Connect with us

Detroit, MI

Fighting Flooding: Detroit community leaders and academic experts meet to tackle future issues

Published

on

Fighting Flooding: Detroit community leaders and academic experts meet to tackle future issues


This text is a three-part story about understanding and mitigating environmental well being dangers threatening Michigan and its residents as recognized within the just lately launched Tackling Environmental Well being Threats report. It’s made doable with funding from the College Analysis Hall.

Final June, many residents of Detroit confronted large structural, financial, and well being points when flooding brought on by heavy rainfall overwhelmed lots of the metropolis’s getting old and unrepaired storm and wastewater techniques—significantly in East Aspect neighborhoods equivalent to Jefferson Chalmers.

Researchers say {that a} mixture of insufficient native infrastructure and international local weather change meant that neither the storm nor the harm ought to have come as an excessive amount of of a shock.

“There have been a number of information articles on the market saying ‘Nicely, we’re having 500-year occasions yearly,’” says Wayne State College (WSU) Civil and Environmental Engineering Division Chair William Shuster. “However actually it is off the dimensions, and there is not any technique to actually characterize these rainfall occasions.”

Advertisement

The truth is, many residents have been dealing with related struggles for years. A collaborative research by WSU, the College of Michigan, Eastside Group Community, and several other different native organizations discovered that over 40% of Detroit households surveyed between 2012 and 2020 reported family flooding.

“That is one thing that everyone’s been fighting across the nation, all over the world,” says Dr. Shuster. “When you’ve obtained a metropolis, you are fighting stormwater or wastewater.”

In April, Shuster joined a number of different researchers for a roundtable dialogue on the Wayne State campus on Detroit’s current flooding and infrastructure points. The dialog was part of the College Analysis Hall’s (URC) Hidden Well being Threats tour that introduced collectively researchers, policymakers, and different group leaders to debate a few of the most urgent environmental points dealing with Michigan communities. Different occasions within the sequence included a dialog concerning the hazard of PFAS in Grand Rapids and a dialog on microplastics in Traverse Metropolis.

Along with Schuester, others attending the Detroit occasion on the Wayne State College Built-in Biosciences Heart (IBio) had been College of Michigan environmental epidemiologist Carina Gronlund, Eastside Group Community Local weather Fairness Coordinator Bethany J. Howard, and State Rep. Joe Tate.

Collectively, they mentioned the aftermath of the summer season’s flooding, the methods wherein the harm might have been prevented, and the significance of addressing these points earlier than one other catastrophe happens.

Advertisement

“We’ve seen the heartbreak of 1000’s of Detroiters and Southeast Michigan residents who repeatedly have skilled hardships and well being threats from the rising waters,” stated Britany Affolter-Caine, URC govt director. “Researchers at URC universities are laser-focused on fixing these challenges and on sharing what they know with lawmakers, group leaders, and the general public.”
In April, the College Analysis Hall introduced researchers and lawmakers collectively on Wayne State’s campus to debate Detroit’s current flooding and infrastructure points.
The dialog started with a presentation by Rep. Tate, who shared a photograph of a manhole cowl in use in an space of his personal Eastside District. The metallic cowl bore the seal of the Village of Fairview – a municipality that was annexed into town in 1907. 

“I feel there is not any doubt about it that our water infrastructure techniques – particularly in our cities – have served us effectively, however they’re getting outdated,” says Rep. Tate. “That, coupled with these heavier rain occasions attributable to local weather change, creates a number of challenges for caring for communities particularly with flooding. The system simply cannot sustain.”

Shuster agrees. “I wish to say ‘water all the time wins,’” he says. “It has the time and power behind it to seek out the paths of least resistance. We’re more and more on the dropping aspect of this recreation. So how can we play a greater recreation right here?” His reply: “Work with water and provides it completely different choices aside from endangering well being, property, and welfare.”

Along with lobbying for the grant cash wanted to replace fundamental infrastructure equivalent to town’s pump stations and Twenties-era clay sewer laterals, Shuster and colleagues at Wayne State are presently working to develop a watershed administration plan for town’s east aspect – one thing presently lacking altogether.

“A watershed administration plan, when it is accepted and applied, permits communities in a sure watershed or sewer shed entry to federal funding to make enhancements,” Shuster says. 

Gronlund spoke on the various short- and long-term well being impacts of flooding.

