Marine City manager gives update on Safe Drinking Water project

Residents still navigating potholes and discolored water; replacing meters on to-do list

By Barb Pert Templeton

The ongoing water project in Marine City is prompting torn up roadways, colorful water incidents and even the occasional water shutoff as contractors continue to address the long overdue overhaul of the city’s aging infrastructure.

At a March 19 meeting of the city commission, City Manager Michael Reaves took time during his administrative comments to update officials on the ongoing water/sewer projects in the city.

He said construction has recently resumed for the project, but it continues to be dependent on the weather; it’s been 20 one day and 60 degrees the next day which makes things difficult, he said.

The discolored water

Citizens have been reporting discolored water with sediment issues and Reaves asked that people follow the guidelines provided on the city website as well as on social media where there’s a whole detailed process.

“Bottom line, flush your water, I cannot tell you that it’ll be clear in 10 minutes, I cannot tell you that it’ll be clear in a half hour,” Reaves said, noting that a house two doors down may have no issue because anytime they start pushing water through new systems it clears out the rust and calcium and it takes a while for that to flush out naturally.

The system is flushed at the point where the repairs are being worked on but it’s a loop system so the stuff settles in different areas while the water’s pushed through, Reaves explained. He said if

there’s an eight-inch feeder line and residents have a one-inch line off their house – after 40 or 60 years in the ground – that eight-inch feeder line is now about two inches and the water line to the homes is the size of a pencil – so when they open up new lines the force is going to push that stuff off the pipes.

“I appreciate the fact that everybody wants to compare the sediment on Facebook or social media with what color their water is … we’re aware of it, it’s not unusual, it’s not a problem with the water quality, the water quality is tested four times a day and we must report that to the State of Michigan,” Reaves said. “The water quality reports are on our website and on the state website, you can check that daily if you’d like. The only time we’d enact a boil water alter is if we lost total pressure.”

Pothole issues

Problems with potholes during the construction is from most streets being milled or grinned so cars are basically traveling on ash vault millings, and some are better than what the surface of the roads were when the project started, Reaves said. In addition, the work can lead to potholes forming as the weather changes.

“The contractors been asked to regrade the roads and to try and keep up on those but that’s a never-ending battle,” Reaves said.

Water-main installations

As a further update on the project, Reaves said water main installations will continue from West Minister to Mary streets and then crews will start installing from West Minister to Pleasant streets.

“Then we’ll begin testing water mains in that area and water shutdowns will be needed in the next couple weeks to make sure these areas are ready for shut down; these are loop systems, so we’ll be doing it block by block,” Reaves explained.

He said in order to do those tests they will have to turn off certain valves -after locating them and making sure they work – then they will shut down the area.

“There will be intermittent water shutoffs, we’ll try to make sure that everybody is aware of them before we do them,” Reaves said.

Additional water main installations will continue on various streets in the city and the portion of the project that addresses replacement of residential water service lines will continue from Belle River Avenue on to North Main Street. Specific streets will be listed on the city’s website and social media accounts.

Emergency SAW work

Reaves also noted that the city has been working diligently to finish up and complete the emergency SAW work that was being done. He said as of now the city has a punch list because they had critical issues in many areas and in fact have more than 40 different locations now that have been deemed critical and require some type of work be it a collapse, a fracture, a broken line or storm system.

“The vast majority appear to be storm system related, there are some sanitary, but most are storm system related,” Reaves said. “That work will be commencing in that same area at the same time as the other ongoing work folks so it’s going to get busy up there. They are going to be doing the repairs on the sanitary storm system in the same part of the streets where they are doing the water main project.”

The first quote for one block worth of work on Westminster, which includes eight different critical spots in the area, is $43,000. Reaves said the contractor is holding the unit prices from

last year’s quote and the ability to bid the project out is tough because of all the problems so he’ll go forward with the repairs with the same contractor soon.

Water meters cleanup

Commissioner William Klaassen asked if the city has cleaned up all the water meters and Reaves replied that no, they haven’t cleaned those up at all yet.

“Pretty much all of our meters are end of life,” Reaves said. “At times we’re seeing battery or system failures of five or six a week. I did write a grant to the state for $1.2 million dollars to purchase and install brand new water meters across the entire system and that probably should have been budgeted and done perhaps seven to 10 years ago.”

Reaves said some of the meters are operating perhaps at 70 to 75 percent accuracy, but just to be clear to residents, the meters don’t measure more water use, it’s less.

“Just like me as you get older you slow down and do less, you don’t do more,” Reaves laughed. “At least that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

To find more updates on the project visit the city’s website at marinecity.gov.