Plainfield approves $240,500 water study after residents question cost and oversight

Item B on our agenda is to consider the water system source, hold on, consider the water system source water alternative study phase two proposal from Prein & Newhof for an estimated $137,500 for engineering fees. Cameron?

Okay. Do a reminder for everyone who is or is maybe not familiar with where we're at with the water study. Back in April, we had the phase one presentation of the water study. And for those that were not a part of that presentation, we had taken the approach of saying we're struggling to find good source water here, there, or somewhere else. Let's take a step back. Let's throw all the options on the table, good, bad, or otherwise. And let's sort through them again and make sure that we're looking at the right alternatives to find source water that will serve this community long into the future. We're not looking for short-term or Band-Aid fixes for the system.

Let's look at the long-term impact of these decisions. So we had that study that was presented to us in April. And basically, that came up with a few different things. One, there were some short-term enhancements that will help us in the next five to 10 years. That's kind of the short-term view here. But then there's a number of things that we can look at as we look beyond 10 years. What can we look for for new source water? And as a reminder, from a geographic perspective, our water plant, let's zoom in enough, our

water plant, and this is a gray aerial that shows the impact of flooding. Whenever they took this, the river was high and there was a lot of flood water. So we have a lot of flood water. We have our water plant and well fields around here. And as a reminder, we lost the capacity of the Versluis well field about a decade ago when PFAS was discovered in that area. And to replace that, we've been looking for an area possibly somewhere along the Grand River or somewhere relatively close that could produce as much water as we lost in capacity in this well field in one location. And that was our struggle.

We couldn't find a good well field location that was as productive as what we had at Versluis within a close proximity. So as a reminder, we looked across the river.

So that really brought the focus into two major solutions. One of them was continuing a groundwater search along Quaint Avenue. And as I was saying, before we searched part of this area, and it wasn't as productive as we had hoped, but now the search would change from one very tight contiguous area to probably a more linear search anywhere from maybe Jupiter on down to the end of the map here, and try to find that same amount of capacity spread over a much bigger geography. There's no guarantees that that will work either. And that's why this phase two is proposing a two-pronged approach while we explore that

and the opportunity for groundwater there, also exploring a more regional approach. And regional approach means that it would be something that we're not doing alone. We're in partnership with another community, maybe another community that already has water, or even other communities that are also looking for water and would join us in the effort. So that solution would be doing something, joining a system that is already accessing Lake Michigan water, and that could be the city of Grand Rapids, it could be the city of Muskegon, it could be somewhere in between. And honestly, as much as people think Grand Rapids is an easy solution, it's probably not as economical as anyone thinks it is

because they don't have the capacity to serve us as it is today. It will require a new transmission main basically back to Lake Michigan. So when we're talking about that kind of distance, that kind of capacity, we're talking into the hundreds of millions of dollars. So combining with Grand Rapids is not a simple or easy or cheap solution. And at that point, looking at Grand Rapids, we might as well be looking at other options as well because it's not necessarily the most economical or the most forward-thinking for our community because there are other systems that also have capacity in the area that might be a better partner long-term.

So that is the two prongs of this study that we want to explore, explore a regional partnership while we also explore the current well field to see if there's any other opportunities locally. So back to the study. So prior to that, we'll do a lot of this work. Some of this work will also be accompanied by staff working on various components of this. But we're going to start getting into specific locations along Coit Avenue to see if there's opportunities there as well as searching the Lake Michigan opportunities.

That's all I have.

Okay, thank you. I would open the floor at this time for any public comment about this issue.

Yes, sir.

