U.S. Water News Online
DEARBORN, Mich. -- In the shadow of the powerhouse that Henry Ford built alongside the Rouge River to light his estate, a pair of blue herons linger near the water's edge before taking flight.
For Jim Murray, who has spent decades working to rally government, businesses and volunteers to rejuvenate what once was one of the nation's dirtiest rivers, the birds represent only one example of how far the cleanup has come.
The herons feast on fish that had long disappeared from polluted stretches of the waterway, which meanders through heavily developed residential and industrial areas before emptying into the Detroit River.
"As we're solving the water quality in the river, the debate now is how do we use it," said Murray, 60, who grew up in Norwayne, now part of Westland, and played in the Rouge as a child despite warnings to stay away. "We used it so long as a sewer."
For decades, the Rouge -- the river beside which Ford built a massive industrial complex that transformed raw iron ore into Model A cars -- was little more than a dumping ground.
But now, the river's health has improved since public outrage and the federal Clean Water Act helped focus local leaders, community volunteers and big-ticket government spending on the cleanup.
Heavy rains still cause sewers in some areas to overflow into the river, and urban sprawl continues to threaten the river. But with industrial pollution under better control and efforts to stem the flow of sewage and stormwater into the river, the idea that the Rouge is a place to fish, canoe or stroll along is taking root.
"Now, we are changing the culture of the whole region," said Kurt Heise, director of the Wayne County Department of Environment. "We are telling people it's OK to return to the Rouge River."
The Environmental Protection Agency has described some of the collaborative work to restore the Rouge as a "blueprint for success" in improving water quality. And observers from New York, Cleveland and Atlanta -- and even as far as South Korea and China -- have traveled to the Detroit area to learn from the Rouge project.
"They are a national leader," said Quintin White, with the EPA's office in Chicago.
Next month, thousands of volunteers will fan out along the 126-mile river system for Rouge Rescue -- an annual springtime cleanup. What started 20 years ago as a day to pull trash and debris from the river has evolved to include projects aimed at making the river healthier for people and livable for wildlife.
Rouge Rescue, organizers say, helps bring area residents to a river that for generations was shunned as unsafe. And it illustrates how volunteer energy coupled with nearly $1 billion in government spending on major projects, including sewer and stormwater management, can complement each other.
"It's been a community-wide effort," said Murray, the first president and current board member of Friends of the Rouge, which coordinates Rouge Rescue. "It's one they know is long-term. I think people take pride in it. You have to have hope."
A canoe livery along the Rouge opened five years ago and is doing a booming business. And the state has said it's safe to eat some fish caught in Newburgh Lake, which originally was constructed as a millpond on the Rouge and nearly was destroyed by pollutants before a massive cleanup.
Elsewhere along the river, which flows in Wayne, Oakland and Washtenaw counties, the improvements are more subtle.
The lush Inkster Valley Golf Course, which opened in 1998 on 400 acres along the Rouge, challenges golfers with an abundance of water hazards. But the wetlands that make up about a quarter of the site also serve an environmental purpose, helping filter water before it runs into the river.
The Rouge's water comes from about 450 square miles of land that is home to more than 1.5 million people and under the control of 48 units of government. Cooperation didn't come easy and credit for building momentum -- and keeping funding -- for what in the 1980s seemed like an insurmountable pollution problem is spread wide.
U.S. Rep. John Dingell, a Democrat with 50 years in Congress whose district is crisscrossed by the Rouge, is among those who have worked to ensure federal funding for Rouge products. And U.S. District Court Judge John Feikens, who presided for 28 years over a lawsuit on Rouge pollution, is seen as a catalyst for the regional approach.
"The abundance of water that we have here will keep this region alive, industrially and as a high-quality place to live," said Feikens, who last year dismissed the case because the government was satisfied with progress made in curtailing the amount of untreated sewage spilling into the waterway.
And industry -- long blamed for the river's decline -- has stepped up efforts to improve the Rouge.
A prominent example is Ford Motor Co.
It spent $2 billion to refurbish its Rouge complex, which now includes a truck plant with a 10.4-acre living roof of plants and other vegetation to soak up stormwater. Along some of the roads outside Ford's Rouge facility -- just down the river from Henry Ford's estate -- vegetation has replaced what once was concrete to ease pollution.
But major challenges remain. Continued residential development in the northern and western Detroit suburbs sends more water from lawns, parking lots and roads -- contaminated with fertilizer, oil and other pollutants -- into the river. And E. coli bacteria keeps most swimmers away.
"It's going to be a long, extensive undertaking. But I think it underscores the need to act as good stewards today," said Michigan Department of Environmental Quality spokesman Robert McCann. "It's much easier to protect it than restore it."
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