Macomb County removes sewer blockage at source of flooding on Kelly

MACOMB COUNTY — Logs, railroad ties and tires are items you might expect to find at a dump. But these items gummed up the works in a pipe that drains stormwater, contributing to persistent flooding on a road in Clinton Township and Fraser.

The Macomb County Department of Public Works announced Dec. 2 that it got to the bottom of the flooding on Kelly Road. A press release from the DPW states that blockage was discovered in the Teske Drain, impacting flooding on the road near its intersection with Groesbeck Highway. The blockage was removed in July, according to Public Works Communications Manager Norb Franz.

“I think it was the worst in all the years I’ve been a public works commissioner,” Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Candice Miller is quoted as saying in the release. “Certainly, one of the worst.”

The release states the items were removed from a manhole near the Canadian National railroad tracks south of 15 Mile Road. Sediment in a 100-foot section of the pipe was vacuumed up by a contractor. In an open-channel part of the drain, vegetation was cleared to increase flow. Additionally, the Macomb County Department of Roads cleaned out 600 feet of the enclosed pipe during construction on Kelly Road. To minimize erosion, banks were graded and armored with limestone.

The total cost of all of this was approximately $25,000, according to Franz.

Franz said some items may have been intentionally dumped and other items could’ve flowed to the blockage site naturally.

“We have people in our office going back to the late ’80s. Nobody recalls seeing anything like that in an enclosed drain,” Franz said. “That’s why the water slowed to just a trickle.”

He said when the blockage and intrusive vegetation were removed, flow improved dramatically.

“It’s hard for any of these old systems to keep up, but the systems that we have in place, we’ve got to make sure that they’re taken care of so that the water can flow. We feel really good about this project. It was much more complicated than we thought, once we got in there and realized what was all stuck in this drain,” Miller said.

Franz said less significant clogs are often found in open-channel drains. Some of the strange items found in other drains over the years have included a safe, shopping carts and even a couch. However, Franz said naturally growing vegetation is what needs to be typically cleared from the county’s 475 drains.

“Moreso, you’ll see blockages in the open-channel drains, stuff that’s visible that might be brought to our attention or that our maintenance team may find,” Franz said. “But they’re out there every day: clearing blockage, doing maintenance, regrading the banks, clearing out the sediment just to improve the flow. When the flow is improved, the drainage gets better.”

One recent significant clog was discovered at the Vokes Relief Drain in Sterling Heights. This obstruction caused flooding along Van Dyke Avenue between 18 1/2 and 19 Mile roads during heavy rain. The project to clear the drain started in 2023 and wrapped up this fall, according to a previous C & G Newspapers article. The county said the blockage contained road grit, silt, sand and other debris, including, at one point, an old wheelbarrow. The cost of this project was approximately $500,000.