Jay C. Juergensen, September 19th, 2024
Title
Jay C. Juergensen, September 19th, 2024
Publisher
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Detroit Historical Society
Language
en-US
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
Jay C. Juergensen
Interviewer's Name
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo
Date
9/19/2024
Interview Length
56:38
Transcription
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: I'm Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo It's September 19th, 2024, and I'm here with Please say your name.
Jay C. Juergensen: Jay C. Juergensen. You want me spell it out now. J a y and then C period. J u e r g e n s e n.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And I thank you. And do you live in the city of Detroit?
Jay C. Juergensen: Well, I often tell folks that I vote in Brooklyn and I have property in Detroit, but I have been a part of the Detroit scene since the late 80s. After doing my master's work at the University of Michigan, I spent most of my time during my master's program in Detroit, and I moved here, and I've been part of that community ever since, even though I split my time with East Coast. So.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And what neighborhoods have you lived in in Detroit?
Jay C. Juergensen: I've lived in Jefferson Chalmers My entire time in Detroit, yeah, from 1988, 89. Excuse me. Yeah.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And what career are you in?
Jay C. Juergensen: So I have spent a fair amount of time in consulting and I have my own consulting practice. Again, I've done that on and off throughout my career and I work in what I call public space, which is the assisting of communities to lift themselves to a new opportunity. I always tell folks that I worship at the Church of Community Development and the higher power is the community of souls that are in a particular neighborhood of geography to realize that. So it includes community, economic development, public interest, public works, and most recently an area that I've spent a lot of time in is disaster response and recovery.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And how did you get into consulting?
Jay C. Juergensen: Well, that's an interesting question because I cut my teeth coming out of college. Do I have to admit how old I am in 1988? And at the time, having a masters of architecture and a masters of business meant that you would pursue a career in real estate. And the country had just gone through a massive recession in the real estate industry and very similar to the meltdown in 2008, 2009. And so it was very difficult to find a job in real estate. And I came out of college and worked for a real estate developer that went bankrupt. And so I hung on a shingle and did that for 16 years, eight years, actually, and then went into public service and have worked in executive levels in the city of D.C. for both local and federal government and then most recently for Andrew Cuomo, former governor of New York, in helping in response to the Sandy recovery. So I'm so I'm back at it again, you know, and continue to enjoy the flexibility, but also, you know, the opportunity to do a variety of things.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And can you tell me about the Jefferson Chalmers Water Project?
Jay C. Juergensen: Yeah, sure. So the Water Project is an interesting creature. It's an initiative that just recently started its pivot towards charitable status. It's an initiative that grew out of, ironically, the equivalent of an academic white paper that I authored during 2020, during Covid in 2021. It was released to the public and published, if you will, just two days before a massive storm in Detroit. Did you in 2015, 26 and 2021, there was a massive storm across the metropolitan area that caused the regional water system to fail. And in that failure, people experienced an enormous amount of street flooding and more significantly experienced backups in their basements. The regional system serves about 2.8 million consumers across three counties, and it is a combined system like many industrial systems. And so we are all linked to it. And so our basements temporarily became basins. They held the excess water. Combined sewage that the system could no longer support in that heavy rain. And and the irony of and the synchronicity of my issuing the paper just two days before the storm created an enormous amount of attention and momentum both from residents and stakeholders, including, you know, the Army Corps and the Detroit Water Department and the Great Lakes Water Authority and the EPA and elected officials at every level. And so in that white paper, I suggested the water Project and Water is an acronym that stands for Water Access Technology, Education and Recreation. And it represents all the things that we think water can be in our neighborhood. And water is clearly an asset in our community, but it's also an existential threat. So the Water project is working now to respond to the challenges of climate and the infrastructure failures that are unique to our neighborhood. And so Jefferson Chalmers community is about a mile and a quarter square. It sits adjacent to the Detroit River. It's on the Detroit River, and it's literally surrounded by open and enclosed water resources. And as a result, we are at a greater risk than almost anywhere else in the state due to the impacts of climate.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And what were the first steps after the paper was published and it got this attention?
Jay C. Juergensen: Well, I often say that I would talk to anybody and everybody who would listen. Right. And being an advocate, I've been a longtime advocate in the neighborhood going back to the early the late 80s and early 90s. I've been a part of more than one nonprofit that's been established to do things in our community, the Jefferson East Incorporated, our or the Jefferson East Business Association. I'm the founding president of that. There was an organization called Creekside Community Development, which was doing affordable housing in the neighborhood. And it did several affordable housing projects in the community. And so those relationships were critical to thinking about how we would engage the community in understanding the impacts of climate and advocating for them. So the first thing we did was community organize in the first probably 12 months through the summer and fall of 2022. We held a series of community meetings and we did five in the row in a row in the fall of 2022. We touched all roughly 2300 residents in the community with fliers to invite them to each of these meetings. I created an educational tool called the Crew Exam, which stands for Community Residents that are Experts in Water. So we invite them to come be members of our crew. And so over the five weeks, I did an hour long class. And at the end of that, we did an exam. So there's an exam that allowed residents to really be empowered. Knowledge is power. And if we're talking about agency in this conversation about how we address climate, if we really believe in environmental justice, then the disadvantaged communities that are being impacted at climate should have some say about the solutions. And the way to get there is to empower them with the knowledge of what's happening. So we talked about floodplains and flood insurance rate maps and elevation certificates in the northern the North American vertical datum, which is a line that's established similar to sea level. And these are all technical terms that empower people to be able to have conversations with institutional stakeholders about how we can better our community. So community organizing is always first, right? And education followed.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And has this work changed in the three years since 2021?
Jay C. Juergensen: I would say that, yes. You know, it's a it's a daily struggle. People have busy lives. And I think the lifeline taken for you and I to connect. Okay. And I think I've been on your radar for the better part of three months, so I'm really excited to be here. But I also say that, you know, when you look at the the the dynamics of today's society and we have a very unique community, but not unique to Detroit. We have pockets of wealth and pockets of poverty. We have homes selling for a half million dollars. You know, a few blocks from houses that have been literally burnt out. And and in that dynamic, you have wealthy folks who are probably sending their kids to school outside the neighborhood. And we have folks that are in poverty who are struggling to just get their kids have to go to school. And in that dynamic, getting folks to come out once a month, once a quarter to a couple hour meeting is a challenge. And that's before you start talking about the challenges with social media and the other ways people connect. So I would say, yes, I think we've been successful and in two very significant ways. One is in the last week, like I said, we've just pivoted to become a recognizable nonprofit. We've formally organized as a state recognized nonprofit, and we'll be working on charitable status over the next probably year. But we took the time to really engage folks. And so when I ask a half a dozen folks to come join me in starting the nonprofit, I didn't have to twist any arms. People gladly came out to sign the Articles of incorporation. The Water Project is now a recognizable entity. I think if you were to ask local elected officials, any council person, if you were to ask numerous state senators and representatives, if you were to ask our federal leadership, they know what the water project is. They know they know me and other people. We are. We've been very fortunate in that period of time to get an enormous amount of press. And and I and I am adamant about making sure that other voices get heard in that conversation, similar to the conversations you and I have had. It's very difficult for people to, you know, get their story heard. And if we're going to understand the implications and the impacts of what people are experiencing, we have to listen first. You know, and one of the things that I really, you know, doing this work for 35 years, you know, in different places and different geographies. And the one thing that I really learned is that you have to lean and listen. The trust requires intimacy, which means you have to stop talking for a minute to listen to what other people have to say. So having the opportunity to tell stories is is is a critical component in our success. We have raised a limited amount of foundation resources. We have, some large donors who've been very generous. We are operating with, you know, we have six committees with anywhere from 37 to 60 folks who show up on a regular basis to help advance our agenda. You know, the Corps knows us. The EPA knows us. The Eagle in the States Environmental Agency knows us at the highest ranks and in the front lines. And and that's in large part because, again, I'm not the only one who's speaking out about these things. And so I think we're going to continue to be successful. You know, I think I'm not sure that we will see all of the change that I would like to see in my lifetime. But I'm confident that we will we will have some success. I think part of the last thing I want to say is that, you know, when you're when you're creating a place based, you know, initiative, organization or whatever, if people have some ownership in that and they believe in their place, then you're going to survive political cycles and political power. Right. We have we have. I've been in the neighborhood for 30 plus years. We have residents that are, you know, 50 year residents or more. They've lived their entire life within a block of where they live now. We have new residents who are experiencing some of the same challenges. And because they're new and had sewage in their basement who live in a neighborhood seven years and three times in the seven years they've had sewage information. And so the challenges that we're attempting to address are affecting it. 65% of our roughly 6000 residents had three feet or more of sewage in their basement. Yeah. And and, you know, when you talk about access to resources and just say one more thing about that. So, by the way, Fenton, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA's individual assistance only helps homeowners. Detroit's residential base is now about half renters. So renters can't benefit from emergency aid from FEMA unless they need temporary housing. Myself, as a business and property owner, I can't benefit directly. I would have had to get a loan from the Small Business Administration in order to recover the $18,000 that I lost in one weekend. And so people people need to understand that folks are still surviving from something that happened three years ago. And it's a challenge for many people. And and when we think about the connective tissue that represents people's history, their photo album, you when people are running from fires, what's the one thing they grab their pets and their photo albums, Right. So people lost their mothers annual yearbook or the photo album that they had in the basement in this storm. This was traumatic. And for many people, these were precious elements. It may not it may have been the one place where they were watching television on an old couch. But in many instances, it was they lost an enormous amount of memories that they had. And that is that is something that it's going to take, you know, generations to reconcile, you know. So, anyway.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And based on your personal and professional experience, what do you believe the impacts of climate change are on Detroit and on the world?
