Ishpeming resident Todd Kauppinen’s backyard deck looking out into his yard during a recent flood. Due to extensive flooding and water damage, Kauppinen’s deck has begun separating from the back of his house. He said it will cost $13,000 to fix, along with another $13,000 to put a sump pump system in. (Photo courtesy of Todd Kauppinen)

ISHPEMING — Water damage continues to cause problems for residents in the city of Ishpeming.

Todd Kauppinen has lived in his home on South Third Street for almost 30 years. In the last two years, Kauppinen has dealt with extensive flooding on three separate occasions, which he said had only happened once during the 30 years in his home up until now.

“I’ve had 10 inches of water or more in my basement on three separate occasions,” Kauppinen said. “And I’ve had to sandbag the perimeter of my property to force the water to go into the drain system. Otherwise, my entire property fills up with water.”

In addition to the 40-60 sandbags on his property perimeter, Kauppinen has four outdoor sump pumps to pump the water off his property and keep away from his house.

“But in the process of all this, the land over there is sinking,” He said. “So my foundation is dropping to the point where I’m having a company come to lift by foundation back up and hopefully try to save my porch from separating off the back of my house.”

This will cost Kauppinen $13,000. He said once that’s done, to put a sump pump system in will cost an additional $13,000.

“But the long and short of it is, you’re afraid to leave your house anytime there’s going to be a really bad rainstorm or if you know there’s going to be a thaw in the middle of the winter or in the spring, Kauppinen said. “There’s just so much water in that neighborhood and if I didn’t put all those sandbags out and do what we’ve done.”

Not only is he taking care of his own property but his neighbors as well.

“The other neighbors on the property would have more damage than they’ve already had because a lot of them are elderly and they just can’t do it,” Kauppinen said. “So, selfishly, I’m trying to do it to take care of myself but in the process I’m also helping them. There’s a lot of things intermingled into what’s going on. There’s a spider web of things that are all connected. The neighbor lady two houses down, when we have these water occurrences, her sewer backs up and it fills up her toilet (just shy from overflowing). So she’s trapped in her house and can’t use the bathroom.”

Another issue Kauppinen and his neighbors face is sewage coming up through the floor drains.

“When you have these occurrences, people’s basement toilets and floor drains start pumping sewage into their basements, which we’ve been told that’s not really possible. But it’s not only possible, I’ve witnessed it.”

He said these problems can be tied to the reroute of Partridge Creek. When Partridge Creek becomes overwhelmed, Kauppinen said it pushes back into his systems and “everything comes backwards.”

“So not only do I have the runoff coming from, we’re not really sure where it’s coming from, we haven’t figured that out yet, we also have the systems pushing backwards and coming up into people’s homes,” He said. “All I ever wanted to do was to get people to actually listen to what I had to say, I’m not interested in blaming somebody. I’m not interested in having someone say it’s (their) fault. That’s not what I want.”

What Kauppinen wants, he said, is a solution to the problem.

“So when you get in your car on a Friday morning and go to Wisconsin … you don’t come back Saturday to 10 inches of water in your basement, and that’s exactly what happened to me last year.”

He said his entire property was dry upon leaving, no water or snow banks, and he came back home to water damage.

“So in less than 48 hours, I went from perfectly fine and I had sandbags out,” Kauppinen said. “I had everything out and somebody breached the sandbag line and when they did that, all of a sudden it (water) just filled my property.”

Over the winter, Kauppinen reached out to Mayor Jason Chapman regarding the flooding and water damages in his neighborhood. Chapman said he immediately went over and started working with Kauppinen on the issues.

“He had brought to my attention that another lady over there, whom I’ve known my whole life, was having the same issues, but she was also getting sewage backing up into her basement,” Chapman said. “I had also noticed that Todd was trying extra hard to kind of keep his catch basins open over there because the water would just avoid it when it was snow covered and it would just go straight toward his house and his neighbor’s house.”

Chapman said what he didn’t know was the full extent of the problem at that time.

“I knew there was two, maybe four people having some issues but through my investigating and Todd’s activism, he brought to my attention that pretty much everybody in the whole neighborhood there was having issues,” Chapman said. “So it had been brought to the city’s attention. We were really trying to figure out a way to make it a priority. What we’re most worried about as a city, I believe, is that the sinkhole that had developed by the old mine shaft there on Bluff Street was contributing to this.”

