At its meeting August 19, 2024, the County Commission heard a report on the Cape Haze sewer conversion project, which raised a new issue. While the County had originally planned to do the septic to sewer conversion at the same time as road paving, County staff, after advice from the County attorney, reported that even if the septic to sewer project began by October it couldn’t be completed until Spring 2027, while the law requires that the road repaving project money be spent by 2026.
Staff also reported that it has retained Western Michigan University to do water quality monitoring for the Cape Haze and the Lakeview Midway septic to sewer projects. It is beginning a contract negotiation with Johnson Engineering to oversee the water quality monitoring work. The monitoring will be in stages, with the first stage establishing groundwater levels and flows. (PA comment-groundwater levels are used to determine direction). Results from the initial monitoring will inform future monitoring and any project timelines. The base model for testing would be 1 or 2 years (it is not clear whether that includes both testing phases). In the meantime that staff says that it is “pivoting allows Utilities to focus on next S2S area of Lakeview-Midway”. We assume this means pivoting away from Cape Haze.
The Commission discussion with Public Works suggested that it could be perhaps 15-20 years before the next paving work, with the suggestion that that time frame might also apply to the next time septic conversion is revisited for Cape Haze.
Commissioners confirmed with the Utilities representative that the initial priority for Cape Haze was set based primarily on proximity to water and not on water quality problems. He agreed.
Commissioners asked if a vote was needed to approve the Johnson Engineering contract and were told not yet.
The discussion is available on the County website CCTV archive. https://charlotte.granicus.com/player/clip/5949?meta_id=750138
The Cape Haze discussion is about 45 minutes into the meeting.
So this is a very positive development, although issues still remain. They are:
-Testing is coming and we need to be prepared for it to be sure it is accurate and representative.
-The action that was driving the Cape Haze septic conversion initiative was/is the County Sewer Management Plan. The County is currently updating that plan and we need to participate in the update process to be sure that any update allows consideration of special circumstances like those of Cape Haze (low density, need for conversion, problematic operation of low pressure sewer systems such as had been planned for Cape Haze, etc.). An update to the plan can eliminate the administrative pressure for conversion.
-We have emphasized that our sewers are much less impactful than the discharge of nutrient laden reclaim water from the County sewage treatment plants. That is still true and the way to get the most bang for your buck in eliminating nutrients is to install Advanced Wastewater Treatment at the County plants. That should continue to be our effort.
Percy Angelo
Rob Robbins
nice work on this Rob.