A concrete channel that has quietly carried industrial and residential runoff through Sterling Heights since 1970 has a new job: filtering pollutants before they reach Lake St. Clair, while giving residents a place to walk and bike along the way. Macomb County and Sterling Heights officials this month marked the completion of the second phase of the Sterling Relief Drain project, a green infrastructure overhaul located just south of Metropolitan Parkway that has now restored 100 total acres of habitat since work began.
According to The Detroit News, the drain runs west to east from Ryan Road to Schoenherr Road before meeting the Red Run Drain, and roughly 20 percent of Sterling Heights' stormwater and snowmelt passes through it on the way to the Clinton River and Lake St. Clair. Officials say the goal is to intercept pollution at the source: trees, shrubs and native perennials planted along the corridor act as a natural filter for nitrogen, phosphorus, sediment and other pollutants before runoff ever reaches those downstream waterways.
The recently completed second phase alone added 42 acres of restored habitat along a 1.2-mile stretch of the drain between Ryan Road and Mound Road, according to C & G Newspapers. Crews planted more than 2,500 trees and shrubs and 8,000 native perennial pollinator plugs, and spread over 200 pounds of native seeds. Project-wide, the Detroit News reports 5,000 trees and shrubs have now gone into the ground.
Trapping Trash Before It Reaches the Lake
Beyond the plantings, Phase 2 also retrofitted underground infrastructure, modifying channel inlets and reconstructing manholes with grates designed to physically trap trash and floating debris before it reaches the Red Run, the Clinton River and Lake St. Clair, per the same account. County officials expect the combined upgrades to remove roughly 4,500 pounds of nitrogen, about 800 pounds of phosphorus, and around 50,000 pounds of sediment from stormwater annually, according to the county commission. Excess nitrogen in lakes can trigger algae blooms that choke off other forms of life, which is part of why removing nitrogen and phosphorus matters for keeping Lake St. Clair's ecosystem healthy.
Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Candice Miller said the project improves water quality and local habitat while boosting recreational opportunities for residents. Sterling Heights Mayor Michael Taylor called the project an investment in the long-term resilience of the community. The upgrades are also meant to capture stormwater flows before they consume downstream sewer capacity in a watershed that officials describe as highly urbanized.
A New Trail Through the Neighborhood
The project also delivers something more immediately visible to residents: a pedestrian and biking path about half a mile long. Kyle Langois, director of Sterling Heights Parks and Recreation, said the walking and biking path creates a connection for residents to walk, run and bike safely through the community. Per C & G Newspapers, the new 3,000-foot shared-use path connects Ryan Road directly to James C. Nelson Park, expanding the city's broader trail network.
The Sterling Relief Drain's transformation didn't happen overnight. The project completed its first phase in 2019, and that earlier stretch — a two-mile run from Van Dyke Avenue to Schoenherr Road completed in 2020 that converted 53 acres into a so-called Butterfly Flyway planted with more than 135,000 native perennials — won the 2021 Quality of Life Project of the Year award from the Michigan chapter of the American Public Works Association, as detailed by Metromode.
Who Paid for the Overhaul
Funding for the $1.1 million renovation came from a patchwork of public and private sources. Sterling Heights and the Macomb County Public Works Office paid for the project, with the city contributing just over $400,000 to build the trail alone, and Macomb County and Sterling Relief Drain District funds providing about $187,000, according to the county commission. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation also funded the effort with a $415,000 grant, administered through its Sustain Our Great Lakes partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies. A federal earmark added $50,000 specifically for tree planting.
Private utilities chipped in as well: Consumers Energy provided a $40,000 grant, DTE contributed funding of its own, and DTE gave $4,000 toward the project. Engineering background from Hubbell, Roth & Clark notes that when the drain was originally built in 1970, it consisted of a 4-foot-diameter concrete pipe buried beneath a mowed trapezoidal open channel serving a 1,870-acre drainage district that includes three automotive assembly plants and major defense contractors — infrastructure engineered decades ago to convey untreated runoff directly into regional waterways.
Watching the Frogs to Track Recovery
Following construction, the Clinton River Watershed Council partnered with Macomb County Public Works to conduct ongoing ecological monitoring of the drain, including tracking local frog populations as a way to measure biological recovery over time, according to the Clinton River Watershed Council. The group notes the drain overhaul is part of a broader federal campaign in the Clinton River Area of Concern, which has seen more than $43 million invested across 18 remediation and habitat projects since 2010, including $20 million from the federal Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.
Kelly Karll, manager of environment and infrastructure with SEMCOG, said designing drainage projects as public amenities can improve community buy-in — a philosophy reflected in how Sterling Heights has folded the drain work into its wider sustainability push. The city's involvement in expanding pollinator habitat aligns with its commitments under the Mayors' Monarch Pledge and its voter-approved November 2024 Pathway to Play and Preservation program, which funds local tree canopy restoration and conservation easements.
Part of a Larger Infrastructure Push
The drain makeover arrives alongside other major non-motorized and drainage projects underway across Sterling Heights. The city recently broke ground on a $10M overhaul of Clinton River Road that combines subterranean storm sewer replacement with continuous pedestrian pathways this fall. That project follows the city's long-running Mound Road makeover, which also involved rehabilitating nine county drain crossings and culvert replacements at Bear Creek and McCoy Drain.
Together, the projects reflect a wider strategy in Sterling Heights of pairing flood control upgrades with trail networks across major corridors, rather than treating drainage and recreation as separate concerns. Bill Shuster, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Wayne State University, is among the experts who study how these kinds of green infrastructure retrofits perform in highly urbanized watersheds like the one surrounding the Sterling Relief Drain.
