Municipal Building Upgrades Proposed
St. Ignace Officials Also Plan Update for City Wastewater Treatment Plant
By Ryan Schlehuber

The newly built City Hall in St. Ignace, with scaffold still up on the far right, was completed in early 1940. The first official council meeting held there was in July 1940. The building sits on the property where the Snyder House once stood. On the right is the Snyder Bar. To the left is Henderson's Cafe, owned by Lillian Henderson. Notice the bear and deer strapped to the car in front of City Hall. (Photograph courtesy of Marvin Henderson)

Improvements are slated for the St. Ignace municipal building and wastewater treatment plant, city officials say, although money for the projects has yet to be found.

A $5.5 million renovation of the wastewater treatment facility is being planned, with work scheduled to begin in 2008, while at City Hall, officials say improvements to the heating system, window replacement, and new carpet are needed.

The city's sewage treatment lagoons on 20 acres of land next to the Mackinac County Airport, four force mains, five pump stations, and new sewer lines were built 20 years ago for $4.5 million to replace the old treatment plant at what is now American Legion Park. The new facility included a disinfection and chemical feed building, six treatment lagoons with heavy duty vinyl liners, replacement of 5,000 sewer lines, and a force main installed from the lift station on Reagon Street to the lagoons. The facility allowed the city to add customers from Moran Township.

Les Therrian (right), the director of the St. Ignace Department of Public Works (DPW), and DPW employee Jim Schlehuber inspect a diffused air line in one of the six treatment ponds at the city's wastewater treatment plant in Evergreen Shores. Wastewater aerates in the ponds for 30 days and then goes through a cleaning process before it is discharged into the lake. This particular pond was shut down owing to deterioration in its heavy-duty vinyl liner, which prevents wastewater from seeping into the ground. Replacing the liners in all the ponds will be one phase of a $5.5 million upgrade project that is expected to begin in 2008.

The system aerates wastewater in the lagoons for 30 days and then passes it through ultraviolet light to kill bacteria before discharging it into Lake Huron. The ultraviolet light eliminated the expensive use of chlorine in killing the bacteria.

A bar screen and catch-bucket near the lagoons rid the sewer system of large debris, like rags, and city workers check and empty the screens daily. Among the upgrades, said Department of Public Works Director Les Therrian, will be an automated screening system that will eliminate the daily manual inspection.

More critical, however, is replacement of the lagoon liners and completion of other upgrades required by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

The liners, said Mr. Therrian, have a life expectancy of 20 years and one lagoon has been drained because its liner has deteriorated beyond repair. That decreased treatment capacity by only 10 percent, he said, and while the city can treat two million gallons of wastewater a day, it only sees an average of 500,000 gallons a day.

An administrative consent order issued by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality four years ago for dumping undertreated effluent into the Great Lakes, mostly resulting from multiple breaks in the force main, is hoped to be resolved with the 2008 project, Mr. Therrian said. Prior to the order, the city invested $75,000 into replacing poorly-engineered force-main pipes, but more renovations are needed.

The $5.5 million project will include replacing the wastewater disinfection system, replacing two force mains at the lift stations near Quality Inn Lakefront and on Reagon Street, replacing all vinyl liners for the plant's six ponds, replacing a half-mile of sanitary sewer lines, and upgrading the plant's effluent screening machine, which prevents refuse from being discharged into the lake.

Finding money for such a project is the focus this year, but Mr. Therrian said taxes will not be raised.

The DPW has received a $20,000 grant to plan the 2008 upgrades and has applied for a $280,000 state grant to help fund engineering. The rest of the funding will come either from a loan from United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development, which offers a 40-year repayment plan, or through a state revolving fund, which, said Mr. Therrian, offers a 20-year repayment plan.

The city has no capital improvement fund for the wastewater system and is short $280,000 in a required bond escrow fund, so it will seek a loan payback schedule that doesn't start until 2009 to give it time to eliminate its fund deficit.

The city made its last 1986 sewer bond payment of $230,000 Wednesday, November 1, but has two other bond notes outstanding. It pays $18,600 a year until 2016 for a $214,000 downtown force main upgrade project in 1993 and $45,000 a year until 2039 for an $840,000 aeration system installment and a lift station installment on Reagon Street that was completed in 1999.

The city has 41 miles of sanitary sewer lines, most of them in good shape. Mr. Therrian said about two miles of line will be upgraded in 2008.

City Hall City Manager Eric Dodson told the city council at a special budget workshop Monday, October 30, that the municipal building's heating system provides only two options, hot or cold. Although a new steam boiler was installed 15 years ago, the heat is difficult to control because there are no control valves in the rooms, said city maintenance supervisor Dave Giacherio.

He wants to install some valves for better distribution and control of the heating system and replace the single-pane windows to reduce heat loss.

Replacing the single-pane windows could reduce heat loss, he said.

New carpeting throughout the building, he said, would improve the appearance of the rooms.

Atight city budget, he noted, has stalled the improvements.

City Hall was opened in July 1940 on the site of the Snyder House. During the lumber era, the Snyder House was the hub of the city and was considered the oldest hostelry in St. Ignace.

The property was owned by Lillian Henderson, who operated a cafe next to the new city hall until the late 1940s, early 1950s, and Dewey Snyder, whose father, Civil War veteran Colonel S.A. Snyder, settled in St. Ignace in 1879, first operating the Clarendon House at the foot of Maloney hill, and then the Central Hotel, which later became the Snyder House.

After Colonel Snyder died in 1917, his son, Dewey, operated the place until 1925, when it was closed permanently. He and Mrs. Henderson sold the property to the city for $3,000.

The new city hall, built at the end of the Great Depression, was a symbol of municipal pride.

Alderman D.J. Frantz, quoted in an article in The St. Ignace News in July 1940, said, "St. Ignace has made big strides forward in the past few years and we all feel that there is a bright future in view. The many new homes and other construction indicates a brighter outlook."

Much of the labor for the $80,000 city hall was completed as a project of the Work Progress Administration (WPA), started by President Herbert Hoover to provide jobs for the unemployed.

The former municipal building, which was just south of the Favorite Dock, was used by the National Youth Association while the fire truck room was used as a surplus commodity warehouse. It was later demolished.

St. Ignace Mayor J. Edward Quinn, who served three terms from 1938-1940, oversaw the beginning of construction in 1939. Edward Glashaw, who took office in April 1940, oversaw the project the rest of the way.

The three-story building housed not only city offices but offered enough room to provide space for the Chamber of Commerce, a historical museum, voting booths, and a suite of four offices for rent. The city library was on the north side of the first floor, where the city manager and treasurer now have offices. A flag once flew from atop the building, but the flagpole has since been moved to the ground.

Today, most of the offices are on the main level. The Police Department is in the basement, and, on the second floor are the council chambers, and offices of the building inspector, Downtown Development Authority, Michigan Works!, and U.P. Engineers.