Advertisement

“The harm from flooding touches individuals’s lives in so some ways,” she says. “You might have the fast well being impacts: flooding will increase your danger of drowning if you need to go down there and clear up the water. It additionally causes electrocution and pores and skin infections […] Even when the water seems to be clear it might probably have dangerous micro organism and viruses chemical compounds in it, and publicity to mildew exacerbates bronchial asthma and different respiratory issues.”

The long-term results, she provides, might be equally devastating. 

“Injury to your own home, whether or not it is flooding or wind – it’s stress,” she says. “It’s a must to take days off work or out of your schedule to take care of it. The monetary losses are substantial for a lot of households, and we all know that type of misery can result in dementia and coronary heart illness.”

Jefferson Chalmers skilled heavy flooding in 2020 & 2021 after file excessive water ranges.
Each Shuster and Gronlund agree that marginalized teams are also disproportionately affected by flooding in a variety of methods. Houses with older sewer hookups are in significantly extra hazard of each elevated flooding harm and of flooding occurring within the first place as a result of the sewer techniques can’t sustain with the floodwaters. Many of those properties are owned by individuals who could not be capable to afford repairs.

Each Howard and her colleague, ECN Local weather Fairness Program Supervisor Erin Stanley, emphasize the significance of fairness when discussing ECN’s ongoing efforts to assist East Aspect residents get better from final summer season’s floods.

Stanley, who was not in a position to communicate on the occasion after coming down with COVID-19, says it’s essential for researchers and policymakers alike to listen to instantly from residents who face monetary, racial, and different types of marginalization.

Advertisement

“Everybody is aware of flooding is an issue,” she confirms. “Everybody’s having flooding city halls and occasions and webinars, and there is simply a lot data. Nobody is in disagreement that this is a matter, however there’s plenty of confusion about the very best options. We’re attempting to construct energy and construct voice round what East Aspect residents wish to see as options in order that we will set up advocacy methods towards attaining these methods.”

Whereas specialists like Gronlund and Shuster have supplied a basis of infrastructural and epidemiological analysis that can be utilized to develop fast options, each agree {that a} mixture of further analysis and group motion might assist lawmakers handle the problem extra comprehensively. 

“There may be analysis that should go alongside concurrently with motion,” says Gronlund. “We already know that weatherizing properties gives monumental profit when it comes to local weather mitigation, but in addition when it comes to defending individuals’s well being. We presently have funding from the Nationwide Institute of Environmental Well being Sciences to take a look at and quantify the well being advantages of weatherization in order that we will higher perceive how {dollars} spent on weatherizing properties can higher defend the well being and wellbeing of particular person people and doubtlessly even offset well being care spending.”

Whereas Shuster believes environmental engineering is already clear on lots of the infrastructural enhancements wanted, he additionally believes within the necessity of gathering extra subject information about flooding and the way in which that localized subsurface groundwater actions can come into play.

“These analysis actions serve a number of functions. Importantly, these tasks present residents that there’s an funding in making these communities higher by means of gathering information that’s distinctive to the group,” says Shuster. “That is what I name ‘information fairness,’ an idea that I have been engaged on. The info then represents the group in a really tangible method, and can be utilized to develop and inform engineered designs (to quell flooding in its varied types) which are […] particular to the group.”

Advertisement

Stanley, Shuster, Gronlund, and Rep. Tate all agree that conversations such because the flooding roundtable are essential for growing extra knowledgeable and efficient long-term options to a lot of Michigan’s rising environmental crises. 

“The issues that we face on this world, particularly within the context of local weather change and this pandemic, are simply actually, actually advanced,” says Stanley. “We have now had a really siloed system for years each in academia when it comes to analysis, in addition to in areas like group improvement and authorities.”

“Getting a broad complete suite of options and having it backed up by analysis was one thing that helped me to grasp the scope of the issue,” says Rep. Tate. “I feel it is going to take all our teams to come back collectively to have the ability to discover options round this.”



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Detroit, MI

Detroit Zoo’s Wild Lights attraction is a year-round endeavor

Published

on

Detroit Zoo’s Wild Lights attraction is a year-round endeavor


play

Royal Oak — Twinkling, flashing, gleaming and dancing — the Detroit Zoo’s annual Wild Lights attraction features a dizzying array of lighting displays of all sorts, but it’s a huge undertaking.

The zoo’s staff brings the magic to life with luminous, larger-than-life animals, an interactive talking tree and everything in between.

Advertisement

It’s a bit like decorating one’s own home for Christmas, said Detroit Zoo Senior Director of Guest Experience Emily O’Hara — just on a massive scale, as the zoo provided behind-the-scene access this week to their winter wonderland.