Jay C. Juergensen: Well, it's funny because, you know, it wasn't that long ago that recycling was a radical idea. You know, in my lifetime, you know, those crazy people who were doing recycling and now it is commonplace. I think the same is true of as we talk about resilience in climate. Climate is having unprecedented impacts in people across the globe. I mean, and if we're just going to be talking about America specifically, the thing that's changed for me is I cannot consume enough information about it. Like, everything that I want to read now is about climate migration or what's happening and what kind of climate solutions other communities are dealing with in another part of the world. And I think it's going to take some very serious, out-of-the-box thinking. I think there are two things that are confronting America. One is that the dynamic of climate migration within our country is going to be significant. You know, if if half of the panhandle of Florida is underwater and if Arizona and much of the west of the Rockies has temperatures that are unbearable, 250 out of 350 days or whatever people are, it's going to become untenable. I think when you combine that with the implication of race and economics, which unfortunately in our country seem to run together a lot, there are going to be a lot of people that are going to be left behind. And the completely undoing of our capital markets, you know, if the entire southern coast of Florida is underwater, what impact does that have for all those buildings who have mortgages, who can't be paid because there's nobody paying rent to live in them? And and and so you're going to there's going to be this enormous move of people. People are going to get left behind. And we're going to have even more strain on our resources to assist people who are being left behind. And that's going to be huge, I think, as it relates to what's happening in Michigan specifically, we have got to change the dynamic of how we treat the Great Lakes. We are currently pursuing about $6.5 million worth of resources to get us out of a federally designated floodplain. However, to the east of us, three Growthpoint municipalities are spending $78 million to dump untreated storm and sewer into Lake Sinclair. Within spitting distance of our community so upstream from us while we're trying to scrape it, competing for competing nationally for $20.5 million, there are $78 million of federally approved investment to dump. You know, to dump trash, essentially, and pollute Lake Sinclair. Who thinks that's a good idea? Nobody. Right. And and the voters in those neighborhoods went into the ballot box and they approved a bond issue to finance these projects, having no idea that they were polluting their own communities in gross wind farms. The discharge for the untreated stormwater, which is goose poop, dog poop, fertilizer, all the oils and greases that are on the roads when your tire wears down over time. What that does is there are little pellets of rubber that are constantly being thrown off your tire as it wears down. When there's a rain, all of that gets washed into the catch basin on the side of the street and it's going to go into Lake St Clair, immediately adjacent to the Grosse Pointe Farms Public Park, where people swim, fish and keep their boats. They're polluting their own public park, and the residents aren't even aware of this. And there are so many alternatives to these large, expensive solutions. And there's a bias in our state against Green Storm infrastructure, the holding of water in bio swales and in retention basins and other things. And so if the people in Arizona are moving to Michigan for the water and we're polluting, why they're coming here. We're cutting off our nose to spite her face. Governor Whitmer just recently had a task force to Blue Room task Force. You and all these high corporate and public leaders to figure out how to attract people in Michigan, not have to worry about that. They're coming. They're going to be here probably in your lifetime, not in me, but by 2050 and certainly by 2070, we're going to see a significant shift in America's population. And why will they be coming? Because we are the Great Lakes state. We sit at the nexus of the largest source of freshwater in the world, and we're screwing it up by polluting it. Great Lakes Water Authority is spending $138 million to build a five story, windowless, one acre pump station in the middle of the poorest, blackest and lowest density part of our neighborhood. And this is a federally financed project. So we have the industrial encroachment of a pump station into a disadvantaged neighborhood. They pick the poorest and the blackest part of our community to do this. And they've been working on it for seven years and we just found out about it in January. So and so when we think about how we're spending federal resources to correct the effects of climate. We're winning. We're losing the battle. We're losing the battle. If we're successful at getting we're partnering with the University of Michigan. If we're successful in getting this $20 million and we get six of it to do public investments in our infrastructure, it's a drop in the bucket. I don't even know what the percentage of 6 million is of 138. I can't do that math fast enough. Right. But that is the challenge, is that the institutional stakeholders who are making decisions, the public works officials who are involved in making the decisions about how we're going to deal with storm water, sewage and the effects of climate, because all of these things are to increase the capacity of the system to manage what's now called cloudburst, which are these intense storms that happen over a shorter period of time. So if we had if we had the same amount of rain over two days, the system could handle that. But because we're getting these intense, intense storms where rain is, the amount of rain in the system is happening in a much shorter period of time. The system can't handle it. So all of these investments that I'm talking about are to help the system manage these cloudburst and they're all bad decisions. They all have larger, downstream, literal downstream implications and they're all short term investments. But they but the amount of work we're doing in our neighborhood pales in comparison. And we're trying to speak truth to power to have there be a tactic to be in the room when these decisions are made. So it's a challenge. It's a big challenge. So I think what's happening nationally will upset capital markets and upset where people live. What's happening in our state needs to change in a significant way. If why people are coming here has value and matters.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And we'll talk a little bit more about green stormwater infrastructure and what needs to be done on that front.
Jay C. Juergensen: Sure. So when we if we were to step back a second, let's talk a little bit about how the system works. Okay. So when you are in your home and you're taking a bath or shower or flushing your toilet or doing your dishes, all of that waste runs into a single pipe and out your door right through the ground and into a pipe. There's a pipe in the street called the main, which is where the catch basin, which is the thing that had it looks like a tic tac toe grid sitting at the curb line. So a street is purposely curved where the middle of the street is higher than its edges. And so water runs off it. That water that comes from your toilet and the water that's in the street running a single pipe. It's called the combined system. And again, in heavy rains, when people are flushing their toilets, the system can't handle it. So in order to allow for the system to have relief, there are things called combined sewage overflows or outfalls. In our neighborhood, we have the largest CSO in the state. And we have another CSO that's had Conner Creek at Fox Creek, which is the other border of our community. We have 273 homeowners that directly above where raw sewage is being dumped into the canal in heavy rains. And during the June storm of 21, we had condoms hanging from trees. That's how much the storm flattened out. So when we talk about these investments in the Grosse Pointe communities and from Glwa, we're talking about increasing the capacity of the system, which means we need to talk about either additional relief that's going to discharge this untreated stormwater into this into the lake, or we're going to dig bigger holes like we have larger pipes over a longer period of longer distance that have more diameter. If you think about a pipe as a dam, right. The larger that diameter gets, the more capacity you have. But like most great infrastructure, whether it's highways or parking lots, you can't build it big enough, will never catch up with what climate is doing. And so Green Storm infrastructure are things that are onsite. They're retention basins. They're marshes. They're places where bio spills and rain gardens can be in your on your yard, where your downspouts can dump into your yard and be held for a minute. So retention basins, there's a whole variety of green storm infrastructure. So retention basins, what's commonly referred to as bio swales and rain gardens are all small, can be any scale, but typically smaller scale. If you think about them as ponds, like little ponds that sit in your yard and hold the water temporarily and either let it absorbed into the dirt or let it flow into the system after the system has more space. And we have an enormous amount of vacant land in the city of Detroit where we could dump this. If the stormwater was separated from sewage, you could dump it out onto these large pieces of green space and you could let it be absorbed into the ground instead of putting it into the system, which then you have to continue to increase the capacity. Right. So GSI or Green Storm infrastructure is a less expensive and more manageable, more environmentally friendly approach to dealing with cloudburst and lack of. So instead of just increasing capacity, which we need to do, we also need to reduce demand. So GSI reduces demand on the system. There are other simple things we can do. It sounds sounds foolish to think about. But the catch basin that's on the side of the street at the curb, you could put fewer holes in that so that the rainwater would sit on the road longer. It would take longer for it to go into the system. That might mean we have to slow down when it's raining because there's water on the street. So we have to talk about changing our habits for climate. Maybe we have to slow down when it's raining. The other thing we could do is stop using our water appliances in the Gowanus community in Brooklyn, which also is a Superfund site. It's been polluted by dumping sewage and industrial waste into a canal in in Brooklyn for over 100 years since the Industrial Revolution. They have a campaign there that encourages people not to use the water appliances. So that doesn't cost anybody anything but a little bit of air freshener. All right. So close the lid to your toilet. Don't take a shower. Don't use your dishwasher. Don't flush your toilet during heavy rains. You're reducing demand on the system. If all 25,000 residents in Grosse Pointe did that. We'd have less waste coming into our community and into our system. And if we did that on a regional basis, it would fundamentally change demand on the system during heavy rain. And that simple then costs anybody anything. Like I said, just, you know, maybe a little air freshener or a candle. And we have talked about changing our behavior. That's a behavior change. It's raining. Don't flash your toilet. Simple. Matter of fact that greatly. The Greater Chicago Water Conservation District does a PSA public service announcement during heavy rains. And they have I think it's a no flush pledge or something. You can go on their website and you can pledge not to use your water appliances when it's raining. The Great Lakes Water Authority advises you to take things out of your basement. You tell me who's working out looking out for consumers and residents. And 70% of the 2.8 million consumers. Did I say this earlier? 70% of the 2.8 million consumers that are served by the Great Lakes Water Authority regional system comes through our neighborhood. But it's not from our neighborhood. So this hundred and $38 million investment does nothing to protect my neighbors from getting sewage in their basements. Nothing. $138 million. You know? Yeah, it's tricky and it's really tricky. And there is a bias, right? We have been building gray infrastructure for 100 years. You know, there's there's a there's a very complicated formula. I equals I can't even tell you what I stands for. There's a very complicated formula that is used by engineers to size the pipe. Who's in control of our environmental agency and the regulatory environment. Engineers who are comfortable with an approach and technology that is in their minds. Long and true because it's been around for 100 years. There's just as you go to a place like D.C. or maybe Philadelphia or even out to Arizona, there are dynamic approaches to thinking about stormwater management that other municipalities and regions are thinking about, and we are way behind the curve and we have more at risk because the more we rely on gray systems and pollute our Great Lakes, the worse we're going to be. Well, who said pay Paradise and put up a parking lot, you know? And when you add the dynamics of race to that, you know, drive up Grasshit Avenue and Roseville less than 2 or 3 blocks north of 696. The I can't think of the name of the community now. There is a Catholic Church that is a beautifully historic campus that was built in 1890. That's for sale. There are closed banks. You know, there's a variety of tattoo parlors and storefront churches and resale shops, you know, within a block of 696. Roseville has unraveled. And but you drive up to Richmond, which is like 32 miles away. So we're talking about the difference between ten mile and 32 mile. There's a new McDonald's and a new Kroger's and a new, you know, AutoZone and a whole bunch of investment, you know, 20 miles away. And we continue to pay Paradise and put up a parking lot. And where's that water run? Into one of the lakes. We're in the center of the Great Lakes. So any drop of water either through the aquifer or as a matter of surface water, runs into a creek, runs into a swamp, runs into a canal, runs into a Great Lakes. So any pollution that happens anywhere inside the state of Michigan is going to end up in the Great Lakes. It has to. In the middle of the basin. Yeah. You know, we go.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And how have you personally been affected by climate change?
