Traverse City Record-Eagle

Grand Traverse County

July 1, 2008

County cuts fee in deal over leachate

By BRIAN McGILLIVARY

TRAVERSE CITY -- A new contract to truck contaminated water from Bay Harbor may help prevent Grand Traverse County's troubled septage treatment plant from sinking deeper into a financial hole.

Deal critics, however, worry the county may have tied an anchor around the facility's neck.

The county's Board of Public Works agreed to extend its contract with CMS Energy to accept leachate from the Petoskey resort community for another 18 months. But the county sliced its fee by 25 percent in order to secure the contract.

In return, CMS will try, but not guarantee, to truck more contaminated water to the troubled plant.

"They don't have to bring in a gallon more than they do now and we just discounted the rate 25 percent," said East Bay Township Supervisor Glen Lile. "If they bring in the same amount, they just handed us a $116,000 loss."

County public works manager Chris Buday said CMS refused any guarantee and demanded the price reduction or it would take its business elsewhere.

"Basically, it was take it or leave it," Buday said.

CMS partnered in developing Bay Harbor, a posh resort built over abandoned kiln dust piles. The company is responsible for collecting and treating about 135,000 gallons of the caustic leachate the dust creates when mixed with groundwater.

CMS wants to construct a deep injection well in Alba to dispose of the leachate, an effort that's been delayed by appeals and objections from community and environmental groups.

CMS trucks the leachate to the septage plant and to a commercial injection well in Johannesburg.

Grand Traverse County currently is receiving enough leachate to offset the reduced price, Buday said. He expects the deal to generate slightly more than the $463,000 CMS paid in 2007.

The septage plant primarily was built to treat waste from septic tanks, but it lost about $438,000 in its first two years of operation, despite the infusion of CMS cash.

So far this year, the plant is taking in about 30 percent more septage than in previous years. Buday said he expects to finish in the black for the first time and retire some of the plant's debt.

In its first 21/2 years of operation the plant took in just half the amount of septage originally projected. Now, on days when haulers bring amounts close to original estimates, the plant can't handle the volume. During two days in May the plant had to bypass 70,000 gallons of septage.

The plant's failure to process at its rated capacity is another in a long line of problems at the $8 million plant designed by the Traverse City engineering firm Gourdie-Fraser Inc. and built by The Christman Company.

A concrete storage tank collapsed in June 2005, one month after the plant opened, a failing caused by missing structural steel. Later investigations discovered numerous design and construction flaws.

Three years later the plant still doesn't work as promised, but Scott Blair of plant operator OMI said the capacity problem is the facility's last remaining operational concern.

Gourdie-Fraser ordered additional processing equipment it will install this fall to bring the plant up to its promised capacity. If it then passes capacity tests, the county will officially accept the plant as completed from Gourdie-Fraser/Christman.

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