“We started counting all the lights at one point,” O’Hara said, “but you get over a million, then over 2 million and where does it stop? So, we just say millions of lights.”

This year’s display includes 676 trees wrapped with lights; more than 500 lighted “sculptures” of plants, animals and other objects; and holiday-specific items such as heating stations and a warming lodge. They all had to be set up by Wild Lights’ opening night, which this year was Nov. 23.

While the team must work swiftly, they must also work carefully. If there are too many lights on one side of a tree, for instance, they will be instructed to remove them and start over.

Advertisement

“There is a meticulous nature to it,” O’Hara said. “It isn’t just throwing lights and hoping they stick. We want everything to be the best product we can put out there for the guests.”

The months of hard work were evident to Phil and Carolyn Durst of West Branch, who were in Metro Detroit visiting family on Friday when they decided to check out the lights.

“We had no idea what to expect, but this is really amazing,” Phil said. “They did a great job.”

“They thought of everything, every animal you could think of,” Carolyn added.

Advertisement

Wild Lights continues at the zoo through Jan. 5. After that, the staff will begin tearing down the displays — carefully, so as not to tangle the thousands of strands.

Virtually all of the lights and holiday items are removed once the season is over, although some, like the large globe that can display video images, are often repositioned and repurposed for other zoo events throughout the year.

Where do the rest go during the offseason? Many are housed in the sizable storage area near the middle of the zoo, which includes eight shipping containers and a large shed. O’Hara said another 12 off-site shipping containers are used. And more lights yet get stuffed into any closets that might be available elsewhere at the zoo.

O’Hara said the staff works year-round to ensure visitors get a new experience each year. With Wild Lights entertaining families for more than a decade now, that means planning begins in January.

Advertisement

The staff works throughout the year to repair and repurpose aging items while the administration orders new pieces. The trend over the past few years has been on “interactive items” like a colorful see-saw and swings that kids can play on, or the talking Christmas tree that implores passersby to make a holiday wish.

Installation usually begins in late July and actually continues right up until Wild Lights opens for the season around Thanksgiving.

Once the lights are strung and the attractions in place, the work isn’t over yet. Rain and snow will occasionally cause a strand of lights to burn out. But more common are issues caused by native wildlife, zoo officials said.

“Anyone who has tried to string up lights at their own home may have encountered how squirrels find them a delicacy,” O’Hara said with a chuckle.

When items need to be tested or programmed, they’re taken to the backstage area of the Ford Education Center’s 4D theater, not only because that’s one of the largest indoor spaces at the zoo, but with the lights off, it’s dark enough to mimic the night sky outside.

Advertisement

“The advantage back here is we actually have a truss we can raise and lower, so it makes it much easier to reach our stuff and work on it,” said Lauri Besler-Kroll, a member of the zoo’s utility department.

During the behind-the-scenes tour for The Detroit News, team members were testing the light curtain that will be used for the special “Zoo Year’s Eve” countdown. At 8 p.m. on Dec. 31, the curtain will display an animal-themed New Year’s countdown, giving little ones who may not make it to midnight a chance to ring in 2025.

Wild Lights has become a family tradition for the family of Mike Newton of South Lyon. The dancing sticks stood out to daughter Kaylin, 5, while the rainbow-color trees were a favorite for Abigail, 3.

“They’ve been coming since they were under 1,” said Mike. “Always a good time.”

mreinhart@detroitnews.com

Advertisement

Wild Lights

What: Wild Lights Presented by Corewell Health Children’s is the Detroit Zoo’s seasonal attraction filled with animal-themed light sculptures and other holiday fun.

When: Remaining dates are Dec. 21-23 and Dec. 26-31, as well as Jan. 2-5. The event opens at 5 p.m. each evening. Tickets are available for entry every half-hour. Sales stop an hour before Wild Lights closes each night. The event closes at 10:30 p.m. through Dec. 28 (except Dec. 26) and at 9:30 p.m. Dec. 29 through Jan. 5.

Cost: Online general admission ticket prices vary by date and time slot, and range from $17-$25 per person. Tickets can be purchased at the gate (unless the zoo reaches capacity for a given time slot) for $26. Groups of 20 or more can buy tickets for $15-$23 per person. Packages are also available for daytime admission to the zoo, plus Wild Lights in the evening ($38); the “Picnic Package,” which includes an unlimited food buffet ($50 online, $55 at the gate); and the “Ultimate VIP Package,” which includes food and drink, plus a carousel ride and ticket to a screening at the 4D theater ($70 online, $75 at the gate).