Jay C. Juergensen: Well, you know, it's funny, I, I used to call this is a really bad word, but I'm saying I just call it disaster porn because like, whenever I would see natural disasters, like when a typhoon hit Japan or when they would, we would watch. You know, when you see the guy from NBC and, you know, umbrella blowing away, I can't not watch it. I can't not watch it because I've always been interested. I grew up on Lake Michigan. And as a child in Lake in the in the I was born in 1963. So in the late 60s and early 70s, the Clean Water Act went into effect in 1970. As a child, we had to rake the fish. So at night dead fish would wash onshore and we had to rake and bury the fish because they were across the entire shoreline. So from one end to the other, this is near covered. And South Haven, right on the shore of Lake Michigan. So in order to use the lake in the morning, we had to rake and bury the fish every day. Every day. In the 70s, we lost a football field of beach, and you had to be up on what's called the bluff and go directly into the water because the water was slapping right up against the bluff. So and my dad, who was, you know, didn't finish high school, said, well, where did they think the water was going to go? You know, here's a man who's spouting climate science in the 1970s. You know, because we were dealing with, you know, 20 years of suburban expansion. So all the expansion that happened post-World War two, especially in a state like Michigan, but certainly anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world, been paving Paradise and putting up a parking lot. We did that for we've done that for a hundred years. And so we're continuing to see that the existential threat in my own neighborhood is the flood plain, and that's another 30 years away. So it takes five years of wet weather in the Great Lakes Basin. Now we're talking about, again, the largest source of freshwater in the world. And we're talking about land from Ottawa to Ohio. The Great Lakes Basin and the Great Lakes expand to a huge geography. So everything in that basin spills into the Great Lakes. It takes about five years of wet, consistent, wet weather. For us to experience Great Lake rise in 2019 and 2020. We also had encroachment from the Great Lakes into our neighborhood because the Great Lakes were high. We're now seeing unprecedented low levels, but we are now locked in a federal flood plain because of the existential threat. 30 years from now, we will not see Great Lakes rise in my lifetime. I will be gone. If I live to be 80. I will be gone by the time we see it again, probably 25 to 30 years away. And yet we are locked in a federal flood plain because while our neighborhood is only a mile and a quarter square, we have ten miles of shoreline. Right. So up and down both canals, we have five islands. They're all surrounded by water and we have three parks that are surround their islands. And every bit of that shoreline has to be up to a certain level based upon future Great Lakes rise. And it's not. So the Federal Emergency Management Agency, again, FEMA, who establishes these things, came in and did some calculus and said, well, based upon what happened the last couple of years in 2019 and 2020, we're going to say that unless you raise your shoreline. Everybody, every inch of their shoreline has to be at a new height. And it cost the average person somewhere around $45,000 to put in a new seawall. Not now. Everybody needs a new one. Some people need theirs extended and stuff like that. But we've calculated somewhere and get this number about $10 million. So we're pennies on the dollar to protect our community from an existential climate threat in 30 years compared to what communities around us are spending. And why? Because the people in my neighborhood have dark skin. It's really that simple. It doesn't take it doesn't take a rocket scientist. It doesn't take a scientist of any kind to do the calculus around what's happening to our community. And that's why I say Jefferson Chalmers is unique in the state. We have underground infrastructure that is failing, and we're subject to investments by institutional stakeholders that are not helping our neighborhood. The cities about the cities, the water department, the Detroit Water and Sewage Department is about to do a $20 million investment. In upsizing sewers in our neighborhood in strategic locations. Not $1 of that investment is going to protect us from cloudburst. Why are you doing it? Why are you spending $11.5 million of a $21 million project? So most of that came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. So the same agency that locked us in a flood plain is is giving the city $11.5 million to upsize users sewers that aren't going to do us any good. Why? Because we're only investing in increasing capacity, not reducing demand. If we were to spend a portion of that on Green Storm infrastructure, we would reduce demand on the system. And we might if we started educating people about not using the water appliances. But we're not doing any of that. And residents in my neighborhood aren't at the table in these discussions. I said earlier that if I'm telling my own story. So going back to being a child. So I saw the implications of climate at a time when people weren't even talking about that as a word. I mean, maybe they were in some halls of science, but certainly not in my small community. And I have lived through all of that. I have seen people's homes lifted and moved blocks away by Superstorm Sandy and working with Governor Cuomo ten years ago. And you can't look at that and not be changed. You can't see it. And so the intensity with which I watch it on television, on a video is because I just like. My God. What's happening to our planet? And I saw it as a child. You know, we couldn't go swimming because the water was rushing right up against the bluff. And so what happened in 19 7070s was the Clean Water Act. We no longer have dead fish. The health I'm assuming that the health of the lake is better because we don't have tons of fish washing up on the beach every night. Right. So so I'm seeing the implications of federal policy work and I'm now experiencing as both a disaster professional, someone who has spent billions of dollars of federal money in other communities. I've worked in New York and in Texas on disaster recovery and someone who's seen the nexus of federal investment and what it can and cannot do. You know, we put. And Superstorm Sandy came in and took a bite out of Fire Island. Fire Island is a barrier island. And barrier islands by definition protect the coast. So whether it's the Outer Banks in North Carolina, the Florida Keys or the areas along Miami and Fort Lauderdale in Long Island experience, Fire Island, Sandy came in and took a single bite out of Fire Island and left a hundred million excuse me, 1,000,000yd³ of sand in a single bite that is about a football field stacked three stories in sand. So if you can just do a visual on Ford Field and stack up three stories of sand that happened in one storm, we had to put all that back in less than six months. Actually had to put about half of it back in six months for buildings for Fire Island, which is a state park, were at risk. The water tower, which provided provides water. Water is pumped into it and then provides water to the end of the island was at risk because the storm came in, took a bite out of a traffic circle. And when you when you replenish that much sand, you also have to think about the species who work in the sand. So the piping plover is an endangered species and we couldn't move sand during their breeding period. But we had we only had six months to move that my sands a lot of sand and move in a short period of time. So I've seen success. I've seen Houston think strategically about their floodplain. Houston was a swamp. And most of the highways in Houston are in low lying areas that are surrounded by a flood plain. And and Houston was strategically using the federal resources after Harvey to think about where they could take people out of the flood plain because you can't escape it there. We can get out of the floodplain by fixing our shoreline. You can't escape the flood plain in Houston. It's part of the tissue of the city. So I've seen success in other communities. And and, you know, like I said, we are being left out of the decision making. So how it affected me is that I have been sitting at the big boy table of power as a middle aged, white, well-educated man for all of my professional career. And I have worked for a governor. I worked for admirals of the Navy. I have worked for mayors. I worked for the executive, the Detroit Housing Commission here. I work for a Fortune 50 company as a as a project manager. And in each of those situations, I acted on behalf of somebody who was in power, usually a white man. And so when I walked into a room, my ability to act and make change was based upon the power that I represented. I am now speaking truth to power on behalf of the community, black folks who are, first of all, not let in the room. And secondly, certainly don't get invited to the table. And so in a completely different way. And it's not a it's not a false false equivalence. The disrespect that I'm getting, given my professional and personal experience as a disaster survivor and as a disaster professional is not the same as the disrespect that black folks have had for centuries. So I don't want to, you know, say that's the case. But it's very interesting to be in a situation where people are completely ignoring what I want to say and what we want to say about the future of our community. When the city can invest a billion and a half dollars. In luxury condos and a new stadium and all this other investments for what is now, you know, District Detroit for 6000 jobs if they come. What about the 6000 residents in my neighborhood? We want a fraction of that. And we cannot It's struggling to get the attention of the stakeholders who are in decision making around this at every level of government. And that is it's painful for me personally. I struggle with it every day. Because I say that the the my consulting work is my vocation and the water project is my vocation. And so while I'm out advocating and, you know, be very honest that, you know, it's in my enlightened best interest to have an area where I have personal investments. Improve. But that's true of the entire 6000 people who live in my neighborhood. You know, Mrs. Loretta is going to do better. You know, if we help improve our community, Mom, Myrtle is going to do better. You know, Ms.. Ms.. Ms.. Bennett is going to do better. You know, we were talking. You know, Ms.. Grandmom, we're talking three generations of people in our neighborhood. They're all going to benefit by this. And, you know, it's really, it's really empowering to me. And it's, it's humbling to have this idea that I had take root and have it be a recognizable thing in the neighborhood. So, you know, they're helpful. Yeah. Okay.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And you talked about how there isn't enough education in places like Grosse Pointe about these issues at the Water Project or any other places. Have you worked with any educational initiatives for communities or. Yeah.
