Across Detroit the effects of climate change are evident. In the Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood on the city’s lower east side, overflowing stormwater drains, contaminated waterways and flooded basements are just a few examples of how the city’s aging infrastructure
Across Detroit the effects of climate change are evident. In the Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood on the city’s lower east side, overflowing stormwater drains, contaminated waterways and flooded basements are just a few examples of how the city’s aging infrastructure struggles to keep up with our changing climate.
The city’s combined sewer system is the crux of the problem. The increasingly heavy rains bring stormwater together with sewage waste leading to the overflows into streets, basements and the backyard canals in this historic neighborhood. Residents are now also measuring the toxicity levels of the canals where Detroiters have been able to fish and swim.
In recent years the city has tried to protect the community from record high waters on the Great Lakes and the Detroit River, installing Tiger dams and sandbags, but with lake levels now receding, flooding from the sewer capacity problems is a bigger concern. Federal funding may be able to help alleviate the problem, but will it be enough? Some residents now are suggesting some new technology should be considered to fix the problem.
During Earth Month, One Detroit Senior Producer Bill Kubota visited the hard-hit Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood as residents there explore possible solutions. He talked with Jay Juergensen, who’s leading the neighborhood advocacy efforts, along with Myrtle Thompson, John Myers and Blake Grannum, who endured the flood damage and clean-ups from the 2014, 2016, 2019 and 2021 overflows.
He also talked with Detroit Building Authority Director Tyrone Clifton about the unpredictable nature of change that may occur as the city and residents learn to navigate uncharted waters in the future.
This story was produced in partnership with Great Lakes Now and in connection to PBS NOVA’s new documentary “Weathering the Future.” For more on the impact of global climate change, watch “Weathering the Future” on Detroit Public Television at 9 p.m. ET Wednesday, April 12.
Bill Kubota, Senior Producer, One Detroit: Blake Grannum lives on a canal down by the Detroit River, the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood on the Lower East Side.
Blake Grannum, Jefferson-Chalmers Resident: I’ve been over here my whole life. Jefferson Chalmers has been a secret, and it’s now not a secret anymore. It was just a little gem in the city where the canals run behind these houses. And you have such a diverse neighborhood.
Bill Kubota: But every time it rains, Grannum documents what goes on in the streets.
Blake Grannum: This is an ongoing problem and it needs to be resolved because of all the water that we’re getting.
Bill Kubota: Flood insurance in this low-lying area. Expensive. The flooding. It wasn’t always this way.
Blake Grannum: You know, we get basement backups and then we get streams in the…
Bill Kubota: So you’re talking right, right here.
Blake Grannum: Right here in front of our house.
Bill Kubota: The fight is on to save Jefferson Chalmers. Jay Juergensen, one of its leaders. Is this neighborhood at risk?
Jay Juergensen, Jefferson-Chalmers Resident: Very much so. Yeah. I would say that we are at a critical point in our neighborhood’s trajectory and its history. If we don’t fix the problems that are happening now, our neighborhood will go the way of the dinosaur. There’s no question about it.
John Myers: Then the water receded.
Bill Kubota: We first met John Myers back in 2019. It was record high water on the Great Lakes, the Detroit River, causing the canals to overflow.
John Myers: The Army Corps and the city volunteers sandbag this, which is good because I did breach the cap by an inch or so.
Bill Kubota: With the heavy rains, the attention now, what goes on down below?
John Myers: This was just rebuilt in October and it was collapsed from the construction. They ran a truck over and it just caved in. So they rebuilt it and all cement and bricks and such. And ever since then, it hasn’t rained. So. There were some serious mistakes made about 100 years ago when they filled this piece of land in.
I mean, this is this is all the Grand Marais or the Great Marsh. Basically, this was a village called Fairview Village. It went from Waterworks Park to Cadieux in Grosse Pointe. But there were six automobile manufacturers right in this neighborhood, Chalmers, Continental, Hudson. And they wanted the tax base. So they said, look, we’ll we’ll suck you into Detroit and you can go into our sewer system.
Bill Kubota: An historic neighborhood with a historic combined sewer system. Where sewage water mixes with stormwater. Too much rain. You get combined sewer overflows.
John Myers: When you try to throw everything into pipes underground, they fill up and once they get to a certain point, the city goes down to the Fox Creek and they remove the log jams and they let it go right out the canal and that’s to keep it out of the basements. But 2014, 2016, 2019, and then 2021, I had a swimming pool in my basement along with a lot of other people.
Bill Kubota: It trashed basements across Detroit, especially the East Side.
Myrtle Thompson, Jefferson-Chalmers Resident: So I’ll tell you, when the flood came, everybody on that side of the street lost their car. Every time it rains here, we get flooding. We get flooding in the streets and that’s eroding things. Things are swelling and going down and swelling and going down. My house is moving right there.
Bill Kubota: What, it looks like it’s damp.
Myrtle Thompson: Yeah.
Bill Kubota: Probably all the time it looks damp.
Myrtle Thompson: Yeah. Yeah.
Bill Kubota: Along the canals, tiger dams intended to ward off high water, although lake levels have been receding of late.
Myrtle Thompson: That orange thing. Yeah.
Bill Kubota: Now that’s been there a while.
Myrtle Thompson: It was put there after 2016. That was the solution.
Bill Kubota