Firefighters fly drone to help prep for summer litter cleanups at Downriver creek

A drone’s eye view of litter gave high-tech help this week to the nonprofit Friends of the Detroit River — while it brought smiles to Downriver firefighters who needed flight time on their pilot licenses.

“It was a win-win,” said the nonprofit’s Stewardship Director McKenzi Walisczek. The drone charted litter along Ecorse Creek, helping Walisczek decide where to target this summer’s volunteer trash cleanups. (Other river and park cleanups are scheduled this month, tied to Earth Day on April 22. See this story's end for groups that need volunteers for spring cleaning of waterways and parks in metro Detroit.)

In years past, the spring litter survey of Ecorse Creek was done on foot and by kayak. That took Friends of the Detroit River four to five days. This time, a drone did it in half a day. And did it better, because the pilot’s view screen listed latitude and longitude. That meant Walisczek could pinpoint where to map the sites of construction debris, shopping carts, old tires, and more.

Starting on a slow-moving stretch of the stream, beside Thunderbowl Lanes in Allen Park, the drone filmed more than four miles of Ecorse Creek, in Allen Park, Melvindale, Lincoln Park, and Ecorse. A creek may sound trivial amid Michigan’s array of big lakes and rivers. But Ecorse Creek, no wider than a traffic lane for much of its length, drains dozens of square miles in key Downriver areas. Then it dumps pollution and litter straight into the Detroit River, untreated. Along the way, it often floods streets and basements during rainstorms.

Now, like countless other smallish streams in metro Detroit, Ecorse Creek is getting more attention, as local, regional, and state leaders wrestle with the need to manage stormwater, to make it cleaner while keeping it out of neighborhoods. At the same time, groups like Friends of the Detroit River want to revive the natural flow and beauty of metro-Detroit’s waterways, large and small, to bring back these places for fishing, paddling and just strolling on waterside paths.

Among many ideas for improving water quality, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments this week urged state lawmakers to adopt two new laws: one would establish a statewide code for septic systems, catching Michigan up to all 49 other states that have such codes; and another to require labels for disposable wipes that say they can't be flushed down toilets, "in response to the substantial harm disposable wipes do, and at great expense, to plumbing and public sewage infrastructure," according to a SEMCOG statement.

“We stand still and the drone does all the work,” Walisczek said Monday morning, jotting down notes and coordinates as she stood beside the drone pilot. “I look for culverts that are disconnected and trees down that stop the water flow. When it stops, that’s poor water quality for the fish and wildlife."

The drone, a $10,000 model, belongs to the Downriver Special Operations Fire Services, a mutual aid group of small fire departments that share this aircraft the size of a small suitcase. It can save lives and help put out fires, said Dan Mercure, chief of the Rockwood Fire Department, as he stood nearby.

“We can fly over a big fire and see where to put water on it. And we have an infrared sensor on it, so when a fire’s out we can fly over and find hot spots” that need more soaking, Mercure said. The same sensor "can find a child lost in the woods" by detecting body heat, he said. Flying the drone over Ecorse Creek was firefighter Eric Poet of the Huron Township Fire Department and giving direction was Jerry Hollis, a fire captain with the Wayne County Airport Authority, and also team coordinator with the Downriver Logistics Team, in charge of the drone.

“If you see debris, stop and we’ll zoom in,” Hollis told Poet. Most of the time, Poet flew at about 250 feet but he’d descend for close-ups of trash and log jams.

“We can go up to 400 feet. That’s the FAA maximum,” Hollis said, referring to the federal rule for non-military drones. Another flight rule? Keep the drone in sight. So, after just 10 minutes of flight time, Poet brought down the spy in the sky. Then the group headed downstream to film another stretch.

Ultimately, human hands inside plastic gloves this summer will haul debris from the water and scour the creek banks for more. Yet, high-tech has come even to the task of removing litter. The city of Detroit announced this week that it would test a robot called BeBot on Belle Isle Beach. Funded by Meijer, BeBot can tidy up 32,000 square feet of beach in an hour, grabbing everything from plastic junk to bottles, food wrappers, cigarette butts, and fragments of plastic (See coverage of BeBot by Free Press Staff Writer Frank Witsil, in online and print editions starting Wednesday).

At Ecorse Creek, tagging along with the firefighters and the riverkeeper was Bryon Frady of Melvindale, retired after 34 years in his family’s package delivery business, now obsessed with pulling junk from rivers.

“People call me Rouge River man,” Frady said with a chuckle. Minutes later, he got serious as he spied trash scattered around the tell-tale evidence of a beaver – tree saplings chewed off, knee-high.

“Well, that’s good and not good. I like wildlife. But if beavers dam up the stream, that’s not good for the fish,” he said. Frady said he’s been on many a litter patrol up and down Ecorse Creek’s three sections – the north, south, and middle branch.

“I don’t like kayaks. I use a canoe,” he said. Frady’s Facebook page shows him, just last month, yanking an old bike out of Ecorse Creek into his canoe, beneath snow-speckled streambanks. One friend helped him from her kayak, another snapped their photo. Frady doesn’t wait for officially sanctioned clean-up days, when volunteers gather, fueled by doughnuts and coffee.

“Sometimes I just sneak down and do it by myself,” he said, quick to laugh at himself. What's the appeal? The former hunter and angler said he always loved being in nature and still does, but in a new way.

“After all the good I’ve taken from the woods, now it’s time to give it back. A friend of mine says, ‘The rivers need me.’ That’s how I feel,” he said.

How to volunteer

Here are the dates and locations of river, lake and park cleanups in metro Detroit this spring. Most events supply gloves and trash bags. Some provide lunch. Several welcome boaters and kayakers:

• Earth Day Cleanup, 10 a.m.-noon, April 21, Rouge Park and Rouge River area on Joy Road in west Detroit (bordering Redford Twp.). Register at website of Friends of Rouge Park (rougepark.org).

• Spring Cleanup, 9 a.m.-noon, April 27, Rotary Park, 1 Riverside Drive, Trenton. Register at website of Friends of the Detroit River; note whether you can bring a boat (detroitriver.org/events).

• Belle Isle Spring Cleanup, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., April 27. Park at the Aquarium; kayakers welcome. Register at website of Belle Isle Conservancy (belleisleconservancy.org/cleanup).

• Weekly Wednesday River Cleanups, 10 a.m.-noon, locations rotate weekly through Oakland and Macomb counties (April 24 event is in Troy). Register at website of Clinton River Watershed Council (crwc.org/events).

• Lake St. Clair Nautical Coast Cleanup, 8 a.m.-1 p.m., May 19, Jefferson Yacht Club, 24504 East Jefferson, St. Clair Shores but takes place at numerous sites on the shore and in the lake. Register at site of SCS Waterfront Environmental Committee (scswec.org).

Contact Bill Laytner: blaitner@freepress.com

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: $10K drone that guides firefighters gets new job clearing river debris