Marianne Rzepka

Cecilia Sauter’s rain garden solved the problem of a wet and mushy side yard at her Ann Arbor home and may have helped her neighbor with water in her house’s foundation. Greg Marker, of Ypsilanti, uses a rain garden to hold runoff from three sump pumps and his house’s gutters, which resolves some water problems with his neighbors who live down the hill from him.

I just wanted to get rid of some lawn.

The thread that ties the three of us together is that we got help from Washtenaw County’s Office of Water Resources Commissioner (formerly the Drain Commissioner), which provided us with rain garden designs and helped us buy the native plants called for by the plans. The county’s program started in 2005, and so far it’s helped set up about 50 rain gardens. 

No, a rain garden doesn’t grow precipitation. It takes care of water running off roofs and driveways, or pooling where no one wants water to pool. Basically, you dig a shallow bed  – 3 inches deep with a flat bottom – and direct the rain into the bed where it can soak into the soil instead of running into the storm drains or making a mess in your basement.

With a rain garden, the water soaks slowly into the soil and ultimately into the ground water, instead of cascading down the storm drains and into local streams and rivers, taking things like fertilizers with it. There’s a bit of extra incentive for Ann Arbor residents: For homes with a rain garden, the city utilities department will cut your water and sewer bill by $2.80 every quarter.

Sauter’s rain garden accommodates the precipitation that falls on her roof and about half her next-door neighbor’s roof. The downspouts were routed underground and now empty into the rain garden that sprawls across the length of her back yard.

Cecelia Sauter and her dog Snowy in the the back yard of her northeast Ann Arbor home, where she has put in a rain garden.

The rain garden is constructed so that water fills up one end of the bed, then spills into the other half. That happened the first year, Sauter said, but this year, even with all the rain that fell this spring, the first half of the garden has pretty much taken care of all the water.

Now her side yard is dry, said Sauter, and another neighbor, who used to have a wet foundation in the rainy seasons, now seems to have no problems. As an added plus, there are plants blooming in her yard all season, from wild geraniums to the Joe Pye weed. ”It is awesome,” said Sauter.

Marker, a civil engineer, knows something about water, and he had an idea of how to channel the rain that would run off his property and onto his downhill neighbors. The pear-shaped rain garden he installed several years ago handles runoff from his entire roof, as well as the water from three sump pumps that carry water from the footing drains under his basement.

Before the rain garden, all that water “left me with a soggy yard,” said Marker. In the winter, “the sump water would come out (of the ground) two or three houses down and ice up.” Now the water goes into the rain garden and soaks more slowly into the soil.

There was a slight problem with the rain garden in the winter, when the ground froze. Though the outside temperature was below freezing, the water pumped up from underground was a steady 58 degrees, Marker said, and it just ran out over the frozen garden.

But Marker set up a system of valves, and each winter he redirects the sump water from the rain garden to a pipe that takes it to the storm drain that runs under the nearby street. Each spring, he directs the sump water back in the garden, where it warms the soil and gives an early boost to the plants there.

The county rain garden project is run by Harry Sheehan, an environmental manager at Water Resources, who came to my house last summer to start the process of building my rain garden. His office provided a landscape designer, Janis Das of InSite Design, who came up with the shape of the garden and a selection of native plants. (This year, the county will use Master Gardeners to design the gardens.)

Sheehan also helped me lay out the design on my lawn and had an intern with a Rototiller available to help rip up the grass. I also got a discount on the plants, which were purchased through the county. The design was meant to capture the water coming off half my roof and from one of my neighbor’s downspouts. The water normally runs along one side of the driveway, and now that water should run through a rock-filled trench into the rain garden.

I was responsible for digging the bed, which had to be at least 3 inches deep and flat. Flat. That’s what had me standing in the yard, raking the bed like one of those little Zen gardens. I would rake, then measure, then rake, then move the stakes used to measure the depth and rake again.

It gave me a chance to get caught up with my neighbors, who all wanted to know if I was installing a pond  – ”A koi pond?” asked one neighbor. It’s planted now, and if Sauter and Marker are to be believed, the sweetspire, anemones and geraniums will be handling quite a bit of water that would normally run into the street’s storm drain.

