KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – Heavy rains in Michigan over the past couple of weeks have caused flooding in Southeastern Michigan, but not so much in the Southwestern area.
During a virtual Kalamazoo city meeting Tuesday, City Utilities Director Jim Baker said there are a number of reasons for this.
First, the Southeastern area of Michigan got a much larger amount of rain than the Southwestern area did. Baker said the Kalamazoo area received four and a half inches of rain over three days.
Some communities on the east side, however, saw as much as eight inches of rain within one 24-hour period, according to Baker.
In Kalamazoo, the city has taken steps to clean sewage lines and install backflow preventers that keep raw sewage from surging into basements.
Baker says it still happens, but less often.
Another reason is that larger cities, such as Detroit, combine storm water and sewage in the same pipes, and Kalamazoo doesn’t.
“Our storm sewers in the streets are in separate pipes from our sanitary sewer,” Baker said. “In combined sewer systems, which are typical in much larger communities, the raw sewage and the storm water are combined in the same pipe network. So what happens in some of these larger communities when they are overwhelmed with rainfall events that are intense, that are beyond the design of the system, is that you’ll have surcharging events that would affect flooding of streets. Then you also have sewage backing up in the homes, and those events would be occurring simultaneously, because that is one pipe that both the raw sewage and the rain water are being collected in.”
The City of Kalamazoo has also installed a “Smart Sewage System” that allows the flow to be monitored continuously.
“We’re replacing our conventional iron manhole covers with a fiberglass composite manhole cover that has sensors inside of it,” Baker said. “Both level sensors and odor sensors.”
He says if you have a backflow problem at your home, give the city a call, and they have crews that can analyze the problem and fix it.
Residents can dial 3-1-1 if they live in the city, or 269-337-8000 for those who live in the townships.
— John McNeil contributed to this reporting. —