Jay C. Juergensen: Yeah. So it seems to me, like I said, I use the opposite. Any opportunity I have to run my mouth about this stuff. I always I always say, you pull down the middle, you pull the string in the middle of my back, it's your fault. So yeah, we have I mean, just less little. Less than a year ago, I was asked by the Growth Point Democratic Club, I mean, Growth Point Democratic Club is the largest Democratic club in the state. You know, people think of growth point as a conservative and Republican kind of place, but Democratic club has a lot of influence there. And I sat next to a state senator and I sat and a woman from our state environmental agency and a professor from Wayne State. And we talked about the implications of climate on what was happening. And I do a little sketch that I have. My background is in architecture, so I do this little diagram that shows people how the system works. Most people don't understand, you know, when we have storms and wires go down. That's an obvious thing. You can see it. And there's all kinds of public service announcements about Staley, you know, don't have the power. But nobody sees what happens underground. It's completely absent from our thinking. We flush the toilet and just figure to go somewhere. So I always spend a fair amount of time, no matter where I am, talking about how the system works so people understand. When you flush your toilet in gross point, you would literally shit on me. And I asked folks, do you consider yourself an environmentalist? You. Raise your hand. You know how many people. How many of you think about, you know, dumping waste into the lake as a bad thing? How many people think, you know, dumping waste on your downstream neighbors is a bad thing. Everybody raises their hand, but nobody understands that. They went into the ballot box and they approved a $45 million project that I don't want to beat up on Grosse Pointe Farms too much. But there's lots of there's lots of blame to go around. But Gross Wind Farms is sending the pipe that's going to Lake St Clair through a golf course and a private school university. Liggett. With football fields and rugby fields. So there's all these opportunities for them to spill this water off into some green space and let it be absorbed in. I mean, they're going through this green space. It's like going through the forest and not knowing the trees are there in Growthpoint City. They just repaved all of their downtown parking lots. There's not a bit of on site retention. So all the water from these brand new parking lots is all running into the system and they're about to dump it into Lake St Clair. Who thinks that makes any sense? So I can do all the education I want, you know, for the residents. But at the end of the day, it's the who made that decision. Probably the director of DPW, the public works director, probably, you know, hire the engineer who did the analysis, who determined that this was the best solution. And of course, they'll tell you, well, that's better than getting sewage in our basements. Yeah, it is. But. It's that's a short term decision. In Grosse Pointe in the city of Detroit, 46% of the people who applied for FEMA assistance following the June 21st storm were assisted. To the tune, like I said, about 3 to $4000, which is a drop in the bucket compared to what most people lost in the five points in Harper Woods. It was about a 16% approval rate and the amount that people got was significantly less. And and the challenge, however, is that wealthy folks. Like with climate migration. Like they didn't need to do if they did a claim to their insurance companies. If not, they probably had the pocketbooks to just go ahead and renovate their basement again. So the the the quality and the quantity of loss are not the same. They're not equal. And that's a hard thing for people to understand. Well, my basement hands you what you will, but you have money. Yeah. You know, in the capitalist construct, there's the world we live in. And so people, you know, the other area where I try to have an impact is that. The EPA has an annual bi annual conference about brownfields. The International City County Management Association. I just was the featured author in their international magazine talking about climate and disasters. There's the Emergency Management Conference for Eagle is coming up in in February. So I'm attempting to also speak out about this and other places. And then the Michigan Stormwater and Floodplain Association has an annual conference. And I always go there and challenge on the engineers. I don't know if they're going to invite me back this year. The engineer who did the Grosse Pointe Farms development and got in my face the day I was speaking, Well, what's the alternative? And of course they're making $4 million. The general rule for engineering and architecture is about 10% of the cost. So their firm is making $4 million on this project. It's not in their enlightened best interest to think about a less expensive way for the city to spend the money because then they get paid less. Right? So it's it's an interesting challenge and I know just enough to be dangerous because one of my executive positions was working for the water authority in D.C. so I've worked for was equivalent in Washington DC, which also was a water authority that was established on the back end of a city bankruptcy. Isn't it interesting that the three black communities, majority black communities that were in bankruptcy under Governor Snyder all had their water systems taken away from them or screwed up in one way or another. The genocide in Flint, the creation of Glwa and the lead pipe crisis in Benton Harbor. Isn't it interesting that all three of those black communities had significant water crises at the same time? Curious. Right. So anyway.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And are there any particular organizations or individuals in Detroit that are doing work that you want to highlight?
Jay C. Juergensen: Yeah, for sure. So my Monica Monica Patrick Lewis, as we know her and we the people, Detroit, they're mostly speaking out about water quality from the tap. When we talk about water quality, we're talking about what happens in our open canals. And we launched a youth scientist program last two years to have high schoolers actually, you know, take water out of the canals and test it to see if it meets surface water quality standards. The water standard air quality for the EPA is fishable and swimmable. And I challenge every person, every elected official and every government agency to come take a dip or cast a pall, because I can guarantee you it's not going to meet water quality. Most of people who visit our neighborhood to access the boat docks and stuff come from other places and they mostly go out to Lake St Clair, the Detroit River. But certainly we the people, Detroit is someone I would highlight the Friends of the Rouge on the west side of the community. They've been in that side of Detroit. They've been working in the, what, 48 communities in 3 or 4 counties that are the rouge watershed, doing pretty dynamic work. They've recently had a leadership change, but in my opinion, they are the model they started in the mid-nineties to address at a time when the Rouge River was considered dead. You know, not unlike what happened with the lake in Cleveland. It was it was we have turned our back on water for years. You have to remember that economic development follows major modes of transportation. So we started out with waterways as the primary way to move goods around. So we we every municipality of any size had a working waterfront. I don't care if it's Monroe or Marshall, right? If you have a waterfront. It was used to move goods and services. The interconnectedness of waterways is how we got, you know, agricultural products or building products around the country. And so everywhere we go, we've been turning our back on the river for years, and now we know that that was a bad thing. My dad used to say to the Indians, Do not piss in the river regularly. It was the source of life. And we have been we have been dumping waste into rivers for years, centuries, maybe even a couple of centuries. So. But the rouge started out in the mid-nineties with a major EPA grant to bring all of those communities together to think about its watershed. And its watershed is, you know, huge. It goes into Washtenaw County, it goes up into Oakland County. So the Friends of the Rouge, the Friends of Detroit River, have been good partners, were challenged recently with some decisions that have been made about EPA investments in our community. We have a habitat restoration that has been ten years in the making that was recently pulled by the EPA. So we're losing about a $3.5 million investment in habitat restoration in Jefferson Challenge, which we're very. Unhappy about. But I would say that the friends in the Detroit River are probably the one place that we participate in a regional decision making process that is really stakeholder driven. It's actually refreshing. And I told that leadership that recently because they have people from Windsor at the table. We have people from all up and down the river that are and from the Sierra Club and the water department and the Parks Department and, you know, from Wyandotte to Lake St Clair involved in thinking about how to make the Detroit River healthier. And that's a robust discussion. And I would say that they're a great partner in that regard. I think there are other people there. The name escapes me. But the folks in Flint, I mean, there's not a mom in America who doesn't think about the quality of water coming out of their tap because of the genocide in Flint and it was genocide. There's no question about it. There are generations of people that are going to be impacted by the decision to poison that population. But we're seeing, you know, ten years of of young people wearing people of color, wearing lab coats that never thought about science before. Their own community was impacted by bureaucrats that weren't caring about. You know, so I would say people in Flint that are doing that what's called citizen scientist. I mentioned the gentleman right off the bat, Mike Reed, who's the director of citizen science at the Detroit Zoological Society. He is a warrior champion. He's constantly trying to get kids fingers dirty, you know, get them in nature and have them chase creatures. He helps with our water quality program. There are there, you know, Eastside Community Network ECN, they can be a good partner. I mentioned Bill Schuster from Wayne State. You know, he says water always wins. Water always wins. And it does, you know, my watching this Sun army in Japan and watching water flow through our neighborhood. And that's what he talks about. We need to think about how water flows through a community and understand and study that there are private sector players. Per genre, which is a cutting edge technology that actually helps with infiltration. It drives water into the ground faster. Again, it's a new technology. It's not well accepted here in Michigan. They're doing work in Arizona and they're love down the West Coast. But here we can't we can't get them to think about it. It's been used effectively on Lawrence Tech's campus and it it on Belle Isle. I'm trying to think of who else. And there are folks in other places, and I have to apologize. And there are people at Stanford. There are people at the folks at CS at the University of Michigan are doing good work. I mean, Dr. Schuster, Bill Schuster and Dr. Garcia are now leading an effort to look at a watershed plan for the Detroit River. In order for you to chase after federal resources, you have to look at what's called impairments, impairments, our pollution that's dumped into a particular open body of water. Where the rouge is ahead of us is that the Rouge River Weather Demonstration project in the mid-nineties did a watershed management plan because once you identify the source of pollution, you then have to identify how you're going to fix it. And there has been a reluctance to address the impairments along the Detroit River because they've got to make some. And there are some 65 places where the Detroit Water Department and Glee would dump sewage into the Detroit River between our neighborhood and the Rouge. And so so part of the goal is to think about where in the city and in the region is all the water coming from you based upon topography? How does it all get to the river? And then how do we how do we do the intervention upstream to stop the pollution from getting there? Or what do we do to stop the pollution from getting into the river? And that's what a watershed management plan. Dr. Murray Agassi is leading that effort with the help of Dr. Schuster. You know, people who I'm were happy to see that being being done. There are people within, I would say, within the state environmental agency, within Egle, that I would name folks individually. But they're there are warriors there as well. I wish we could have more influence on the senior ranks. Senator Stefanie Chiang is a great advocate of the environment. She's probably one of the leading voices in the Senate, at least for the city of Detroit, who is, you know, is out front on many of these issues. And. I can think of colleagues. Over my 35 year career. In Washington, D.C.. And I'm just amazed in the first names Mary, Patty, Jodie. Victoria. I mean, these are people that I have worked with. Chris George that I have worked with over my career in different places around the country. Keith You know, down in Houston that are that I think have been visionary about thinking about their role as public resources and what they're doing to have a positive impact on their communities. That's about it.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And was there anything else you want to discuss that none of my questions have brought up so far?
Jay C. Juergensen: I think the only thing that I like to go back to maybe where we started and I think about the importance of storytelling. I'm really proud and humbled to be a part of this conversation. And and I think it's important that we tell stories. That's how we that's how we understand. That's how we educate other people, that listening in and sharing stories is how we find our way to, you know, solutions. And then I think the real question for our country, for our city, for our city, is how we address the economic disparities that exist when the impacts of what's happening with climate, these are going to come home to roost inside my nephew's lifetime. You know, they're in their early 20s and inside they're they're middle age. These issues are going to come home to roost. And we have we are not ready. We're not ready. And, you know, it's more than an existential threat anymore. And how we're thinking about climate and its impact on communities and thinking about the folks that are often left out of the discussion. Are going to be. I think the next great challenge for our. Really critical place. There's a part of me that's kind of scared. Maybe that's the urgency around which my anxiety and anger around these things result. But there's also a part of me that knows that that man, at the end of the day, that there will be solutions that I think people will fight for. Will see come to fruition. I'm hopeful. I'm cautiously optimistic. I don't want to be a pessimist, you know. So but yeah, I think I like I said, I think for me, the fact that the water project has been taken hold by other folks in the community and is being championed by people is, is is also a very humbling thing. So I'm thanks again for having me. I really appreciate your time.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: No problem.
