Tetra Tech delivered its $25,000 Sewer System Capacity Study at the March 24th Board Meeting. 

The conclusion was no surprise. Northfield Township's existing Sewer System committments exceed the Wastewater Treatment Plant's capacity.   We couldn't honor the existing obligations if we wanted to.  As the Township Manager said, "If you add up the REUs that are committed, you're not just over, you're way over."

The Territorial Road Special Assessment District (SAD) is the largest single committment, at around 1500 REUs, (Residential Equivalent Units).  For this unfunded committment, you can thank the 2000-2004 Board of Trustees.

Our Township Manager says we don't have to consider these committments as obligations.  We can hide the unfunded liabilities behind the morality distortion field of government "policy."  There is "no right or wrong answer." 

Supervisor Marilyn Engstrom cheered him on, saying we can "rob it from one area to give it to another area."

Prompted by Manager Fink, Tetra Tech's Brian Rubel said that almost all communities he works with handle things this way.  They kick the can down the road.  He didn't mention the constant ramp up in taxes paid by these communities.  That shiny new infrastructure eventually requires rebuilding and replacement.  The Special Assessments never end.

In any case, according to Tetra-Tech, the Treatment plant needs to build a $2.5 Million to $3 Million flow buffering tank now, just to handle today's peak flows during heavy rains.

The high point of the March 24th meeting was Trustee Braun's recognition of the moral hazard.

 Northfield Township WWTP Capacity Evaluation Report.  March 18, 2015

 Previous Reports and Studies of Northfield's Sewer System

 Download this as a pdf.

Most of the sewer discussion has been transcribed in our Meeting Notes.

Or you can watch the Sewage flow on livestream.   The Tetra Tech presentation begins at about 1 hr 6 minutes in.  The discussion of municipal morality initiated by Trustee Braun begins at about 1 hr 34 minutes in.

Further reading:

Unsustainable Mechanisms of Growth - The Strong Towns Blog

The Sylvan Lake Township Sewer Fiscal Fiasco (a Five-Fold property tax increase to pay for Sewers nobody wanted.)

The Jefferson County Sewer Crisis  (A Big City Version of the Sylvan Lake Fiasco)

The Idiot's Guide to Ponzi-Planning - Favorite reading of our Township Solons.

More on the November 11th joint meeting of the Northfield Township Board of Trustees and Planning Commission. 

The meeting opened with Township Supervisor Marilyn Angstrom's assertion that the hastily organized joint meeting had nothing whatever to do with Biltmore.  (You can decide for yourself; the board agenda is below)

During the first call to the public, a large number of Neighbors spoke their minds:

Former Township Trustee Dr. Ed Wojtys warned the Board of Trustees that if they continued pursuing this unpopular and imprudent growth agenda, Northfield Neighbors and like-minded residents were prepared to institute a recall.

Former official Kitty Burkhart reminded officials that residents have been sending the same message since the mid-1980s: "Keep us rural and focus growth near Whitmore Lake."

Former Township Supervisor Mike Cicchella warned that Northfield could suffer the fate as Sylvan Township where every resident is paying for a millions in sewer expansion after a developer's plans stalled, leaving the township in the lurch.

Former Trustee & Planning Commissioner David Gordon reminded officials that the #1 priority of residents is the preservation of farmland and open space, not growth. And that nearly 60% of residents are opposed to rezoning farms for subdivisions.

The officials also heard from Heidi Braun, Mary Christianson, Mike Galea, Amy Grambeau, Udo Huff, Peter Misangyi, Jim Nelson, Steve Robinson, Craig Warburton, Suzy Wienckowski and Lenore Zelenock, all of whom spoke against the Biltmore proposal and sewer expansion and in favor of respecting our Master Plan.

Speaking in favor of the Biltmore subdivision proposal was Mary Devlin, who said the township needs growth. She also expressed displeasure with flyers distributed at the polls by Northfield Neighbors alerting residents to the Biltmore growth scheme.

One welcome twist was that Supervisor Engstrom refused to cut residents off at their 3-minute limit, despite urgings from PC member Sam Iaquinto.

At the end of the meeting, during Trustees & Commissioners comments, none of the officials voiced opposition to the Biltmore proposal nor support of the Master Plan as adopted in 2012.

Planning Chair Marlene Chockley failed to address repeated requests that public participation be front and center in any discussion of Master Plan changes, nor did she address the request that design workshops be held before significant changes are contemplated.

None of the officials agreed that conducting a survey of residents might be helpful.

