Until they demand a long-term solution, Traverse City and urban township residents already paying for the regional wastewater treatment plant through their monthly sewer bills will also continue to underwrite the county's failed septage treatment plant.
The county board agreed last week to make a $455,000 bond payment due Nov. 1 that would otherwise have ended up being the responsibility of the five townships on the financial hook for any losses at the plant, which treats waste from septic tanks -- Garfield, East Bay, Acme, Peninsula and Elmwood in Leelanau County.
Stepping in to save the day is becoming an annual county ritual.
Grand Traverse has reluctantly covered the shortfalls since the plant first opened in 2005. Each year county commissioners threaten to force the five townships to pay up but eventually back down. In 2007 the county paid $438,000 to keep the plant out of default.
That's general fund money that comes from every taxpayer in the county, not just those in the five townships. Traverse City's two commissioners -- Christine Maxbauer and Ross Richardson -- voted no, but were on the losing end of a 6-2 vote. A final vote is expected Wednesday.
The plant has stayed afloat only because the county has covered bond payments and the plant has made about $500,000 a year by taking in polluted groundwater from the upscale Bay Harbor development near Petoskey. Ironically, that groundwater is actually treated at the wastewater treatment plant, not the septage facility, but the septage plant gets the money. The Bay Harbor deal is expected to last just two or three more years.
What is needed is a tough-minded political solution that will likely include fees on septic tank users in the county and beyond, and required annual or semi-annual pump-outs to bring in enough income for the plant to survive.
But that won't come until city residents and others footing two bills finally say enough is enough.