The plants in the rain garden have to be able to take the hot, sunny conditions of high summer in my front yard, which faces southwest. But they also have to handle a rush of rain water that can come anytime from April to October.

I’ve mulched it all, but I expect there will be some small touches – such as adding a pile of rocks for contast and making the garden look a little less like a volcano (a neighbor’s description – I didn’t see it until he said it). I’ve also got to get out there and pull up the many maple seedlings that have recently sprung up.

After the last few heavy rains, I think the only change I’ll make is to enlarge the trench that leads into the rain garden bed. 

The county has posted more information online, including a video tour of several local rain gardens installed under the program, with a list of plants and the garden designs. This year, Sheehan plans on helping another 10 rain gardens become reality. If you’re interested, email him at sheehanh@ewashtenaw.org to see if you can get on his list. 

About the writer: Marianne Rzepka, former reporter for the Ann Arbor News and Detroit Free Press, is a Master Gardener who lives in Ann Arbor and thinks it’s fun to turn the compost pile.

Someone from Mrs. Szalay's kindergarten class at Lawton Elementary made this drawing, which hung in the school's hallway last month on the night of a public meeting at Lawton's gym. The picture's facial expression reflected the sentiment of some homeowners who attended.

“This” is a citywide program to disconnect the footing drains in all houses from the sanitary sewer system. And the answer to his question is “yes” – because the city mandates it.

Much like the sidewalk replacement program, the effort to disconnect footing drains will span several years. But unlike the sidewalk replacement, which homeowners must pay for, the city is reimbursing costs of the drain disconnect – at least for now.

The program started in 2001 as a way to deal with chronic sewer backups in basements of some residential neighborhoods, caused during storms when stormwater would flood that sewer system. In older homes, footing drains – which are designed to divert ground water away from a house’s foundation – were often connected to the sanitary sewer system. With heavy rains, the system didn’t have the capacity to handle the additional rainwater. Sewage would back up into basements through floor drains. It wasn’t pretty

In 2000 and early 2001, a task force looked at several ways to address the problem, including expanding the capacity of the sewer system. The task force’s final recommendation – proposing a citywide footing drain disconnect – was based on cost (it would cost less to reimburse homeowners than to install larger sewer pipes or expand the wastewater treatment plant) and root cause (if the footing drains weren’t disconnected, the same phenomenon would continue). The disconnect applies to homes built before 1982 – that’s when city code changed to prohibit builders from connecting footing drains to the sanitary sewer system.

The program initially targeted five neighborhoods on the city’s southwest side, where basement backups were most acute: Bromley, Dartmoor, Glen Leven, Morehead and Orchard Hills. Within that area, over 1,300 homes have completed the disconnect – an estimated 1,600 remain to be done.

And then, of course, there’s the rest of the city.

Residents at a neighborhood meeting about the city's footing drain disconnect program, held last month at Lawton elementary.

Anne Warrow, project manager with the city of Ann Arbor, said the city has designated funds to reimburse homeowners for the disconnect work – up to $4,100 per household, which includes installing a sump pump. But it’s difficult to predict the future, she said. “That may change.”

Getting that reimbursement means following steps outlined at two public forums held last month and led by CDM Michigan Inc., a consulting firm hired by the city to manage this project. Justin Woods, an environmental scientist and project manager in the firm’s Ann Arbor office, said their role is to interact with homeowners and contractors who do the actual disconnect work.

The process works like this: Homeowners are notified by mail that they need to disconnect their home’s footing drain. (If you haven’t received a notice, they haven’t started work in your neighborhood.) Homeowners are asked to schedule a pre-inspection with CDM to determine what type of work needs to be done, such as where the sump pump should be located. The homeowner is responsible for getting a contractor – there are five contractors that are approved by the city to do this work. The contractor comes out and gives an estimate – if that estimate is higher than $4,100, the city requires getting a second estimate, and will approve the lower of the two amounts, even if it’s higher than $4,100.

Karen Duff, an environmental engineer with the consulting firm CDM, talks with a homeowner at last month's meeting about the city's footing drain disconnect program. The poster shows images of work being done to install a sump pump.

When the city approves the estimate, the homeowner schedules the work with the contractor. The work itself usually takes three days, said Karen Duff, a CDM environmental engineer. When it’s finished, someone from CDM will do a final walkthrough.

