DEARBORN — City officials have announced plans to combat flooding and boost long-term stormwater resilience throughout the city.

Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and City Council President Michael Sareini recently met to discuss ongoing and future projects planned to combat flooding and revealed the results of a large-scale study commissioned by the city to try to assess and root cause the flooding during major storm events.

“Just a few months after [devastating flooding], I was elected as mayor of this city, with the promise that we would better prepare the city for floods and heavy rain events in the future,” Hammoud said. “We’re building resilience, we’re being proactive and prepared, and what we have done [thus far] has already yielded results.”

The study revealed that Dearborn’s current capacity to handle less than 3.5 inches of stormwater per rain event and being one of the most downstream communities in the Rouge watershed limits the city’s ability to move water out of the system fast enough during severe rain events.

As a result, the study recommended a drastic increase in capacity through large sewer separation projects.

Sareini thanked the combined efforts of the city’s Public Works Department, engineers and its vendor, OHM Advisors, that helped bring the study to a conclusion.

“This study provides a real framework,” he said. “It also helps us understand the short-term and long-term infrastructure needs in dollars so we can properly budget. While we waited for the study’s results, we did not sit idly by.”

Hammoud highlighted $25 million in grant dollars invested into flood preparedness and stormwater infrastructure while awaiting the conclusion of the study into the factors that have already resulted in minimal street and basement-level flooding during severe storm events, including removing logjams in the Rouge River, which increased capacity to move water out of Dearborn by 70 percent conversion of 24 residential easements along Morrow Circle into bioswales engineered to absorb up to 40,000 gallons of water in a single storm event; and investments in green infrastructure and permeable surfaces at parks and green spaces.

The clear-out of debris from the 12-foot-wide Colson-Palmer line will increase stormwater capacity by four million gallons of stormwater, restoring access to its original seven million gallon capacity.

The city has also employed a four-person sewer grate cleaning crew to ensure catch basins are cleared out to be able to take in stormwater when needed.

Some of the short-term projects already underway include two new pumps, or forced mains, that will move water into the river to prevent flooding, affecting more than 12,600 homes in East Dearborn; a federal grant that enabled the construction of four flap gates and two pumps that will act as backflow preventers, protecting roughly 13,600 residents from basement flooding during heavy rains, similar to the 2021 storm, which flooded nearly 20,000 homes in under 24 hours; and hundreds of new manhole covers in the same East End neighborhoods to direct rainwater away from the sanitary system into dedicated stormwater lines.

Also, plans are underway for two new stormwater lines for the area.

Some of the long-term projects include the flooding study that confirmed large-scale sewer separation projects as the most cost-effective solution to flooding. The city has also designed five large-scale projects to massively increase stormwater capacity for generations to come. One of the projects, called “Project 1” or “Notre Dame”, is expected to impact 800 acres in the southwest side of the city to increase the combined sewer system’s capacity citywide.

Hammoud also said that an agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers to evaluate the city’s infrastructure will allow the city to secure federal funding for these projects for years to come.

“Our message today is clear: this is just the beginning,” he said. “We’ve been working over the last four years on addressing flooding concerns. We’re doing the basics better, and we’re also investing in short-term solutions to give residents the confidence to continually invest within the city of Dearborn.”

More information, a presentation, fact sheet and a video series on flooding projects is available on the city’s website at Dearborn.gov/FloodPreparedness.