Jay C. Juergensen: Jay C. Juergensen. You want me spell it out now. J a y and then C period. J u e r g e n s e n.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And I thank you. And do you live in the city of Detroit?
Jay C. Juergensen: Well, I often tell folks that I vote in Brooklyn and I have property in Detroit, but I have been a part of the Detroit scene since the late 80s. After doing my master's work at the University of Michigan, I spent most of my time during my master's program in Detroit, and I moved here, and I've been part of that community ever since, even though I split my time with East Coast. So.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And what neighborhoods have you lived in in Detroit?
Jay C. Juergensen: I've lived in Jefferson Chalmers My entire time in Detroit, yeah, from 1988, 89. Excuse me. Yeah.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And what career are you in?
Jay C. Juergensen: So I have spent a fair amount of time in consulting and I have my own consulting practice. Again, I've done that on and off throughout my career and I work in what I call public space, which is the assisting of communities to lift themselves to a new opportunity. I always tell folks that I worship at the Church of Community Development and the higher power is the community of souls that are in a particular neighborhood of geography to realize that. So it includes community, economic development, public interest, public works, and most recently an area that I've spent a lot of time in is disaster response and recovery.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And how did you get into consulting?
Jay C. Juergensen: Well, that's an interesting question because I cut my teeth coming out of college. Do I have to admit how old I am in 1988? And at the time, having a masters of architecture and a masters of business meant that you would pursue a career in real estate. And the country had just gone through a massive recession in the real estate industry and very similar to the meltdown in 2008, 2009. And so it was very difficult to find a job in real estate. And I came out of college and worked for a real estate developer that went bankrupt. And so I hung on a shingle and did that for 16 years, eight years, actually, and then went into public service and have worked in executive levels in the city of D.C. for both local and federal government and then most recently for Andrew Cuomo, former governor of New York, in helping in response to the Sandy recovery. So I'm so I'm back at it again, you know, and continue to enjoy the flexibility, but also, you know, the opportunity to do a variety of things.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And can you tell me about the Jefferson Chalmers Water Project?
Jay C. Juergensen: Yeah, sure. So the Water Project is an interesting creature. It's an initiative that just recently started its pivot towards charitable status. It's an initiative that grew out of, ironically, the equivalent of an academic white paper that I authored during 2020, during Covid in 2021. It was released to the public and published, if you will, just two days before a massive storm in Detroit. Did you in 2015, 26 and 2021, there was a massive storm across the metropolitan area that caused the regional water system to fail. And in that failure, people experienced an enormous amount of street flooding and more significantly experienced backups in their basements. The regional system serves about 2.8 million consumers across three counties, and it is a combined system like many industrial systems. And so we are all linked to it. And so our basements temporarily became basins. They held the excess water. Combined sewage that the system could no longer support in that heavy rain. And and the irony of and the synchronicity of my issuing the paper just two days before the storm created an enormous amount of attention and momentum both from residents and stakeholders, including, you know, the Army Corps and the Detroit Water Department and the Great Lakes Water Authority and the EPA and elected officials at every level. And so in that white paper, I suggested the water Project and Water is an acronym that stands for Water Access Technology, Education and Recreation. And it represents all the things that we think water can be in our neighborhood. And water is clearly an asset in our community, but it's also an existential threat. So the Water project is working now to respond to the challenges of climate and the infrastructure failures that are unique to our neighborhood. And so Jefferson Chalmers community is about a mile and a quarter square. It sits adjacent to the Detroit River. It's on the Detroit River, and it's literally surrounded by open and enclosed water resources. And as a result, we are at a greater risk than almost anywhere else in the state due to the impacts of climate.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And what were the first steps after the paper was published and it got this attention?
Jay C. Juergensen: Well, I often say that I would talk to anybody and everybody who would listen. Right. And being an advocate, I've been a longtime advocate in the neighborhood going back to the early the late 80s and early 90s. I've been a part of more than one nonprofit that's been established to do things in our community, the Jefferson East Incorporated, our or the Jefferson East Business Association. I'm the founding president of that. There was an organization called Creekside Community Development, which was doing affordable housing in the neighborhood. And it did several affordable housing projects in the community. And so those relationships were critical to thinking about how we would engage the community in understanding the impacts of climate and advocating for them. So the first thing we did was community organize in the first probably 12 months through the summer and fall of 2022. We held a series of community meetings and we did five in the row in a row in the fall of 2022. We touched all roughly 2300 residents in the community with fliers to invite them to each of these meetings. I created an educational tool called the Crew Exam, which stands for Community Residents that are Experts in Water. So we invite them to come be members of our crew. And so over the five weeks, I did an hour long class. And at the end of that, we did an exam. So there's an exam that allowed residents to really be empowered. Knowledge is power. And if we're talking about agency in this conversation about how we address climate, if we really believe in environmental justice, then the disadvantaged communities that are being impacted at climate should have some say about the solutions. And the way to get there is to empower them with the knowledge of what's happening. So we talked about floodplains and flood insurance rate maps and elevation certificates in the northern the North American vertical datum, which is a line that's established similar to sea level. And these are all technical terms that empower people to be able to have conversations with institutional stakeholders about how we can better our community. So community organizing is always first, right? And education followed.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And has this work changed in the three years since 2021?
Jay C. Juergensen: I would say that, yes. You know, it's a it's a daily struggle. People have busy lives. And I think the lifeline taken for you and I to connect. Okay. And I think I've been on your radar for the better part of three months, so I'm really excited to be here. But I also say that, you know, when you look at the the the dynamics of today's society and we have a very unique community, but not unique to Detroit. We have pockets of wealth and pockets of poverty. We have homes selling for a half million dollars. You know, a few blocks from houses that have been literally burnt out. And and in that dynamic, you have wealthy folks who are probably sending their kids to school outside the neighborhood. And we have folks that are in poverty who are struggling to just get their kids have to go to school. And in that dynamic, getting folks to come out once a month, once a quarter to a couple hour meeting is a challenge. And that's before you start talking about the challenges with social media and the other ways people connect. So I would say, yes, I think we've been successful and in two very significant ways. One is in the last week, like I said, we've just pivoted to become a recognizable nonprofit. We've formally organized as a state recognized nonprofit, and we'll be working on charitable status over the next probably year. But we took the time to really engage folks. And so when I ask a half a dozen folks to come join me in starting the nonprofit, I didn't have to twist any arms. People gladly came out to sign the Articles of incorporation. The Water Project is now a recognizable entity. I think if you were to ask local elected officials, any council person, if you were to ask numerous state senators and representatives, if you were to ask our federal leadership, they know what the water project is. They know they know me and other people. We are. We've been very fortunate in that period of time to get an enormous amount of press. And and I and I am adamant about making sure that other voices get heard in that conversation, similar to the conversations you and I have had. It's very difficult for people to, you know, get their story heard. And if we're going to understand the implications and the impacts of what people are experiencing, we have to listen first. You know, and one of the things that I really, you know, doing this work for 35 years, you know, in different places and different geographies. And the one thing that I really learned is that you have to lean and listen. The trust requires intimacy, which means you have to stop talking for a minute to listen to what other people have to say. So having the opportunity to tell stories is is is a critical component in our success. We have raised a limited amount of foundation resources. We have, some large donors who've been very generous. We are operating with, you know, we have six committees with anywhere from 37 to 60 folks who show up on a regular basis to help advance our agenda. You know, the Corps knows us. The EPA knows us. The Eagle in the States Environmental Agency knows us at the highest ranks and in the front lines. And and that's in large part because, again, I'm not the only one who's speaking out about these things. And so I think we're going to continue to be successful. You know, I think I'm not sure that we will see all of the change that I would like to see in my lifetime. But I'm confident that we will we will have some success. I think part of the last thing I want to say is that, you know, when you're when you're creating a place based, you know, initiative, organization or whatever, if people have some ownership in that and they believe in their place, then you're going to survive political cycles and political power. Right. We have we have. I've been in the neighborhood for 30 plus years. We have residents that are, you know, 50 year residents or more. They've lived their entire life within a block of where they live now. We have new residents who are experiencing some of the same challenges. And because they're new and had sewage in their basement who live in a neighborhood seven years and three times in the seven years they've had sewage information. And so the challenges that we're attempting to address are affecting it. 65% of our roughly 6000 residents had three feet or more of sewage in their basement. Yeah. And and, you know, when you talk about access to resources and just say one more thing about that. So, by the way, Fenton, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA's individual assistance only helps homeowners. Detroit's residential base is now about half renters. So renters can't benefit from emergency aid from FEMA unless they need temporary housing. Myself, as a business and property owner, I can't benefit directly. I would have had to get a loan from the Small Business Administration in order to recover the $18,000 that I lost in one weekend. And so people people need to understand that folks are still surviving from something that happened three years ago. And it's a challenge for many people. And and when we think about the connective tissue that represents people's history, their photo album, you when people are running from fires, what's the one thing they grab their pets and their photo albums, Right. So people lost their mothers annual yearbook or the photo album that they had in the basement in this storm. This was traumatic. And for many people, these were precious elements. It may not it may have been the one place where they were watching television on an old couch. But in many instances, it was they lost an enormous amount of memories that they had. And that is that is something that it's going to take, you know, generations to reconcile, you know. So, anyway.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And based on your personal and professional experience, what do you believe the impacts of climate change are on Detroit and on the world?