If you get a notice and don’t respond, CDM will send you a reminder, then after two months they’ll send you another notice saying you have 90 days to complete the work. “As long as you’re working the program, we’ll work with you,” Woods said. But if you don’t respond, he said, you’ll start getting a $100 penalty each month, which will show up on your water bill. Plus, you’ll no longer be eligible for reimbursement from the city.

At a March 5 public forum, attended by about 50 people, many of the questions covered technical issues:

• How often does the sump pump run, and how much will it add to the electric bill? Woods: It’s variable, depending on how much ground water is being pumped. The electricity used is minimal, and also varies according to how often the pump runs. It could be as little as $1 extra a year.
• Has the city done before and after studies about radon levels when the sump pumps are installed? Warrow: No studies like that have been done, but the sump pumps authorized for purchase are all radon sealed.
• Is a back-up sump pump required? Woods: No, but if you lose power during a storm and you don’t have a battery-powered back-up sump pump, the water flowing into the sump won’t get pumped and could overflow into the basement. It depends, Warrow added – some homeowners say their primary sump pump never runs, so they probably don’t have much ground water flowing in and wouldn’t need a back-up. (This comment prompted murmurs among residents along the lines of “If the sump pump never runs, why did they have to install it in the first place?”)
• What kind of lawn damage will this cause, and who pays for that? Woods: The contractor is responsible for cleaning up and making sure there’s as little disturbance as possible. Worst case scenario would likely be a trench 1.5 feet wide by 3 feet deep, from the house to the connecting pipe by the street. “Contractors aren’t going to go to the flower store,” he said, “but they’ll work with you.”
• What about older basements that have asbestos tile? Woods: The contractors vetted by the city are all trained in handling asbestos.

Anne Warrow, project manager for the city of Ann Arbor, talks with a resident about the footing drain disconnect program.

One man said that a lot of people in the neighborhood had just replaced their sidewalks – would they now be torn up? Woods said that contractors go underneath the sidewalk to connect the pipe from the house to the city’s green curb-drain pipe. It shouldn’t have an impact on the sidewalk, he said.

Another man questioned why there were only two Ann Arbor contractors – Perimeter LLC and Hutzel Plumbing – on the list of five approved by the city. (The other three – RDC Residential Services, Landscape Construction and Bidigare Contractors – are all based in Plymouth.) Warrow said the contractors had to go through a strict qualification process, and Woods noted that “they all do good work.” The resident wasn’t satisfied: “My point is that I live in Ann Arbor, I pay taxes in Ann Arbor, and I would like to see a contractor in Ann Arbor get the money.”

To get an idea of what the footing drain disconnect looks like, we dropped by a house on Churchill, just south of Scio Church Road, where the work was being done by Richard Connors of RDC Residential Services. He and Bob Heligman were well along in the process when we arrived: In one corner of the basement, Heligman was using a jackhammer to break up the concrete floor where the sump pump would be installed. Rob Vedder, the electrician hired for this project, was installing a new electrical circuit, which is required for the sump pump.

Connors himself was on his knees, digging a hole from where the footing drain was connected to the sanitary sewer system. After disconnecting it, he would use an auger to drill a 5-inch diameter hole from that spot over to the sump pump – they’d push a pipe through that hole, which would allow ground water to flow from the footing drain to the sump pump.

Detailed descriptions of this process can be found on the city’s website page on footing drain disconntection. What follows is a photographic documentation of some of that process from The Chronicle’s onsite visit.

Having broken up a section of the concrete basement floor, Richard Connors digs by hand to find the footing drain. He'll eventually dig a 5-inch hole from this spot over to the location of the sump pump, about six feet away, and push a pipe through that hole over to the sump. Much of that digging can be done without removing the concrete, but the dirt does need to be removed. Connors loads it into his truck and takes it to some land owned by his church.

Richard Connors uses a metal probe to find buried pipes as he digs around the footing drain.

Rob Vedder of Ann Arbor-based Vedder Electric installs a new electrical circuit for the sump pump.

Bob Heligman works in tight quarters as he jackhammers the concrete floor. He'll later dig a 30-inch deep hole for the sump. From there, the pump will push ground water through discharge pipes to the outside of the house.

Richard Connors digs part of this outside ditch by hand.

