More wrecks rise from the Rouge

By Joel Thurtell

I swatted mosquitoes as I watched a man steer a big, yellow machine through a dense, humid woods that leads to the Rouge River near Six Mile and Telegraph in Detroit.

It was early the morning of Saturday, June 7, 2008 — the beginning of Rouge Rescue, the annual cleanup of the Rouge River in metropolitan Detroit organized by the nonprofit Friends of the Rouge.

For Graham Lemons, the machine operator, there was only one question as he maneuvered the Caterpillar excavator down a slope through a forest of tall trees — how was he going to remove a car that lay steeply slanting down the east bank of the Rouge River in Detroit?

Not only was the rusty old derelict ready to tumble into the slow-flowing Rouge if he gave it a nudge, but the automotive carcass was lodged between two big trees that made it hard for him to grasp it with the mechanical claw of his Cat. He wanted to damage the trees as little as possible, or not at all.

Lemons works for Livonia-based Aristeo Construction, which for several years has provided dozens of volunteers to help the nonprofit Friends of the Rouge with its annual cleanup of the Rouge River.For the past three years, Aristeo also has provided heavy equipment for removing junk cars from the river during Rouge Rescue.Rick Lewandowski, general manager of Aristeo, has likened his staff’s participation in Rouge Rescue as “big boy fun. Big boys playing with their toys.”

I have more than a casual interest in this work, because I was involved in revealing in a rather public way the presence of clunkers in the Rouge. On Oct. 19-20, 2005, the Detroit Free Press ran a series of stories written by me (I was a Free Press reporter then) with photographs by Patricia Beck (still at the Freep) showing some of these junkers of the Rouge. I counted and logged them, and Pat photographed them. We did it from the 15-foot aluminum canoe we paddled 27 miles up the Rouge over five days in June 2005.The following spring, I got a call from Sally Petrella of Friends of the Rouge wondering if I’d show them where the cars are. I was glad to, and each spring since then I’ve gone with Sally scouting for junk cars to be removed from the river.

I’m proud to have helped make this happen. As a Detroit abandoned vehicles cop once told me, “It’s always good to put things back in the natural state, and sheet metal ain’t natural.”True, removal of old cars is mainly an aesthetic issue. They’re not really polluting the river. And as far as recreation goes, the Rouge is not safe for swimming or canoeing, because it’s polluted by sewage from the Detroit wastewater transport system as well as private septic systems, and the Lower Rouge also receives industrial waste.Even if getting rid of eyesore cars is only symbolic, it shows that people care about the river.In 2006, Aristeo nabbed six and a half cars — the half was counted because they hauled the better part of a car out of the river. Sometimes the cars fall apart as they’re being lifted and not all of the car can be removed.

That’s almost what happened to Lemons on June 7 as he lifted the rusted hulk from the bank. The car disintegrated, and he deposited a portion of it on the ground, while the rest of it slid down the bank and into the Rouge. Using the machine’s claw, he was able to pry the remainder of the car from the river. Eventually, he brought the entire car, in parts, onto dry land.”I wonder how they got it between those trees,” he said later.

Nobody knows why people abandon cars to the River. Police have speculated that they may be stolen, or maybe were part of a carjacking. Sometimes, people put cars on a railroad trestle for the perverse thrill of watching train engines knock them into the River. The Detroit Police Department’s abandoned vehicles unit will try to identify the owners, but in the past no cars ever have been traced to their owners, officer Robert Terhune told me.

Last year, Aristeo pulled four cars from the river or woods adjoining the Rouge north oof Fenkell. Last Saturday, they pulled six cars from the banks and flood plain. That makes a total of 20 1/2 beaters they’ve removed from the Rouge in the past three years. There are still a few to go.Lemons and Cat driver Jim Fagan, who also removed a tricky bankside wreck, agreed that yanking cars from the Rouge beats construction demolition.

Wayne State University Press is publishing a book by Pat Beck and me about our five-day, 27-mile trip up the Rouge River in June 2005. The book is called UP THE ROUGE! PADDLING DETROIT’S HIDDEN RIVER, and will be available early in 2009.

Contact me at joelthurtell@gmail.com