38 Years After Bungled S-M Water Merger, City Finally May Try Again
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What goes around, comes around, a local sage once said.
Four decades ago the need for a new water source for Bay City/Bay County was clear, but a vote failed.
MyBayCity.com suggested another look at the old idea of a merger with the Saginaw-Midland water system in articles on July 25, 2005 and May 6, 2007.
Recently, the Bay City Times stridently criticized the city for failing to cooperate with other municipalities and losing Hampton Township and Essexville as sewer customers.
Now the need for a new water source is even more obvious with:
the quality of bay water deteriorating further under multiple effects, especially combined drainage system overflows,
costs of treatment rising, and
need for $26 million in upgrades to the old plant.
Ken Miller, director of the Bay County Department of Water and Sewer, is suggesting it may be cheaper to build a new plant than to upgrade the old city facility.
Parties to the merged system plan appear to be shaping up as the City of Bay City, Hampton Township and Essexville. The vehicle would be a water authority, presumably with the Bay County DPW in charge of the new plant to serve the partner communities.
The old water source four miles into the bay off Kawkawlin is challenged by periodic sewage overflows from Essexville, Bay City, Saginaw and Flint.
Plus, in the past 10 years 150,000 cattle have been moved into Huron County on so-called combined feeding facilities; the manure from these animals winds up washing into drainage system and fouling the water even more.
In addition, quagga mussels that have been imported in the holds of foreign ships, filter out small organisms clearing the water and allowing higher growth of algae.
The city recently was cited for overuse of a disinfectant, trihaolmethanes.
The history of the city water system was clouded during the last attempt to hook up to the Saginaw-Midland system.
A vote was scheduled in 1971 with the Bay City Jaycees running the campaign.Jaycees Charles Curtiss, the late Bill Boutell and yours truly as strategist were in charge.
Somehow the question that came from the state election board got twisted into an almost undecipherable pretzel.
In order to cast a positive vote on the proposed merger of the Bay City water system with the Saginaw-Midland system the voter had to vote "no."
"FOR GOOD WATER, VOTE NO!" read the campaign literature.
The issue really was a brain twister though in actuality it was a no brainer.
The Whitestone Point source near AuGres used by Saginaw-Midland draws from 50 feet of pristine Lake Huron. The Bay City sources is four miles out into the lower bay in a few feet of water.
Even a non-scientific person knows instinctively that chances of getting polluted water are vastly more probable at the Bay City intake than at AuGres.
The Jaycees conducted an aggressive campaign to explain the twisted question, basing their pitch, complete with cartoon character "Mr. Good Water" depicting a drop of fresh water, on the slogan; "vote no for good water."
The impossible nearly happened; the no vote (to get a positive result) came within 150 votes of success.
The effect of a last minute union campaign, with political operatives handing out cards at the polls, cannot be determined but probably helped provide the key negative votes.
It seems that several Bay City water plant employees felt their jobs were threatened and marshaled their union friends to work the polls that day.
That was how fear and lack of political leadership allowed a vital public issue to be squandered. And caused Bay County water users to have to use inferior water, heavily treated to remove taste and impurities, for four decades.
Now comes a new group of officials, County DWS Director Miller, Hampton Supervisor Terry Spegel, Essexville Manager Dale Majerczyk, City Manager Robert V. Belleman, Commission Chairman Chris Shannon and Mayor Charles Brunner in the lead, trying to repair the age-old damage.
We, the citizens, taxpayers and water customers, can only hope they can shake off the bureaucratic tendencies to clash and go it alone and decide to work for the good of the order. The future depends on it.
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