Mr. Iaquinto didn't disappoint, however, with his usual odd observation. Here we paraphrase: "Residents should only believe information coming from the township offices after the content has been reviewed and approved by the township attorney." Poor Sam; even he doesn't believe what's printed in the Courant.

And they wonder why we're upset and feel ignored.

- David Gordon

What to do now? Write them - insist they publicly support the Master Plan; oppose Biltmore's scheme to build suburbs in our rural neighborhoods, and say no to sewer expansion.

November 11th's Special Joint Meeting of the Board of Trustees & Planning Commission went well for residents who value farmland and open space preservation. The "grow grow grow" contingent showed up with only 2 representatives. We had 27!

The reason for the small "growth party" showing is because they finally got the bill - the massive cost associated with their agenda – well in excess of $20M for sewer expansion, according to the engineer's report.

While the pro-growth members of the Board and Commission were busy wiping egg off their faces, the township engineer's presentation made clear that our sewerage treatment plant is completely incapable of handling Biltmore's proposal for 1,475 rooftops without major expansions and upgrades.

Stay tuned because this Biltmore fight is not over, unfortunately. Biltmore has not dropped their land options and there are still some Board & Commission members who want growth - any kind, anywhere and at any cost to the taxpayers.

This is exactly the type of situation where savvy developers take advantage of unsophisticated and unprepared township officials – and take us to the cleaners.

Officials learned that no one has any idea what our capacity is at the treatment plant. One would think this is basic information that Supervisor Marilyn Engstrom & Manager Howard Fink would need before advertising that Northfield Township is "Open for Growth" and "Under New Management", as they've been doing for the last two years.

Our engineering firm, TetraTech, reported that we may have capacity for somewhere between 100 & 1,900 new single family houses, in dry weather, maybe, but we just don't know. And in a wet weather event (rainfall of several inches in a short time), with the current number of household sewer taps, the treatment plant could overflow raw sewerage into Strawberry Lake, violating our permit.  (Read the Engineer's report here)

Our Township Attorney, Paul Burns, reported that due to the thicket of legal agreements surrounding the Northfield Township Wastewater Treatment Plant, which also handles effluent from Green Oak and Hamburg Townships, no one knows how much of the plant's current capacity belongs to Northfield township, let alone the future capacity resulting from expansion.  Whether capacity reserved and paid for in the North Territorial Road Special Assessment District or other SADs may be used elsewhere in the Township is also an open question. (Read some of the legal documents here)

So the Board decided this might be a good time to commission a study and get some basic facts. This may be on the agenda at the next Board meeting scheduled for Nov. 25.

What can you do now? Write them - insist they publicly support the Master Plan; oppose Biltmore's scheme to build suburbs in our rural neighborhoods, and say NO to sewer expansion.

- David Gordon

The Sylvan Lake Township Sewerage Fiscal Fiasco

''In 2000 and 2001, Sylvan Township undertook a water/sewer project to support planned residential developments adjacent to the City (then Village) of Chelsea. The cost of the infrastructure would be paid by special assessments on the development. This did not happen, leaving the Township facing several lawsuits and substantial local debt a decade later.

Sylvan's new water and sewer systems faced several challenges, almost as soon as they were completed.  The planned-for developments did not occur, and the developers did not make payments to the Township for the special assessments. Meanwhile, additional development that had been expected outside of the special assessment district, which was expected to offset some of the developers' assessment charges via connection fees, also did not occur.

The Township's options by the end of 2010 included increasing local taxes to cover the costs of the bonds; offering a significant portion of the township (likely including the Chrysler Proving Grounds) to the City of Chelsea for annexation, in exchange for assumption or some or all of the debt; or, in the absence of any solution, a one-time 60 mill judgement levy to cover their default.

In August 2012, Township voters approved a 20-year, 4.4 mill property tax to pay off the debt. For reference, as of 2012, Sylvan Township's total budget was $463,500, with a total taxable value of $183 million, and a local property tax rate of 0.97 mills."

Ouch!

- from the Local Wiki

The Northfield Township Wastewater Treatment plant is located in Green Oak Township at 11500 Lemen Road, adjacent to the Maxey school which it was orginally built to serve.  The photograph below was extracted from this Google satellite view.

Here is a close-up of the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) map of regional Wastewater Treatment plants, (downloadable as a PDF here).  It shows our plant's service area as planned through the year 2025.  No sign of wholesale expansion into Agricultural districts.  Why is that?  Because five acre parcels can support septic systems, handling their own waste.  Gotta love self-reliance.