You are viewing this article in the AnnArbor.com archives. For the latest breaking news and updates in Ann Arbor and the surrounding area, see MLive.com/ann-arbor
Posted on Tue, Jun 7, 2011 : 3:55 p.m.

Ann Arbor city administrator: 87 reports of sewer backups into basements linked to heavy rains

By Ryan J. Stanton

Ann Arbor officials say the city's recovery from the past month-plus of rain is continuing, but it's evident that residents have been hit hard by the torrential downpours.

"Currently there are 87 reports of sewer backups into basements," Tom Crawford, the interim city administrator, told City Council members Monday night.

He traced the problems to heavy rains on May 25 that caused portions of the city's sanitary sewer system to become stressed.

"Staff strived to investigate each location as the reports were received," Crawford said. "When the staff could confirm that the sanitary sewer mains were stressed at a particular address, the property owners were given a referral to a catastrophe cleanup company."

Flooding_Fourth_Avenue.jpg

Drivers try to make it through standing water on the city's streets after heavy rains last month. Driving through standing water can be dangerous, safety experts warn.

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

While the locations of backups were scattered throughout the city, there were two clusters of occurrences: near Packard and Stadium Boulevard and near Hill and Division streets.

Crawford said city staff has met with the consulting engineer and construction manager for the city's footing drain disconnect program and a plan is being developed and will be brought forward to City Council near the end of summer. Items under consideration, he said, include creating new footing drain disconnect program areas, accelerating the rate of disconnects and treatment of sanitary manhole covers in flood plan areas.

As a result of stormwater overwhelming a sanitary pipe, raw sewage flowed into the streets at Hoover and Division in Ann Arbor after the storms from May 25. The rain also caused an embankment failure under the railroad tracks that run parallel to Plymouth Road in Ann Arbor, closing the road and buckling the tracks.

While the cleanup continues of the earth slide, Crawford said Plymouth Road is open and the Ann Arbor Railroad has re-established service on its tracks parallel to Traver Road. Plans are being made to restore a nearby park with wetlands and a play area.

Mowing of the parks in public areas continues to be as much on schedule as the weather allows, Crawford said, but portions of the parks still are too wet to mow.

The is officially the wettest spring on record in Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor received 17.49 inches of precipitation in March, April and May, beating the old record of 16.61 inches set in 1943, said University of Michigan weather observer Dennis Kahlbaum.

Ryan J. Stanton covers government and politics for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at ryanstanton@annarbor.com or 734-623-2529. You also can follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's e-mail newsletters.

Comments

bunnyabbot

Wed, Jun 8, 2011 : 2:52 p.m.

I just want to say about the whole art over infrastructure thing, I am not against public art. However the amount could be a percent with a cap at a certain price. Say even $200,000. The new city building, which I can see from work is the ugliest building! An $800,000 + sculpture is excessive. Specifically it looks like a phallic symbol that shoots water and the committee chased after a specific artist to throw the entire sum of money at. Certianly they could have a smaller percentage for public art, cap the amount at a certain point and have 1% going towards infrastructure, fixing the cities sewer system would create more jobs than courting a German artist does.

bunnyabbot

Wed, Jun 8, 2011 : 2:08 a.m.

Hey Ryan, perhaps you should/could do more indepth reporting as to what happened in the past years (before a2.com, maybe it was in the hard copies over the years?) regarding the issue of raw sewage backing up into peoples basements. It happened in our neighborhood a number of times (ok like every 8ish years) Not only did the city refer people to cleaning companies, although many homeowners decided to do it themselves after not wanting to wait days for an appointment, but the city had a form you filled out to make a claim for expenses and damages and a number to call in order to have a crew come and pick up all the stuff people hauled out to their front lawns that was ruined by sewage. Several years ago the city put in a program to put sump pumps in peoples basements, the first group of people had theirs put in at no cost, I think some paid a reduced cost after that. Several homeowners threatened to sue at some point as the cities system overloaded/failed whenever there was heavy rains. the city countinuely fails to fix the problem (for forty freaking years!) yet forces homeowners to replace sidewalk (and then changes THAT program ~insert rolling eyes~) as someone else commented, the city has an art % built in, yet they don't have a % built in for infrastructure (that I know of) which makes no monkey sense to me.

a2roots

Wed, Jun 8, 2011 : 12:07 p.m.

It is my understanding that a new law was passed that does not allow homeowners to go after the municipality to recover costs. Prior to the law you are correct. A form was filled out and it went to the city's insurance board and they made a determination.

MB111

Wed, Jun 8, 2011 : 1:06 a.m.

Glad we spend money on public art and not infrastructure. I guess coucil doesn't have seawge in their basement's.

a2roots

Tue, Jun 7, 2011 : 10:52 p.m.

Not sure if there are any investigative reporters at annarbor.com but a story lurks out there regarding how the City handles sewer back up problems. Several years ago during a power outage the City had a number of pump stations that failed. They failed mainly because backup generators were not put in place quickly enough. It would be interesting to know what the City has done to ensure their pump stations are always adequately operational to avoid resident sewer backups whether due to heavy rainfall or power outages.