Jay C. Juergensen: Well, it's funny because, you know, it wasn't that long ago that recycling was a radical idea. You know, in my lifetime, you know, those crazy people who were doing recycling and now it is commonplace. I think the same is true of as we talk about resilience in climate. Climate is having unprecedented impacts in people across the globe. I mean, and if we're just going to be talking about America specifically, the thing that's changed for me is I cannot consume enough information about it. Like, everything that I want to read now is about climate migration or what's happening and what kind of climate solutions other communities are dealing with in another part of the world. And I think it's going to take some very serious, out-of-the-box thinking. I think there are two things that are confronting America. One is that the dynamic of climate migration within our country is going to be significant. You know, if if half of the panhandle of Florida is underwater and if Arizona and much of the west of the Rockies has temperatures that are unbearable, 250 out of 350 days or whatever people are, it's going to become untenable. I think when you combine that with the implication of race and economics, which unfortunately in our country seem to run together a lot, there are going to be a lot of people that are going to be left behind. And the completely undoing of our capital markets, you know, if the entire southern coast of Florida is underwater, what impact does that have for all those buildings who have mortgages, who can't be paid because there's nobody paying rent to live in them? And and and so you're going to there's going to be this enormous move of people. People are going to get left behind. And we're going to have even more strain on our resources to assist people who are being left behind. And that's going to be huge, I think, as it relates to what's happening in Michigan specifically, we have got to change the dynamic of how we treat the Great Lakes. We are currently pursuing about $6.5 million worth of resources to get us out of a federally designated floodplain. However, to the east of us, three Growthpoint municipalities are spending $78 million to dump untreated storm and sewer into Lake Sinclair. Within spitting distance of our community so upstream from us while we're trying to scrape it, competing for competing nationally for $20.5 million, there are $78 million of federally approved investment to dump. You know, to dump trash, essentially, and pollute Lake Sinclair. Who thinks that's a good idea? Nobody. Right. And and the voters in those neighborhoods went into the ballot box and they approved a bond issue to finance these projects, having no idea that they were polluting their own communities in gross wind farms. The discharge for the untreated stormwater, which is goose poop, dog poop, fertilizer, all the oils and greases that are on the roads when your tire wears down over time. What that does is there are little pellets of rubber that are constantly being thrown off your tire as it wears down. When there's a rain, all of that gets washed into the catch basin on the side of the street and it's going to go into Lake St Clair, immediately adjacent to the Grosse Pointe Farms Public Park, where people swim, fish and keep their boats. They're polluting their own public park, and the residents aren't even aware of this. And there are so many alternatives to these large, expensive solutions. And there's a bias in our state against Green Storm infrastructure, the holding of water in bio swales and in retention basins and other things. And so if the people in Arizona are moving to Michigan for the water and we're polluting, why they're coming here. We're cutting off our nose to spite her face. Governor Whitmer just recently had a task force to Blue Room task Force. You and all these high corporate and public leaders to figure out how to attract people in Michigan, not have to worry about that. They're coming. They're going to be here probably in your lifetime, not in me, but by 2050 and certainly by 2070, we're going to see a significant shift in America's population. And why will they be coming? Because we are the Great Lakes state. We sit at the nexus of the largest source of freshwater in the world, and we're screwing it up by polluting it. Great Lakes Water Authority is spending $138 million to build a five story, windowless, one acre pump station in the middle of the poorest, blackest and lowest density part of our neighborhood. And this is a federally financed project. So we have the industrial encroachment of a pump station into a disadvantaged neighborhood. They pick the poorest and the blackest part of our community to do this. And they've been working on it for seven years and we just found out about it in January. So and so when we think about how we're spending federal resources to correct the effects of climate. We're winning. We're losing the battle. We're losing the battle. If we're successful at getting we're partnering with the University of Michigan. If we're successful in getting this $20 million and we get six of it to do public investments in our infrastructure, it's a drop in the bucket. I don't even know what the percentage of 6 million is of 138. I can't do that math fast enough. Right. But that is the challenge, is that the institutional stakeholders who are making decisions, the public works officials who are involved in making the decisions about how we're going to deal with storm water, sewage and the effects of climate, because all of these things are to increase the capacity of the system to manage what's now called cloudburst, which are these intense storms that happen over a shorter period of time. So if we had if we had the same amount of rain over two days, the system could handle that. But because we're getting these intense, intense storms where rain is, the amount of rain in the system is happening in a much shorter period of time. The system can't handle it. So all of these investments that I'm talking about are to help the system manage these cloudburst and they're all bad decisions. They all have larger, downstream, literal downstream implications and they're all short term investments. But they but the amount of work we're doing in our neighborhood pales in comparison. And we're trying to speak truth to power to have there be a tactic to be in the room when these decisions are made. So it's a challenge. It's a big challenge. So I think what's happening nationally will upset capital markets and upset where people live. What's happening in our state needs to change in a significant way. If why people are coming here has value and matters.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And we'll talk a little bit more about green stormwater infrastructure and what needs to be done on that front.
Jay C. Juergensen: Sure. So when we if we were to step back a second, let's talk a little bit about how the system works. Okay. So when you are in your home and you're taking a bath or shower or flushing your toilet or doing your dishes, all of that waste runs into a single pipe and out your door right through the ground and into a pipe. There's a pipe in the street called the main, which is where the catch basin, which is the thing that had it looks like a tic tac toe grid sitting at the curb line. So a street is purposely curved where the middle of the street is higher than its edges. And so water runs off it. That water that comes from your toilet and the water that's in the street running a single pipe. It's called the combined system. And again, in heavy rains, when people are flushing their toilets, the system can't handle it. So in order to allow for the system to have relief, there are things called combined sewage overflows or outfalls. In our neighborhood, we have the largest CSO in the state. And we have another CSO that's had Conner Creek at Fox Creek, which is the other border of our community. We have 273 homeowners that directly above where raw sewage is being dumped into the canal in heavy rains. And during the June storm of 21, we had condoms hanging from trees. That's how much the storm flattened out. So when we talk about these investments in the Grosse Pointe communities and from Glwa, we're talking about increasing the capacity of the system, which means we need to talk about either additional relief that's going to discharge this untreated stormwater into this into the lake, or we're going to dig bigger holes like we have larger pipes over a longer period of longer distance that have more diameter. If you think about a pipe as a dam, right. The larger that diameter gets, the more capacity you have. But like most great infrastructure, whether it's highways or parking lots, you can't build it big enough, will never catch up with what climate is doing. And so Green Storm infrastructure are things that are onsite. They're retention basins. They're marshes. They're places where bio spills and rain gardens can be in your on your yard, where your downspouts can dump into your yard and be held for a minute. So retention basins, there's a whole variety of green storm infrastructure. So retention basins, what's commonly referred to as bio swales and rain gardens are all small, can be any scale, but typically smaller scale. If you think about them as ponds, like little ponds that sit in your yard and hold the water temporarily and either let it absorbed into the dirt or let it flow into the system after the system has more space. And we have an enormous amount of vacant land in the city of Detroit where we could dump this. If the stormwater was separated from sewage, you could dump it out onto these large pieces of green space and you could let it be absorbed into the ground instead of putting it into the system, which then you have to continue to increase the capacity. Right. So GSI or Green Storm infrastructure is a less expensive and more manageable, more environmentally friendly approach to dealing with cloudburst and lack of. So instead of just increasing capacity, which we need to do, we also need to reduce demand. So GSI reduces demand on the system. There are other simple things we can do. It sounds sounds foolish to think about. But the catch basin that's on the side of the street at the curb, you could put fewer holes in that so that the rainwater would sit on the road longer. It would take longer for it to go into the system. That might mean we have to slow down when it's raining because there's water on the street. So we have to talk about changing our habits for climate. Maybe we have to slow down when it's raining. The other thing we could do is stop using our water appliances in the Gowanus community in Brooklyn, which also is a Superfund site. It's been polluted by dumping sewage and industrial waste into a canal in in Brooklyn for over 100 years since the Industrial Revolution. They have a campaign there that encourages people not to use the water appliances. So that doesn't cost anybody anything but a little bit of air freshener. All right. So close the lid to your toilet. Don't take a shower. Don't use your dishwasher. Don't flush your toilet during heavy rains. You're reducing demand on the system. If all 25,000 residents in Grosse Pointe did that. We'd have less waste coming into our community and into our system. And if we did that on a regional basis, it would fundamentally change demand on the system during heavy rain. And that simple then costs anybody anything. Like I said, just, you know, maybe a little air freshener or a candle. And we have talked about changing our behavior. That's a behavior change. It's raining. Don't flash your toilet. Simple. Matter of fact that greatly. The Greater Chicago Water Conservation District does a PSA public service announcement during heavy rains. And they have I think it's a no flush pledge or something. You can go on their website and you can pledge not to use your water appliances when it's raining. The Great Lakes Water Authority advises you to take things out of your basement. You tell me who's working out looking out for consumers and residents. And 70% of the 2.8 million consumers. Did I say this earlier? 70% of the 2.8 million consumers that are served by the Great Lakes Water Authority regional system comes through our neighborhood. But it's not from our neighborhood. So this hundred and $38 million investment does nothing to protect my neighbors from getting sewage in their basements. Nothing. $138 million. You know? Yeah, it's tricky and it's really tricky. And there is a bias, right? We have been building gray infrastructure for 100 years. You know, there's there's a there's a very complicated formula. I equals I can't even tell you what I stands for. There's a very complicated formula that is used by engineers to size the pipe. Who's in control of our environmental agency and the regulatory environment. Engineers who are comfortable with an approach and technology that is in their minds. Long and true because it's been around for 100 years. There's just as you go to a place like D.C. or maybe Philadelphia or even out to Arizona, there are dynamic approaches to thinking about stormwater management that other municipalities and regions are thinking about, and we are way behind the curve and we have more at risk because the more we rely on gray systems and pollute our Great Lakes, the worse we're going to be. Well, who said pay Paradise and put up a parking lot, you know? And when you add the dynamics of race to that, you know, drive up Grasshit Avenue and Roseville less than 2 or 3 blocks north of 696. The I can't think of the name of the community now. There is a Catholic Church that is a beautifully historic campus that was built in 1890. That's for sale. There are closed banks. You know, there's a variety of tattoo parlors and storefront churches and resale shops, you know, within a block of 696. Roseville has unraveled. And but you drive up to Richmond, which is like 32 miles away. So we're talking about the difference between ten mile and 32 mile. There's a new McDonald's and a new Kroger's and a new, you know, AutoZone and a whole bunch of investment, you know, 20 miles away. And we continue to pay Paradise and put up a parking lot. And where's that water run? Into one of the lakes. We're in the center of the Great Lakes. So any drop of water either through the aquifer or as a matter of surface water, runs into a creek, runs into a swamp, runs into a canal, runs into a Great Lakes. So any pollution that happens anywhere inside the state of Michigan is going to end up in the Great Lakes. It has to. In the middle of the basin. Yeah. You know, we go.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And how have you personally been affected by climate change?