He said the city also knew that there was a berm, gully and old railroad grade that goes through there.

“Part of the problem was there was no way for that water to drain properly in that gully and if it was snow covered, the water would just seep through wherever it wanted to. And it was even coming up from the ground in many places,” Chapman said. “When this was still during the winter, I’d help them plow out that catch basin quite a bit and I pushed it far enough into his neighbor’s yards so it wouldn’t be a problem.”

Plowing became a major solution, Chapman said, and they were able to keep a lot of the water diverted until the snow melted.

“Then we found that those sandbags weren’t enough because all of that snow was melting relatively fast and then we got the May storm,” He said. “So, I was once again over there pushing snow out with my plow for his catch basin and putting it into his neighbor’s yard. We were really trying to get the proper attention that that needed.”

Councilor Renelle Halverson joined efforts over the summer, spending time at Kauppinen’s home and in the neighborhood looking at what was going on, where the water was pooling and where the water was flowing in.

“We started to notice that whenever it rained Todd would just have a pool, basically, in his yard that was probably a foot thick and there was no place to go,” Chapman said. “So what ended up happening then was other neighbors started getting wind of what was going on. They heard I was over there digging and so Todd was really working hard with those neighbors to show that this isn’t just a one or two house problem, that this whole neighborhood is having all of these problems over here.”

At the September city council meeting, Kauppinen and several residents spoke during public comment on water damages they were facing.

“Things got quite emotional because some of them are replacing their furnaces and their hot water heaters and so forth every single spring,” Chapman said. “That finally got the attention of the entire city council and we were at least able to vote in some investigating. We’re hoping that all of this will be looked into as soon as possible to try and figure out what we need to do over there.”

Chapman said the Department of Public Works put another catch basin in the neighborhood to help.

“The problem is we still don’t have the proper curbing to get the water to divert to that catch basin,” Chapman said. “Todd is still looking at getting sent 40 to 60 more sandbags again to divert the water to go to those two catch basins.”

He said a temporary fix to the problem would be exploration digging.

“I’ve been trying to propose that for several months, to no avail, but sometimes it takes a village to get something done,” Chapman said. “I’m really happy that through all the work and frustration for these residents that we’re at least starting to try and figure out what could be wrong.

He said sometimes it’s hard to “come up with a major solution for just one resident.”

“Now that they know this is a whole neighborhood, hopefully we’ll be able to incorporate this into the $16 million project we have being worked on next year,” Chapman said. “I’m going to be really pushing for that but we will have to see where this goes.”

Residents who are facing water damages are encouraged by the city to reach out to the State of Michigan that the city needs funding for water infrastructure improvements.

According to a Facebook post by the city, Michigan’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund for 2024 has a grant application from Ishpeming to request $20 million to fund water improvements throughout the city.

Residents and business owners in the city can submit public comments to Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, which administers this grant to further consider funding, until Saturday.

“We are beyond thankful for the support and funding that EGLE provides us to better our community,” Ishpeming’s Facebook post said. “Please tell EGLE that, and encourage them to fund Ishpeming’s full grant application of $20 million.”

To submit a letter, email or mail EGLE before Oct. 1. Letters sent through the mail can be written out to Kelly Green, Administrator Water Infrastructure Financing Section Finance Division, Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, P.O. Box 30457, Lansing, Michigan, 48909-7957.

Letters can be sent via email to Greenk1@michigan.gov.

City officials said in an email on Tuesday that the $16 million sewer infrastructure funding from EGLE to the city is “pretty specific” about the type of improvements the money can be used for.

“My understanding is that those details – how exactly the funding is used – aren’t able to be shifted away from what was included in the grant application,” Siren CEO Adela Piper said. “Certainly, we’re all hopeful that the grant will fund improvements that will benefit many of Ishpeming’s residents, including Mr. Kauppinen, but it’s not quite as simple as the city asking to use the funding for something other than what was originally outlined and approved.”

This story has been updated to reflect the city’s feedback and the EGLE public comment is now closed.