Gerald Stepanovich, 4666 Weber Northeast. Sorry, I've got a few notes here. First of all, I'm actually sad. The gentleman for the titanium race, he's left because I was going to ask him if the race participants were given a list of what has been in the water in Versluis Park and in Plainfield Township water for that matter because, you know, ethylene glycol, which is antifreeze, or acetone, which is nail polish remover, both are required to be tested for. Both can be present in the water and it's still passed the Safe Drinking Act, which we operate under, you know. So, and the other question is,

to the other statement, you know, we're proposing to pay Prina Niehoff $137,000 when we just, I believe we just approved a 2.5 million capacity increase at another wellhead, you know. I mean, we just seem to keep handing Prina Niehoff money hand over fist and we're getting no results. And now you're going to, you know, there's also looking at, according to your agenda item, they're looking at private land ownership. You know, whose land? Whose land, I mean, who in the township's land is that and are we going to be able to know whose it is? Is it going to be made public? It's my money you're spending.

So, who's the private land owner that you're proposing to look at? You know, I think we should, I think those facts should be known.

You know, and then another part of it was to replace the, I saw it as, I believe it was under consent agenda that you guys voted when we started the meeting, to replace the wellhead pump buildings down at Bruce Lewis Park, to replace the roofs. For what? We haven't used them since 2016. I mean, you guys came to my house, made me cap my well, and yet you're still using wells that, or not using them, no, not using them, but you're still paying for the maintenance of the building? Those things, that's ridiculous. I mean, those buildings should be torn down and those wells capped. I mean, we got to take your word that you're not using, which I believe you're not.

I don't ever hear them run. So, I just think that's ridiculous to, that building should be turned down and it's done. No more money spent on them. And what else do I have here?

Oh, yes. Deputy, thank, welcome. Welcome to be our community service, our community neighborhood officer. And just a quick note where I live on Weber Street, since we can't get any speed bumps, I would ask you to take a seat on there, especially during golf season at Thousand Oaks, Saturdays and Sunday mornings, they tend to fly up and down that road. And I really don't want to go to jail throwing something at them. So, and I want to see you, unless it's by in a wave. Anyway, the other thing is. Time is up. Yeah, yeah, of course. Are we going to go to competitive bid instead of just giving money to Prein & Newhof?

Anyone else?

Okay, seeing no one else, I'll close the floor for public comment.

Okay, well, you got to raise your hand when I ask.

I sort of did. I'm kind of new to this three-minute thing. I'm from Lansing, and sometimes our meetings used to go to two or three o'clock in the morning. Had an opinion on this. And if you know hillbillies, if you have an opinion.

I hate to stop you, but name an address for our record, please.

Helen Fizer, 6468 Living Good Street. Rockford mailing address. Citizen of Plainfield Township. I'll just stick to my script to keep the three minutes.

So, good evening to the trustees. I'm standing here tonight because the agenda asks us to authorize another $137,000 payment to Prina Newhall to find uncontaminated water sources. Concurrently, we are looking at an overall price tag. We're well over the $2.5 million to ramp up pumping at known contaminated wells while this seemingly endless search continues.

Let's be entirely clear about where we are. We live in the second most toxic contamination site in the state of Michigan. For years, our community has dealt with the shadow of this crisis. We are not paying for a brand-new, unforeseen challenge. We are paying the exact same engineering firm that built the system and has been trying to replace things for years. As a resident and a taxpayer, I am at an absolute loss as to how this search for clean water can go on for this long at this immense cost with little or no show for it. In any other industry, if a contractor failed to deliver the core objective for a project for years,

you wouldn't blindly hand them another six-figure contract. You would halt, assess, and review. I'll get to my three questions because I'll hand this in in writing. Where is engineering performance evaluation? Has this board conducted a formal evaluation of Prein & Newhof's milestones, deliverables, and timelines over the last seven years? If not, why are we releasing more funds without a report card on their past performance? What is the accountability mechanism? What guarantees do we have that this $137,000 won't yield the exact same result as the previous funding, which is to say more ongoing searches?

Why haven't we sought a second opinion? If the current engineering strategy has left us trapped pumping contaminated water at a million-dollar expense, why are we not looking at outside experts or a peer review of Prein & Newhof's work to see what they are missing? I'll hand this in, and anybody else that wants a question, I have extra copies.

Okay, anyone else? Yes.

