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ST. CLAIR SHORES — The St. Clair Shores City Council viewed a presentation at their meeting on Feb. 3 about an upcoming sewer project on Jefferson Avenue between Nine Mile Road and 10 Mile Road.
The main goal for the sewer project is to stop combined sewer overflows from releasing into Lake St. Clair. Such events occur when combined sewer systems become overwhelmed with rainwater and sewage, and the untreated water flows into nearby lakes and rivers. As it stands, the part of Jefferson Avenue from Nine Mile to 10 Mile only has one pipe, whereas surrounding areas on Jefferson have two.
Around $20 million for the project comes from Macomb County’s American Rescue Plan Act money. About $5 million was garnered by state Sen. Kevin Hertel, D-St. Clair Shores, and around $2 million was secured by U.S. Rep. John James, R-Shelby Township. The total cost of the project is approximately $30 million.
Mayor Kip Walby stated the pump station at Rio Vista has discharged about eight times a year over the last decade.
“I think Dec. 29 was the last one and about 46 million gallons came on that discharge,” Walby said. “You can see some are higher, some are lower, right? That’s very recent data.”
He went on to say that the goal is to reduce discharges by around 50%, which he said is millions of gallons.
This project will take 24-30 months to complete, and it will be completed in nine phases along Jefferson Avenue.
In a previous article in the Sentinel, it stated that the project will be complete in five phases. That schedule was later updated by Jenn Chehab, assistant project manager at Anderson, Eckstein, & Westrick, Inc., who presented at the meeting along with Gino D’Agostini, vice president of Ric-Man Construction.
“It’ll kind of expand and contract as they move,” Chehab said. “So as they move north they’re going to finish all the work behind them and then they’ll start taking it down behind them as they complete the work.”
Chehab explained that the owner of the project is the Southeast Macomb Sanitary District with Macomb County, St. Clair Shores, Roseville and Eastpointe as stakeholders because of their involvement in SEMSD.
Chehab said they will use microdrilling to minimize disturbance to drains and other infrastructure and to minimize the time it takes to add the pipe. Councilman Dave Rubello later asked about the boring process and Chehab said they have launching and receiving pits. Jefferson is on a curve whereas the machine can only go in a straight line.
Business owners were able to ask questions at three previous meetings.
At a town hall meeting on Feb. 13, the public viewed the same presentation the council saw and was able to ask officials and project managers questions.
Richard Widgren, the Tax Increment Finance Authority chair, said he thinks it’s a necessary project and sees the need for clean lakes. However, he did say his biggest concern is how residents adapt to the inconvenience and the impact on the businesses.
“We’re in the process of looking at every angle to make sure that we can make this as pain free as possible for the businesses,” Widgren said.
He was at one of the meetings with the businesses and said the business owners are concerned. He said they may expect more damage than there might be.
“Not to say that there’s not going to be an impact, it’s just that it’s not going to be as catastrophic as I think they’re concerned about and we were all concerned about when we first heard the project,” Widgren said.
Dante Hargis is a St. Clair Shores resident who has a tenant who lives in the affected areas. He said he thinks it’s a great project for the lake and what it is going to accomplish.
“I think it’s a project that hopefully with due time that they can figure, you know, work on all the kinks over time and figure out how they can get traffic flow to not affect the businesses as much and property owners, for myself, a tenant of mine, so that they can continue to be accessible,” Hargis said.
Dean Jankauskas, the Rio Vista Home Owners Association president, called the project a necessary evil.
“It’s got to be done because we want a clean lake and I live right at the end of Rio Vista, so I see it all the time,” Jankauskas said.
Walby said the crews were ready to mobilize and get to work on Feb. 17.
Signage for all the businesses along Jefferson is still being finalized. Walby added that the Tax Increment Finance Authority is going to try to assist in marketing.
Conversations are also ongoing about possibly moving a couple events down to Blossom Heath Park.
“So don’t neglect the Nautical Mile,” Councilman Ronald Frederick said. “They’ll be wide open and raring to go.”
Councilman John Caron said they started working on this project around two years ago at the SEMSD.
“It’s been a long time coming to get the project started,” Caron said.
For more information about this project, read the article "Jefferson Avenue sewer project set to start in February" posted Jan. 18 at candgnews.com or visit the St. Clair Shores website at scsmi.net for the full presentation slides and the meeting video.