This ditch runs along the side of the house, taking water along a pipe from the basement to a connection with the stormwater system, near the curb.

The white pipe protruding from the basement wall will eventually be hooked into a pipe that's laid in a ditch next to the house, connecting it to the stormwater system.

The poor condition of the pavement on Miller Avenue in Ann Arbor is the primary impetus behind the project, which could include many other improvements.

There was grumbling among some residents before the meeting even started: “They’re going to do what they’re going to do, it’s already a done deal.”

But the half-dozen city staffers who met with neighbors at Forsythe Middle School last Wednesday presented a variety of different options for how the resurfacing of Miller Avenue between Maple and Newport roads could be undertaken. Construction on the project could begin as soon as 2010, but far more likely is a 2011 start, according to project manager Nick Hutchinson, who’s a civil engineer with the city.

Some irritations from neighbors did surface in the course of the meeting. But reached by phone after the meeting, Hutchinson said he thought it was a healthy exchange and that the project team had been able to collect a lot of useful information.

Beyond Resurfacing

A point of agreement in the room was the need to address a variety of concerns beyond improving the road’s surface, even though the poor condition of the pavement was the impetus behind the project. To Eli Cooper, the city’s transportation program manager, the project represents an opportunity to implement some aspects of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan: (i)  installation of sidewalks where there are currently gaps on the south side of Miller, and (ii) widening of bicycle lanes from 3.5 feet to 5 feet.

To Susan Bryan, a city parks planner, and Jerry Hancock, natural resource and environmental planning coordinator, the project represents an opportunity to manage storm water runoff better and to soften the impact of runoff on Allen’s Creek, both in terms of volume and quality.

And the questionnaire circulated at Wednesday’s meeting reflected those goals. Among other questions, the survey asked residents to rank the following components of an improved road cross-section in order of importance:

• On-street parking
• Creating less paved surface
• Storm water improvements/rain gardens
• Bicycle lanes
• Wider lawn extensions

The availability of on-street parking appeared on the list, because some of the alternatives being considered would reduce the amount of street parking.

But one resident pointed out – after multiple people at the meeting had weighed in expressing their support for a signal light at Miller and Newport – that the list about road cross-section components didn’t offer an opportunity for residents to express their concern about the necessity of hazard controls, which had clearly been common thread across many comments. In response, Hutchinson encouraged residents to write in anything they felt was important.

Traffic Hazards

The issue of putting a signal at the intersection at Miller and Newport did arise on multiple occasions. Residents sketched a picture of Miller Avenue during peak morning and afternoon traffic times as an unending stream of vehicles that made it nearly impossible to exit their driveways. The stream included SUVs, school buses, and AATA buses, one woman said: “It’s not just beautiful little cars, it’s heavy traffic!” She was alluding to the sketched-up diagrams that were provided on easels and on handouts, showing the current road cross-section configuration with various alternatives.

Current Miller Avenue road cross section from Newport to Saunders, looking west.

Based on its current cross section, Miller Avenue is divided into two sections: (i) Newport to Saunders, and (ii) Saunders to Maple. Current road cross-section configurations plus sketched examples in .jpg files are availble here: Newport to Saunders, and Saunders to Maple.

In response to the frequent calls for a traffic light at Miller and Newport, Les Sipowski, traffic engineer with the city, explained that the city had undertaken studies in the past and that another one would be done in connection with this project. But he said that past studies of traffic volume did not indicate a signal was justified. Sipowski said that such decisions are based on “warrants,” which is the vocabulary used in the traffic engineering field to describe the thresholds or standards that need to be met in order to install a signal. The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices indicates that eight such warrants are:

• Warrant 1, Eight-Hour Vehicular Volume
• Warrant 2, Four-Hour Vehicular Volume
• Warrant 3, Peak Hour
• Warrant 4, Pedestrian Volume
• Warrant 5, School Crossing
• Warrant 6, Coordinated Signal System
• Warrant 7, Crash Experience
• Warrant 8, Roadway Network

There’s a hump in the road at the intersection that somewhat limits sight distance, but Sipowski said that it still met the guidelines for the indicated speed limit of 35 miles an hour. However, he said that if the construction work gave the city an opportunity to flatten the hump to improve sight distance, then they would do that.

