Detroit fish living on street get new home

A bucketload of fish living, literally, on a street in Detroit got scooped up Tuesday and trucked across the city to a backyard bathtub.

A hole in the pavement had made for a little ecosystem on Hull Street on the city's east side, where the fish were already reproducing after 30 days of residence. The wide, shallow, rectangular excavation left open and filled by a leaky water main gave Isiah (Zeek) James, 60, the idea for an aquatic community.

"It was a pond straight made for fish," he said. "So I put 'em in there, just so the kids could come by and see them."

A crew with Detroit Water and Sewer Department pumped out the water Tuesday as James and several children and neighbors helped get the fish out. The water main was repaired, but not before fish were safely removed, water department spokeswoman Curtrise Garner said.

The hole, she said, was created by DTE Energy, and the leak hadn't been reported to the water department until Monday – when metro Detroit TV stations reported on the fishing hole, and somebody called in.

DTE spokeswoman Erica Donerson said the utility is investigating how the hole was made and that it isn't sure why the city is saying DTE made it. But plans were to have it filled in by the end of Tuesday, she said.

James said the hole had been there for years. It was surrounded by large, orange barrels, in front of a burned house on a block where only a few houses still stand. Sonia Renee Brown, who provided the new home for the fish, said the water would freeze up so much in winter, "a car could go ice skating."

She previously took kids on a field trip to catch the fish at Palmer Park.

"They took so much pride in it that they didn't want to throw the fish back," Brown said, adding that James and the kids decided to make the pond in the street because "like much of Detroit, it's gone to Hootsville," and they envisioned something better.

James cleared trash and algae from the hole. They'd talked of putting in a community garden and nearby seating. But on Tuesday morning, they scrambled to get the truck, buckets and tub needed to get the fish out safely.

Within a few hours, seven children smiled as one gold-colored fish and about a dozen darker, greenish ones -- described as carp, bluegill and goldfish -- nibbled bread crumbs in the old bathtub filling with water from a garden hose in Brown's backyard.

Her home, "Auntie Na's house," as it says on a wall on Yellowstone Street near Elmhurst Street, is about 6 miles west of the now-emptied fishing hole. The bathtub of fish was placed near a garden where grapes and vegetables grow. She has used the house as a place to serve the community, especially children and people who are hungry, mostly through donations.

Brown also helps provide people water with the Detroit Water Brigade, an organization opposing water shut-offs in the city at residences with delinquent bills. A video posted Saturday on the water brigade's Facebook page showed the hole full of Detroit water keeping fish alive.

But Brown said the fish-moving effort Tuesday took time from helping people in need. She's now hoping they can get a tank and pump donated to keep the fish alive through winter.

Contact Robert Allen: rallen@freepress.com or on Twitter @rallenMI