Jay C. Juergensen: Well, you know, it's funny, I, I used to call this is a really bad word, but I'm saying I just call it disaster porn because like, whenever I would see natural disasters, like when a typhoon hit Japan or when they would, we would watch. You know, when you see the guy from NBC and, you know, umbrella blowing away, I can't not watch it. I can't not watch it because I've always been interested. I grew up on Lake Michigan. And as a child in Lake in the in the I was born in 1963. So in the late 60s and early 70s, the Clean Water Act went into effect in 1970. As a child, we had to rake the fish. So at night dead fish would wash onshore and we had to rake and bury the fish because they were across the entire shoreline. So from one end to the other, this is near covered. And South Haven, right on the shore of Lake Michigan. So in order to use the lake in the morning, we had to rake and bury the fish every day. Every day. In the 70s, we lost a football field of beach, and you had to be up on what's called the bluff and go directly into the water because the water was slapping right up against the bluff. So and my dad, who was, you know, didn't finish high school, said, well, where did they think the water was going to go? You know, here's a man who's spouting climate science in the 1970s. You know, because we were dealing with, you know, 20 years of suburban expansion. So all the expansion that happened post-World War two, especially in a state like Michigan, but certainly anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world, been paving Paradise and putting up a parking lot. We did that for we've done that for a hundred years. And so we're continuing to see that the existential threat in my own neighborhood is the flood plain, and that's another 30 years away. So it takes five years of wet weather in the Great Lakes Basin. Now we're talking about, again, the largest source of freshwater in the world. And we're talking about land from Ottawa to Ohio. The Great Lakes Basin and the Great Lakes expand to a huge geography. So everything in that basin spills into the Great Lakes. It takes about five years of wet, consistent, wet weather. For us to experience Great Lake rise in 2019 and 2020. We also had encroachment from the Great Lakes into our neighborhood because the Great Lakes were high. We're now seeing unprecedented low levels, but we are now locked in a federal flood plain because of the existential threat. 30 years from now, we will not see Great Lakes rise in my lifetime. I will be gone. If I live to be 80. I will be gone by the time we see it again, probably 25 to 30 years away. And yet we are locked in a federal flood plain because while our neighborhood is only a mile and a quarter square, we have ten miles of shoreline. Right. So up and down both canals, we have five islands. They're all surrounded by water and we have three parks that are surround their islands. And every bit of that shoreline has to be up to a certain level based upon future Great Lakes rise. And it's not. So the Federal Emergency Management Agency, again, FEMA, who establishes these things, came in and did some calculus and said, well, based upon what happened the last couple of years in 2019 and 2020, we're going to say that unless you raise your shoreline. Everybody, every inch of their shoreline has to be at a new height. And it cost the average person somewhere around $45,000 to put in a new seawall. Not now. Everybody needs a new one. Some people need theirs extended and stuff like that. But we've calculated somewhere and get this number about $10 million. So we're pennies on the dollar to protect our community from an existential climate threat in 30 years compared to what communities around us are spending. And why? Because the people in my neighborhood have dark skin. It's really that simple. It doesn't take it doesn't take a rocket scientist. It doesn't take a scientist of any kind to do the calculus around what's happening to our community. And that's why I say Jefferson Chalmers is unique in the state. We have underground infrastructure that is failing, and we're subject to investments by institutional stakeholders that are not helping our neighborhood. The cities about the cities, the water department, the Detroit Water and Sewage Department is about to do a $20 million investment. In upsizing sewers in our neighborhood in strategic locations. Not $1 of that investment is going to protect us from cloudburst. Why are you doing it? Why are you spending $11.5 million of a $21 million project? So most of that came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. So the same agency that locked us in a flood plain is is giving the city $11.5 million to upsize users sewers that aren't going to do us any good. Why? Because we're only investing in increasing capacity, not reducing demand. If we were to spend a portion of that on Green Storm infrastructure, we would reduce demand on the system. And we might if we started educating people about not using the water appliances. But we're not doing any of that. And residents in my neighborhood aren't at the table in these discussions. I said earlier that if I'm telling my own story. So going back to being a child. So I saw the implications of climate at a time when people weren't even talking about that as a word. I mean, maybe they were in some halls of science, but certainly not in my small community. And I have lived through all of that. I have seen people's homes lifted and moved blocks away by Superstorm Sandy and working with Governor Cuomo ten years ago. And you can't look at that and not be changed. You can't see it. And so the intensity with which I watch it on television, on a video is because I just like. My God. What's happening to our planet? And I saw it as a child. You know, we couldn't go swimming because the water was rushing right up against the bluff. And so what happened in 19 7070s was the Clean Water Act. We no longer have dead fish. The health I'm assuming that the health of the lake is better because we don't have tons of fish washing up on the beach every night. Right. So so I'm seeing the implications of federal policy work and I'm now experiencing as both a disaster professional, someone who has spent billions of dollars of federal money in other communities. I've worked in New York and in Texas on disaster recovery and someone who's seen the nexus of federal investment and what it can and cannot do. You know, we put. And Superstorm Sandy came in and took a bite out of Fire Island. Fire Island is a barrier island. And barrier islands by definition protect the coast. So whether it's the Outer Banks in North Carolina, the Florida Keys or the areas along Miami and Fort Lauderdale in Long Island experience, Fire Island, Sandy came in and took a single bite out of Fire Island and left a hundred million excuse me, 1,000,000yd³ of sand in a single bite that is about a football field stacked three stories in sand. So if you can just do a visual on Ford Field and stack up three stories of sand that happened in one storm, we had to put all that back in less than six months. Actually had to put about half of it back in six months for buildings for Fire Island, which is a state park, were at risk. The water tower, which provided provides water. Water is pumped into it and then provides water to the end of the island was at risk because the storm came in, took a bite out of a traffic circle. And when you when you replenish that much sand, you also have to think about the species who work in the sand. So the piping plover is an endangered species and we couldn't move sand during their breeding period. But we had we only had six months to move that my sands a lot of sand and move in a short period of time. So I've seen success. I've seen Houston think strategically about their floodplain. Houston was a swamp. And most of the highways in Houston are in low lying areas that are surrounded by a flood plain. And and Houston was strategically using the federal resources after Harvey to think about where they could take people out of the flood plain because you can't escape it there. We can get out of the floodplain by fixing our shoreline. You can't escape the flood plain in Houston. It's part of the tissue of the city. So I've seen success in other communities. And and, you know, like I said, we are being left out of the decision making. So how it affected me is that I have been sitting at the big boy table of power as a middle aged, white, well-educated man for all of my professional career. And I have worked for a governor. I worked for admirals of the Navy. I have worked for mayors. I worked for the executive, the Detroit Housing Commission here. I work for a Fortune 50 company as a as a project manager. And in each of those situations, I acted on behalf of somebody who was in power, usually a white man. And so when I walked into a room, my ability to act and make change was based upon the power that I represented. I am now speaking truth to power on behalf of the community, black folks who are, first of all, not let in the room. And secondly, certainly don't get invited to the table. And so in a completely different way. And it's not a it's not a false false equivalence. The disrespect that I'm getting, given my professional and personal experience as a disaster survivor and as a disaster professional is not the same as the disrespect that black folks have had for centuries. So I don't want to, you know, say that's the case. But it's very interesting to be in a situation where people are completely ignoring what I want to say and what we want to say about the future of our community. When the city can invest a billion and a half dollars. In luxury condos and a new stadium and all this other investments for what is now, you know, District Detroit for 6000 jobs if they come. What about the 6000 residents in my neighborhood? We want a fraction of that. And we cannot It's struggling to get the attention of the stakeholders who are in decision making around this at every level of government. And that is it's painful for me personally. I struggle with it every day. Because I say that the the my consulting work is my vocation and the water project is my vocation. And so while I'm out advocating and, you know, be very honest that, you know, it's in my enlightened best interest to have an area where I have personal investments. Improve. But that's true of the entire 6000 people who live in my neighborhood. You know, Mrs. Loretta is going to do better. You know, if we help improve our community, Mom, Myrtle is going to do better. You know, Ms.. Ms.. Ms.. Bennett is going to do better. You know, we were talking. You know, Ms.. Grandmom, we're talking three generations of people in our neighborhood. They're all going to benefit by this. And, you know, it's really, it's really empowering to me. And it's, it's humbling to have this idea that I had take root and have it be a recognizable thing in the neighborhood. So, you know, they're helpful. Yeah. Okay.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And you talked about how there isn't enough education in places like Grosse Pointe about these issues at the Water Project or any other places. Have you worked with any educational initiatives for communities or. Yeah.
