Macomb County blames a truck for a fuel spill that contaminated Sterling’s relief drain in Sterling Heights.
The Macomb County Office of Public Works said on August 11 that a structure contractor from the municipality of China, Michigan, T.R. Pieprzak Co., allegedly saw oil reflections that morning on Dodge Park Road north of 15 Mile Road. After that, they said the county, engineers, environmental and structure/maintenance officials and other researchers set to work in search of the source of the spill.
The drainage site in question is located north of 15 Mile Road, van Dyke Avenue east of Schoenherr Road. It connects to the Red Run Drain, which then joins the Clinton River and St. Clair Lake.
The Public Works Office now believes the spill could have occurred in Sterling Heights, near Van Dyke, north of Metropolitan Parkway. So far, the county believes the spill is diesel fuel, but has not estimated how many gallons were spilled.
The county’s public works commissioner, Candice Miller, said the county was determined to contain the spill and clean it up. County officials added that they will pass more dams where emergency drainage crosses the Red Run, as well as the Clinton River.
Miller said the incident “is more than just someone putting a gallon of diesel in error,” and promised to punish the culprit if it has become transparent that the spill was intentional.
“We have zero tolerance for any contaminants entering one of our sewers,” he said in a statement. “We can no longer make this happen.
“If we find out he did this by negligence, we all make mistakes and do what we have to do. But if we did and we knew what they were doing and they didn’t call us, there will be consequences.”
On August 12, county officials said they discovered the spill: a broken-down truck would have spilled diesel into a sewer on Stanley Drive, about 15 Mile and Mound Highways, without notifying authorities.
The Office of Public Works said one of its structural engineers saw an estimated 80-foot location, and researchers then learned that a trailer truck was out of service there around nine a.m. on August 10. County officials added that they had learned that a company-repaired van visited the vehicle, which would have moved “after spilling diesel.”
The Public Works Office has not yet estimated the amount of fuel in the water, nor has it been able to verify at the time of publication the identity of the driver, owner or corporate fixed of the truck. Miller later said the spill deserved to have contacted Sterling Heights or the county when the spill occurred so that faster mitigation measures could better affect the environment.
“Accidents happen, but not reporting is not acceptable,” he said.
“We called Candice Miller the queen of Lake St. Clair,” Romano said. “As far as it is concerned, the lake will never be blank enough because of the polluters, but it will chase them very aggressively.”
County officials later added that Doetsch Environmental Services used a vacuum truck to leave blank on August 12 that hit approximately 1,800 feet of typhoon sewers. The assignment is expected to last at least until August 14.
Later, the county said the idea that diesel had never entered the Clinton River, thanks to dams.
Anyone with more information about the spill or its origins should contact the Macomb County Office of Public Works by visiting publicworks.macombgov.org or by calling (586) 469-5325.
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