Good evening. Brent Fields, 4440 Plainfield. This is sad, it sounds like, because we're searching for a long time. Maybe consider another company to jump in and change from Prein & Newhof would be a thought. But what I keep thinking, I'm hearing all this, we have a water problem, obviously, but we should maybe consider maybe not putting more apartments in to astrobate, I think I'm saying that word right, the problem. Because we're putting apartments up and we're going to need more water. And we apparently need water. So I'd like to see us maybe think about that. I don't know that it's our obligation

to increase our population to 32,000 to, I don't really want to see 35,000 because then we have more traffic problems and we have to get bigger schools and we're bringing in more people. And we don't have the water to give more people. And people are here paying more for water. And we're being kind of paying for usage plus overage if you go to tier six, 40%. So maybe we should slow down in growing our population till we get our water thing figured out. Thanks.

Anyone else?

Okay. Seeing no one, I'm closing the floor for public comment and move on to board discussion. Susan, do you have anything?

Nothing that relates to what's going on tonight. Again, we need to keep, we're looking and we have a good outline.

Thank you. Steve?

I agree with Sue. We need to keep looking. We have a good outline.

Our water issues is our board's priority. We've been working on that. And I'm good for now.

All right. Thank you. Kathy?

I just, the more I learn, the more I don't know the complexity of finding water and finding the clean water and the legacy that we've been left with because of PFAS. I believe that we have halted and accessed, assessed and reviewed what Prein & Newhof is doing. And so I stand in confidence until I hear otherwise from the staff that we are to move forward with what we need to do to find water.

Thank you. Jack?

Thank you.

We have had a problem with Versluis Park. It's well known. Because we had a problem, we closed it down. I, as you all know, most of you know, I, I'm in Facebook along with many of you. I see in Facebook a repeated attempt to connect the Versluis problem with our current system. There is no connection at all. The Versluis problem, as shown by a number of wells, has headed from Versluis Park east and not toward, not west toward our, our water system. So I, I wish the attempts to make connection

between the two systems would stop.

First, and also, the attempt to provide more water is not primarily spurred by the fact that, that we are short of water. We aren't short of water. We have water for the foreseeable future. We're looking 10, 20, 30 years in the future. And many corporate people and many boards toss the, toss the ball down the road and, and let somebody else take care of it. We don't do that. We're trying very hard to make sure that 10, 20 years from now, we have enough water so that you all and,

and myself can still have water. So if somebody makes the statement, we have a shortage of water, we have no shortage of water. We have enough water right now to last to 2035. So it's not an emergency situation. What we are attempting to do is look beyond 2035. That's all I have to say.

Thanks, Jack. Frank?

I'm all set.

All right.

It's been an ongoing problem for a long time. And we continue to work hard. I, I wish folks would show up at the workshops we have so they could understand what's going on instead of coming and making a bunch of hypotheticals or false statements to us.

We,

those opportunities are out there all the time. So, I think Heidi Neuhof is, is, is doing as good a job as I can see anyone else doing. If we start with someone else, someone else is going to have to come in and learn everything all over again. So, it, it just,

yeah, listen, we're, we're doing our best. We're looking forward. This isn't a today crisis. We're looking forward, projecting growth when we're adding apartments. You know, those property owners have rights too. So, we can't just deny someone building in our township. So, it, it's a global thing. And we're trying to be proactive and make sure that we're all going to be fine years down the road. We all live in Plainfield Township too. We don't want to see a crisis happen here. I, I don't know why that's not understood better. I, I read some absolute trash on Facebook. It, it's unbelievable. So, with that being said, I'll, I'll seek a motion.

I make a motion to approve the Plainfield Charter Township Water System Source Water Alternative Study Phase 2 as presented.

Thank you, Kathy. Support? Support. Thank you,

Mr. Hagedorn?

Yes.

Mr. McKellar? Yes. Mrs. Morrow? Yes. Mr. Pfaff?

Yes. Mr. Coleman? Yes. Ms. Beatty?

Yes.

Motion carried.