News

Chesaning deals with sewer issues

By CHRISTINA GUENTHNER Argus-Press Staff Writer

Monday, March 30, 2009 11:00 AM EDT

CHESANING - The Village of Chesaning is struggling to separate its storm sewer from the sanitary sewer by the end of 2010.

The deadline was set by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality as part of an ongoing project that would greatly reduce the potential for sewage to overflow.

“They are pushing us a little hard,” Councilman Don Swartzmiller said. “I don't think we can get all of this done. We've got economic restraints as well as time limitations.”

The project started in 2000 when the village was contacted by the DEQ about the frequency of its sewage system overflowing.

The village signed an administrative consent order to avoid being fined by the DEQ, Swartzmiller said. The original requirements by the DEQ included updates to sewer lines, updates to the sewage plant and the separation of one of the two lift stations the system has.

The original plans outlined by the DEQ did not include the separation of household footing drains from the sanitary sewer, Village President Joe Sedlar said. That was a project the village decided to complete on their own.

“Somewhere along the line they've (the DEQ) taken this on and added this to our list of requirements,” Sedlar said.

Along with the additional requirement came the deadline, Swartzmiller said.

“We wanted to do the separations on our time, not in a year, year-and-a-half period,” he said.

The project requires an inspection of every single home in the village to determine whether the home's footing drain runs into the sanitary sewer. If it does, it will have to be disconnected and tied into the storm sewer at the homeowner's expense.

The village is doing the inspections for free until the end of the year, but beginning in 2010 there will be a charge for the inspections, Swartzmiller said. For the remainder of the year the village is also waving the $500 it normally charges for a home to be tied into the storm sewer.

The results of the inspection will determine whether or not a homeowner will incur additional expenses.

Swartzmiller said, generally speaking, homes without basements should not have any problems, a home with a septic tank is generally an easy fix, but homes without septic tanks could need the most work.

He said every home being inspected individually is going to take some time, but time limitations are only one issue - the village has more than $2 million wrapped up in the other requirements from the DEQ and money is tight.

“If we do everything the way they want it done it could be a $5 to $6 million project,” Swartzmiller said. “We can't afford that.”

He said the village is hoping some stimulus money could come its way for the upgrades, but in the mean time the funds will have to come from the village. Money is also needed for many other things, including road projects and dealing with the Parshallburg bridge.

“We have to live too,” Swartzmiller said. “We have to do roads and all of the other things that keep a village going.”

- Contact Christina Guenthner at 725-5136 extension 239 or cguenthner.arguspress@gmail.com

Comment on this Story

Sally of Bay City wrote on Mar 30, 2009 5:17 PM:

" They have known the over a decade that their waste system was inadiquate in handling any rain or overflow. I've been reading in the newspaper for the last eight years, how Chesaning was being fined upwards of 50 to 60 times a year before the DEQ tried to give them a solution to helping them fix their problem.Instead they decided to build a new administation building.
I wonder how long it would take to fix the problem if Sagianw County put a dam downriver from the village and they had to live in their own soup, instead of letting the rest of us deal with their crap(literaly). "

toobad wrote on Mar 29, 2009 11:26 AM:

" Looks like the lack of a professional city manager and procrastination, is going to come back to bite the residents of Chesaning. What have other small villages done to remedy such a situation? "