Jay C. Juergensen: Yeah. So it seems to me, like I said, I use the opposite. Any opportunity I have to run my mouth about this stuff. I always I always say, you pull down the middle, you pull the string in the middle of my back, it's your fault. So yeah, we have I mean, just less little. Less than a year ago, I was asked by the Growth Point Democratic Club, I mean, Growth Point Democratic Club is the largest Democratic club in the state. You know, people think of growth point as a conservative and Republican kind of place, but Democratic club has a lot of influence there. And I sat next to a state senator and I sat and a woman from our state environmental agency and a professor from Wayne State. And we talked about the implications of climate on what was happening. And I do a little sketch that I have. My background is in architecture, so I do this little diagram that shows people how the system works. Most people don't understand, you know, when we have storms and wires go down. That's an obvious thing. You can see it. And there's all kinds of public service announcements about Staley, you know, don't have the power. But nobody sees what happens underground. It's completely absent from our thinking. We flush the toilet and just figure to go somewhere. So I always spend a fair amount of time, no matter where I am, talking about how the system works so people understand. When you flush your toilet in gross point, you would literally shit on me. And I asked folks, do you consider yourself an environmentalist? You. Raise your hand. You know how many people. How many of you think about, you know, dumping waste into the lake as a bad thing? How many people think, you know, dumping waste on your downstream neighbors is a bad thing. Everybody raises their hand, but nobody understands that. They went into the ballot box and they approved a $45 million project that I don't want to beat up on Grosse Pointe Farms too much. But there's lots of there's lots of blame to go around. But Gross Wind Farms is sending the pipe that's going to Lake St Clair through a golf course and a private school university. Liggett. With football fields and rugby fields. So there's all these opportunities for them to spill this water off into some green space and let it be absorbed in. I mean, they're going through this green space. It's like going through the forest and not knowing the trees are there in Growthpoint City. They just repaved all of their downtown parking lots. There's not a bit of on site retention. So all the water from these brand new parking lots is all running into the system and they're about to dump it into Lake St Clair. Who thinks that makes any sense? So I can do all the education I want, you know, for the residents. But at the end of the day, it's the who made that decision. Probably the director of DPW, the public works director, probably, you know, hire the engineer who did the analysis, who determined that this was the best solution. And of course, they'll tell you, well, that's better than getting sewage in our basements. Yeah, it is. But. It's that's a short term decision. In Grosse Pointe in the city of Detroit, 46% of the people who applied for FEMA assistance following the June 21st storm were assisted. To the tune, like I said, about 3 to $4000, which is a drop in the bucket compared to what most people lost in the five points in Harper Woods. It was about a 16% approval rate and the amount that people got was significantly less. And and the challenge, however, is that wealthy folks. Like with climate migration. Like they didn't need to do if they did a claim to their insurance companies. If not, they probably had the pocketbooks to just go ahead and renovate their basement again. So the the the quality and the quantity of loss are not the same. They're not equal. And that's a hard thing for people to understand. Well, my basement hands you what you will, but you have money. Yeah. You know, in the capitalist construct, there's the world we live in. And so people, you know, the other area where I try to have an impact is that. The EPA has an annual bi annual conference about brownfields. The International City County Management Association. I just was the featured author in their international magazine talking about climate and disasters. There's the Emergency Management Conference for Eagle is coming up in in February. So I'm attempting to also speak out about this and other places. And then the Michigan Stormwater and Floodplain Association has an annual conference. And I always go there and challenge on the engineers. I don't know if they're going to invite me back this year. The engineer who did the Grosse Pointe Farms development and got in my face the day I was speaking, Well, what's the alternative? And of course they're making $4 million. The general rule for engineering and architecture is about 10% of the cost. So their firm is making $4 million on this project. It's not in their enlightened best interest to think about a less expensive way for the city to spend the money because then they get paid less. Right? So it's it's an interesting challenge and I know just enough to be dangerous because one of my executive positions was working for the water authority in D.C. so I've worked for was equivalent in Washington DC, which also was a water authority that was established on the back end of a city bankruptcy. Isn't it interesting that the three black communities, majority black communities that were in bankruptcy under Governor Snyder all had their water systems taken away from them or screwed up in one way or another. The genocide in Flint, the creation of Glwa and the lead pipe crisis in Benton Harbor. Isn't it interesting that all three of those black communities had significant water crises at the same time? Curious. Right. So anyway.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And are there any particular organizations or individuals in Detroit that are doing work that you want to highlight?
Jay C. Juergensen: Yeah, for sure. So my Monica Monica Patrick Lewis, as we know her and we the people, Detroit, they're mostly speaking out about water quality from the tap. When we talk about water quality, we're talking about what happens in our open canals. And we launched a youth scientist program last two years to have high schoolers actually, you know, take water out of the canals and test it to see if it meets surface water quality standards. The water standard air quality for the EPA is fishable and swimmable. And I challenge every person, every elected official and every government agency to come take a dip or cast a pall, because I can guarantee you it's not going to meet water quality. Most of people who visit our neighborhood to access the boat docks and stuff come from other places and they mostly go out to Lake St Clair, the Detroit River. But certainly we the people, Detroit is someone I would highlight the Friends of the Rouge on the west side of the community. They've been in that side of Detroit. They've been working in the, what, 48 communities in 3 or 4 counties that are the rouge watershed, doing pretty dynamic work. They've recently had a leadership change, but in my opinion, they are the model they started in the mid-nineties to address at a time when the Rouge River was considered dead. You know, not unlike what happened with the lake in Cleveland. It was it was we have turned our back on water for years. You have to remember that economic development follows major modes of transportation. So we started out with waterways as the primary way to move goods around. So we we every municipality of any size had a working waterfront. I don't care if it's Monroe or Marshall, right? If you have a waterfront. It was used to move goods and services. The interconnectedness of waterways is how we got, you know, agricultural products or building products around the country. And so everywhere we go, we've been turning our back on the river for years, and now we know that that was a bad thing. My dad used to say to the Indians, Do not piss in the river regularly. It was the source of life. And we have been we have been dumping waste into rivers for years, centuries, maybe even a couple of centuries. So. But the rouge started out in the mid-nineties with a major EPA grant to bring all of those communities together to think about its watershed. And its watershed is, you know, huge. It goes into Washtenaw County, it goes up into Oakland County. So the Friends of the Rouge, the Friends of Detroit River, have been good partners, were challenged recently with some decisions that have been made about EPA investments in our community. We have a habitat restoration that has been ten years in the making that was recently pulled by the EPA. So we're losing about a $3.5 million investment in habitat restoration in Jefferson Challenge, which we're very. Unhappy about. But I would say that the friends in the Detroit River are probably the one place that we participate in a regional decision making process that is really stakeholder driven. It's actually refreshing. And I told that leadership that recently because they have people from Windsor at the table. We have people from all up and down the river that are and from the Sierra Club and the water department and the Parks Department and, you know, from Wyandotte to Lake St Clair involved in thinking about how to make the Detroit River healthier. And that's a robust discussion. And I would say that they're a great partner in that regard. I think there are other people there. The name escapes me. But the folks in Flint, I mean, there's not a mom in America who doesn't think about the quality of water coming out of their tap because of the genocide in Flint and it was genocide. There's no question about it. There are generations of people that are going to be impacted by the decision to poison that population. But we're seeing, you know, ten years of of young people wearing people of color, wearing lab coats that never thought about science before. Their own community was impacted by bureaucrats that weren't caring about. You know, so I would say people in Flint that are doing that what's called citizen scientist. I mentioned the gentleman right off the bat, Mike Reed, who's the director of citizen science at the Detroit Zoological Society. He is a warrior champion. He's constantly trying to get kids fingers dirty, you know, get them in nature and have them chase creatures. He helps with our water quality program. There are there, you know, Eastside Community Network ECN, they can be a good partner. I mentioned Bill Schuster from Wayne State. You know, he says water always wins. Water always wins. And it does, you know, my watching this Sun army in Japan and watching water flow through our neighborhood. And that's what he talks about. We need to think about how water flows through a community and understand and study that there are private sector players. Per genre, which is a cutting edge technology that actually helps with infiltration. It drives water into the ground faster. Again, it's a new technology. It's not well accepted here in Michigan. They're doing work in Arizona and they're love down the West Coast. But here we can't we can't get them to think about it. It's been used effectively on Lawrence Tech's campus and it it on Belle Isle. I'm trying to think of who else. And there are folks in other places, and I have to apologize. And there are people at Stanford. There are people at the folks at CS at the University of Michigan are doing good work. I mean, Dr. Schuster, Bill Schuster and Dr. Garcia are now leading an effort to look at a watershed plan for the Detroit River. In order for you to chase after federal resources, you have to look at what's called impairments, impairments, our pollution that's dumped into a particular open body of water. Where the rouge is ahead of us is that the Rouge River Weather Demonstration project in the mid-nineties did a watershed management plan because once you identify the source of pollution, you then have to identify how you're going to fix it. And there has been a reluctance to address the impairments along the Detroit River because they've got to make some. And there are some 65 places where the Detroit Water Department and Glee would dump sewage into the Detroit River between our neighborhood and the Rouge. And so so part of the goal is to think about where in the city and in the region is all the water coming from you based upon topography? How does it all get to the river? And then how do we how do we do the intervention upstream to stop the pollution from getting there? Or what do we do to stop the pollution from getting into the river? And that's what a watershed management plan. Dr. Murray Agassi is leading that effort with the help of Dr. Schuster. You know, people who I'm were happy to see that being being done. There are people within, I would say, within the state environmental agency, within Egle, that I would name folks individually. But they're there are warriors there as well. I wish we could have more influence on the senior ranks. Senator Stefanie Chiang is a great advocate of the environment. She's probably one of the leading voices in the Senate, at least for the city of Detroit, who is, you know, is out front on many of these issues. And. I can think of colleagues. Over my 35 year career. In Washington, D.C.. And I'm just amazed in the first names Mary, Patty, Jodie. Victoria. I mean, these are people that I have worked with. Chris George that I have worked with over my career in different places around the country. Keith You know, down in Houston that are that I think have been visionary about thinking about their role as public resources and what they're doing to have a positive impact on their communities. That's about it.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And was there anything else you want to discuss that none of my questions have brought up so far?
Jay C. Juergensen: I think the only thing that I like to go back to maybe where we started and I think about the importance of storytelling. I'm really proud and humbled to be a part of this conversation. And and I think it's important that we tell stories. That's how we that's how we understand. That's how we educate other people, that listening in and sharing stories is how we find our way to, you know, solutions. And then I think the real question for our country, for our city, for our city, is how we address the economic disparities that exist when the impacts of what's happening with climate, these are going to come home to roost inside my nephew's lifetime. You know, they're in their early 20s and inside they're they're middle age. These issues are going to come home to roost. And we have we are not ready. We're not ready. And, you know, it's more than an existential threat anymore. And how we're thinking about climate and its impact on communities and thinking about the folks that are often left out of the discussion. Are going to be. I think the next great challenge for our. Really critical place. There's a part of me that's kind of scared. Maybe that's the urgency around which my anxiety and anger around these things result. But there's also a part of me that knows that that man, at the end of the day, that there will be solutions that I think people will fight for. Will see come to fruition. I'm hopeful. I'm cautiously optimistic. I don't want to be a pessimist, you know. So but yeah, I think I like I said, I think for me, the fact that the water project has been taken hold by other folks in the community and is being championed by people is, is is also a very humbling thing. So I'm thanks again for having me. I really appreciate your time.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: No problem.
Collection
Citation
“Jay C. Juergensen, September 19th, 2024,” Detroit Historical Society Oral History Archive, accessed November 5, 2024, https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/items/show/1078.