Headed east on Miller. Car in the distance headed left to right is emerging from Newport. Note bus stop at the right. Bike lane is currently 3.5 feet wide. Standard would be 5 feet.

At a couple of different points, residents said flatly, “I don’t care what your study said, we need a signal there!” One resident explained that the number of vehicles measured as going through the intersection might not reflect the fact that people use Pinetree as a cut-through around it – even school buses, she said, though they’re not supposed to.

Sipowski assured residents that as far as a traffic signal went, “It’s not that I’m opposed to this, it’s what I do for a living!”

One resident, a dedicated cyclist, suggested that focus needed to be put on reducing the amount of traffic on Miller – looking at the problem holistically. He suggested that much of the peak-hour traffic was due to parents dropping their kids off at Forsythe, or at the Mack Open School (at 7th and Miller). Ways of reducing that kind of traffic should be looked at, he said. After years of cycling, he said, he did not know how much longer he could continue to put his life at risk to ride along that corridor.

Sidewalks and Funding

Another major resident concern was that the stretch along Miller is included in this season’s  city sidewalk repair program  – property owners are required to maintain and repair the sidewalks in front of their homes. The concern is that residents might be required spend money on replacing sidewalk slabs this year, only to have the sidewalk torn up and reconstructed in a year or two. Hutchinson said that he was coordinating with the director of the city’s sidewalk program, Brad Kluczynsk. However, he alerted residents to the fact that they would probably see the painted silver circles appear, indicating a needed repair, and would receive letters. He said they could call him for clarification. Said one resident, “You’re going to get a lot of calls!”

For sections on the south side of Miller where there are currently no sidewalks, Hutchinson said that one typical means of financing construction was through a special assessment – owners with property fronting the sidewalk pay. However, he said it was hoped that would not be necessary, depending on how the funding for the whole project came together.

It will be paid for out of a combination of funds: the 2006 street reconstruction millage; water and sanitary sewer funds, and state revolving funds for storm water improvements. This last item is the same funding mechanism being used to finance other projects affecting the Allen’s Creek drainage area, including one on the property of Pioneer High School. The revolving fund is a loan that would be administered through the water resources commissioner’s office (formerly known as the drain commissioner).

Rain garden on Miller Avenue. The garden is the half-moon-shaped depression a the the left of the photo.

Storm Water and Rain Gardens

Some of the project components that might be funded with the loan administered through the water resources commissioner include the idea of reducing the width of paved surface, and using the lawn extension area for a bio-swale – essentially an elongated rain garden.  At the Wednesday meeting, it was Susan Bryan, landscape architect with the city, who presented the possibility of using rain gardens as a way of letting some of the water from the road soak in to the ground, instead of trying to lead all of it to directly to storm drains using a gutter system.

The day after the meeting, The Chronicle took a pass through the corridor of the project looking for photo opps to illustrate various aspects of the project. The front of Jeremy Sobczak’s house brought together a couple of different aspects. For one thing, Sobczak’s house is one place where the sidewalk ends – and if the non-motorized plan is implemented, that would change. For another, Sobczak has already installed a rain garden in his front yard, with the assistance of a program administered by the county’s water resources commissioner.

Sobczak is graduating this spring from the University of Michigan with a degree in sustainable landscape design. He took the time to show The Chronicle the hoop house he’d built behind his house, where he has greens already emerging from the planter boxes inside the structure, which is built from electrical conduit draped with double-layered plastic – all supplies acquired from Stadium Hardware, Sobczak said.

Next Steps

Hutchinson said that there were a couple of slots that needed to be filled yet on the design advisory committee by residents who live along he corridor. [If you're interested, contact Hutchinson at nhutchinson AT a2gov.org] The DAC will meet in mid-April, and from mid-April to mid-May, city staff will work on conceptual drawings. In late May there’ll be another DAC meeting, and sometime in June there’ll be a second public meeting. Construction is expected to start in winter/spring of 2011.

Nick Hutchinson, project manager for the Miller Avenue resurfacing.

Les Sipowski, city of Ann Arbor traffic engineer.

Susan Bryan introduces the concept of rain gardens as a component of the project.

Miller Avenue westbound.

Jeremy Sobczak inside his hoop house where he grows food year round.