KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – They say April showers bring May flowers, but in Kalamazoo it also can mean flooding, and it’s expected to rain every day this week, with some heavy weather possible.
Kalamazoo Public Works director James Baker says over 1,000 square miles of southern Michigan drains into the Kalamazoo River, and when it gets too much rain in a short time, there will be flooding in Kalamazoo.
But excess water can also impact neighborhoods around the river, because Kalamazoo sits in a valley. We used to be known as Celery City because swampy land was a good place to grow the crop, and since then, a lot of housing has been built on former celery farms with high water tables.
Baker says they are going to begin cleaning out 11,000 storm sewer catch basins to improve the flow of water out of the neighborhoods this summer.
While city crews are vacuuming out the scum, they will be assessing the condition of the plumbing to determine if repairs are needed.
Baker says they are also piloting an Adopt-a-Drain program in the Oakwood Neighborhood to get volunteers to clean out storm drains when they get clogged at street level.
He says they are also working with the county drain commissioner to find solutions in some parts of the Northside neighborhood, where basements flood when it rains heavily.
But he says that won’t help in flood-prone areas south of downtown. He says that is going to take major engineering and federal funding to resolve.
Kalamazoo could have had its flooding problems taken care of decades ago, but PCB contamination in the river back then prompted the federal government to scrub the project last century.
He says now that the PCB’s have been cleaned from the local river and creeks,
The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers have begun the studies to get the work done here, but Congress would also have to approve funding as much as $110 million, according to the act authorizing the studies.
Battle Creek doesn’t flood because they were able to get the work done in the 1960s and 70s, when funding was available, and the federal government picked up the tab.
This graphic shows the flood prone areas of Kalamazoo:
Comments