12/19/2006

Newsmakers 2006

Plans scrapped for wastewater plant on parkland

By CRAIG McCOOL

mccoolrecordeagle@sbcglobal.net

BAY HARBOR — Plans to install a wastewater treatment plant on a township-owned Lake Michigan park have been scrapped.

Resort Township officials voiced strong opposition after CMS Energy Corp. expressed a desire to build a treatment facility at East Park as part of an ongoing environmental cleanup throughout the adjacent Bay Harbor Resort.

Construction of a 2,000-square-foot plant on three acres directly east of the park is expected to begin in the spring of 2007, CMS spokesman Tim Petrosky said. The land currently belongs to Bay Harbor Resort. CMS, which was an initial developing partner in the resort, has an option to buy it, Petrosky said.

Resort Township officials reviewed the site plans and signed off on a rezoning last week for the wastewater plant. Better next to park than in it, Supervisor Robert Wheaton said.

"The potential for semi traffic in the park was a concern,” Wheaton said. "I don't think it's a big deal (to have the plant next door).

"It's a wooded area, and I'm sure the planning commission will require some screening.”

Both Petrosky and Wheaton said the township acquired the park land several years ago through a state grant, which ultimately prohibited a treatment plant.

The park remained closed to the public all summer as CMS worked to contain a large pile of toxic cement kiln dust, a remnant of a former cement plant redeveloped into Bay Harbor in the 1990s.

The kiln dust pile in East Park and similar piles within Bay Harbor were discovered leaching caustic toxins into Little Traverse Bay in 2004, causing health officials to cordon off over a mile of shoreline throughout the resort area.

CMS worked throughout the year to install a series of buried collection trenches to keep the leachate out of the bay. Water from the collection systems is pumped into tanker trucks. The bulk is hauled to a deep well injection facility east of Gaylord, with some trucked to the regional sewer plant in Traverse City.

The new treatment plant will handle water collected from the park site only. Initially, water from the plant will be still be trucked away, though CMS officials plan to apply for state permits to allow the water to be pumped into Lake Michigan after it's been treated. The work is expected to cost the company around $85 million.