines, the Dequindre Interceptor.
Normally what flows through that pipe goes to the Great Lakes Water Authority for treatment. But when too much rain fills the system, Nash says an emergency relief valve inside the pipe keeps raw sewage out of people’s basements.
“The only alternative, if we had closed off that valve, would have been to flood — we estimate — 700 to 800 homes in that area with pure sewage,” he said.
To prevent that, Nash said it was necessary to divert the water into the Red Run Drain after the storm.
The argument goes back years
But Miller says this is not a new problem, as Oakland County has a history of releasing not only raw sewage, but treated sewage mixed with stormwater into her communities. The technical term is a combined sewage overflow. Miller says enough is enough.
“We’d like Oakland County to try to do something about their combined sewer overflows,” she said.
Miller and Nash have been squabbling for years over a facility in Oakland County called the George W. Kuhn Retention Basin. It’s a huge operation that can hold up to 150 million gallons of combined sewage and stormwater.
“The water comes in, it goes through a screen; we have the biggest screening facility in the country,” Nash said. “Anything over a half an inch is screened out. It’s raked into a trough and then sent to Detroit for cleaning. It gets past that, and then it goes into these large chambers that hold millions of gallons.”
Nash says after the solids settle, the county treats them with chlorine to kill harmful bacteria such as E. coli.
“When it comes out of our facility, it’s extremely clean,” he said.
Updating infrastructure takes time and money
The Kuhn basin was built in the 1970s, and Nash says it’s been expanded and updated several times since then. Before its construction, Oakland County averaged almost 60 combined sewage overflows a year. Nash says the basin has helped reduce that number to eight or nine.
That’s too much for Candice Miller. A week after the storm she wrote a letter to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) accusing Oakland County of violating its state permit to operate the Kuhn basin. A bipartisan coalition of state lawmakers has offered legislation requiring EGLE to put tougher restrictions on the facility.
Miller is also asking for a law requiring counties to ask permission before releasing any sewage into another county — treated or not.
Nash denies violating any permits and says Kuhn operated as it’s designed to after the April 2 rainfall. He adds it’s not the only source flowing into the Red Run Drain.
“There’s five separate storm water drains that come into that area in the same place,” he said.
Nash says some of that is coming from Macomb County, which also experiences combined sewage overflows. Miller says her department has reduced CSOs by 80% since she took office in 2017 and spent millions of dollars expanding and improving its own retention basins.
She says Oakland County either needs to build bigger basins — which it has — or separate its stormwater and sewage. Jim Nash says the cost of that would be enormous.
“The estimates currently are about $3 billion to $4 billion dollars and would take 20 or 30 years for it to happen.,” he said.
Both counties explore natural drainage options
Nash says a better solution would be building green infrastructure to absorb water from more frequent heavy rainstorms fueled by climate change.
“We have to find ways like rain gardens, rain barrels, even planting more trees in urban areas,” he said. “All those things help with storm water, help absorb it.”
Nash said Oakland County offers up to $2,000 rebates for people to put rain barrels, trees, or rain gardens on their property.
Macomb County has also invested in green infrastructure. One example is the Sterling Relief Drain between 15 and 16 Mile roads. Workers removed tons of concrete from the drain and replaced it with grass, plants, and other natural features to soak up water and prevent basement backups.
Related: Could Detroit’s buried streams see the light of day?
Candice Miller admits such projects take time and money.
“You can’t do it overnight because it’s very expensive and it takes time to improve and upgrade old, antiquated infrastructure,” she said. “Everybody’s dealing with, it’s not just us or Oakland or Wayne.”
In the meantime, Miller says she’ll keep pushing Nash and Oakland County on behalf of her constituents to reduce CSOs flowing into Macomb County.
“They say all the time, ‘sue Oakland County,'” she said. “I don’t want to do that; I’d like him to try to do something.”
Nash says he is doing something, and that Miller should focus on Macomb County. Either way, it’s a dispute that’s not ending anytime soon.
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