Map shows Saginaw-Midland Water System line going through Bay County to Saginaw, with junction in Monitor Township heading west to Midland. Bay City's Water/Sewer Problems Date Back 138 Years
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(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first of three articles about the water system of Bay City and efforts to furnish customers with adequate supplies of pure water.)
For 138 years Bay City has struggled with water system problems.
The late Raymond J. Kuhn, managing editor of The Bay City Times, documented water issues in a special report for city and county officials in 1973. Kuhn had taken a job with the Michigan Association of Counties after his retirement from The Times in 1968.
In the early days, as many as 300 deaths a year from typhoid caused by unsafe water were recorded.
Both Bay City and West Bay City operated separate water plants, even after the merger of the cities in 1903.
Finally, a water filtration plant was built in 1924 for a joint system.
Talks with Saginaw about possible collaboration to operate a water system began about 86 years ago.
Bay City even built an elaborate and expensive plant on State Park Drive near Saginaw Bay. But Saginaw spurned the city's offer of cooperation.
The Dow Chemical Company spilled huge amounts of phenol (carbolic acid) into the Tittabawassee River that made its way through the Saginaw River to the bay.
To save lives and allow disposal of chemicals Dow founder Herbert H. Dow in 1935 paid for a 46 million gallon reservoir that still exists across from the water plant.
A phone call from Mr. Dow to Louis Harrison, city chemist and filtration plant supervisor, would alert the city to shut off its water source a half mile into the bay and use the reservoir. When the toxic fluids from the plant cleared the river, killing fish along the route, Mr. Harrison would turn on the regular water intake and resume pumping bay water to city customers.
As time went on industrial wastes from such sources as sugar beet processing plants and oil refineries continued to pollute the bay water source.
A water source study by Dow resulted in the intake being extended from a half mile to two miles into the bay off Linwood in 1951.
Saginaw, which had purchased a site at present Athlone Beach for a possible water treatment plant, canceled the plan after high pollution continued in the bay.
It was in 1944 that the Whitestone Point water source was located and an intake was built there, near AuGres. Bay City rejected an offer of partnership in that new system.
That was a fateful decision that was to lead to continued frustration with the city water source and agonizing about the future.
(NEXT: Even a recommendation by the Michigan Department of Health, citing the city's problem-plagued water source, for a deal for Whitestone water, failed to bring the communities together.)
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"The BUZZ" - Read Feedback From Readers! |
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tom Says:
On August 30, 2010
at 11:06 AM
Dave: Look into the Northwest Territory grant to the United States of America and I think you will find that the water is reserved to the Nation. Or, it might be in the documents which grant Michigan its statehood. In any event, I am of the understanding that there is no charge for water, but only the associated costs of delivery and infrastructure amortization. It might add a little 'gee wiz' to your upcomming articles. Assuming, of course, I remember my history class 1/2 a century ago!
Tom Starkweather |
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Dave Rogers |
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