Online tickets: dzoo.org/wildlights

Where: Detroit Zoo, 8450 W. 10 Mile, Royal Oak

Advertisement



Source link

Continue Reading

Detroit, MI

Video recap: Detroit Lions with bounce-back drubbing of Chicago Bears

Published

on

Video recap: Detroit Lions with bounce-back drubbing of Chicago Bears


CHICAGO, Ill. — The Detroit Lions smashed the Chicago Bears with a business-like mentality, with a hint of flare on a beautifully designed trick play, in their 34-17 win.

This victory gives the Lions 13 wins on the season, the most in franchise history. They also set a new single-season record for points scored, eclipsing the mark set by the 2011 team led by Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson. Not too shabby with two games left on the schedule.

They are undefeated on the road this season, not to mention 5-0 in the division.

Inside the locker room: Lions explain process behind ‘Stumble Bum’ trick play

Advertisement

Dan Campbell leads Lions to team record 13th win, still ‘not time’ to celebrate

Detroit’s offense was lethal, with a breakout showing in running back Jahmyr Gibbs’ first game in the standalone lead role without David Montgomery. Jared Goff threw for another 336 yards and three scores. And the Lions quarterback got hit clicking with receivers Jameson Williams and Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Williams hit a career-long 82-yard touchdown catch and finished with a career-high 143 receiving yards. St. Brown caught six of eight targets sent his way for 70 yards and one touchdown.

The Lions and their banged-up defense were hit for a lot of passing yards. But they managed to come up with two takeaways, leading to 10 points, and held the Bears to converting only two third-down tries on 10 attempts in the win.

See below for MLive’s video breakdowns from after this game:

Advertisement

  • BETTING: Check out our guide to the best Michigan sportsbooks, where our team of sports betting experts has reviewed the experience, payout speed, parlay options and quality of odds for multiple sportsbooks.



Source link

Continue Reading

Detroit, MI

The Glancy Train set continues to attract thousands at Detroit Historical Museum this holiday season

Published

on

The Glancy Train set continues to attract thousands at Detroit Historical Museum this holiday season


MIDTOWN (WXYZ) — At Detroit Historical Museum, 74-year-old Peter Dudley really knows how to keep things on track.

WXYZ

“Yes, I’ve been a volunteer since 1997, which was the year we built the current exhibit,” says Dudley.

The Glancy Trains exhibit has been a crowd favorite for years. 13 trains moving along 12 electric-powered tracks, all thanks to a team of 3 volunteers.

Advertisement

“The main thing the volunteers do is to keep the trains running,” said Dudley.

From keeping the tracks clean to repairing the trains, Dudley is always busy in his workshop over the weekends.

They go from zero to 35 mph in a split second, which is another reason we have to make sure they don’t derail, said Dudley.

The collection, which dates back to the mid-1900s, belonged to Alfred Glancy Jr., a real estate financier and former owner of the Empire State Building in New York City. Detroit Historical Society’s Rebecca Salminen-Witt says Glancy enjoyed hosting “train parties” for friends and family each holiday season at his home in Grosse Pointe Shores. After his death in 1973, the Glancy family donated the set.

Screenshot 2024-12-22 at 11.42.55 AM.png

WXYZ

Advertisement

“Every kid who comes here wants to see these trains, Mr. Glancy was obviously a train guy himself. His children actually are still involved with the museum. They still love these trains, visit them and support them,” said Salminen-Witt.

Salminen-Witt says that as the exhibit grows, thanks to donations from various sources, it truly highlights Detroit’s rich history.

“Most people are really excited about the renaissance that they are seeing at Michigan Central Station. They were developing that train station right at the cusp between train travel, railroad travel and the beginning of the automotive, well as we know the cars took over,” said Salminen-Witt.

And it turns out a lot of Detroit’s history is baked into the exhibit.

“We’ve got that big tire, people are familiar with on your way to the airport, you pass on I94, on the other end of the exhibit, we have the big stove. So, Detroit was the stove manufacturing capital of the country. And, of course, trains hauled those stoves everywhere,” said Salminen-Witt.

Advertisement

“I often come out from behind, from the workshop, and I talk to people about local Detroit railroad history,” said Dudley.

“Does this remind you of your childhood?” asked Faraz Javed, 7 News Detroit reporter.

“I received my first train as a christmas present from my grandparents. That particular December we traveled on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad leaving from Michigan Central Station,” said Dudley.

Now, the Glancy Train exhibit runs year-round at the Detroit Historical Museum. And Dudley says they are always in need of volunteers. To find out how you can become one, just head to this website.





Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Trending