The City of St. Ignace will spend $24,000 over the next two years to study its water and sewer systems and develop a 20-year plan for the city utilities. Council members voted unanimously to make the study Tuesday, September 8, meeting.

The cost will be included in the 2010 city budget, which is currently being drafted.

Recommended to Council by the city's Utility Committee, the study will be done by a firm called C2AE of Escanaba .

The city's water system will be evaluated in 2010, while the sewer study will be done in 2011. The $24,000 price tag will be split out into $12,000 for the water study in the 2010 budget and $12,000 for the sewer study in the 2011 budget.

The benefit of paying for these studies is two-fold, City Manager Eric Dodson said. The analysis and resulting 20-year plan will help the city budget and spread out improvements and maintenance to the utility infrastructure, and having such a plan on file will make the city eligible for grants it doesn't currently qualify for.

"It's one of those things that people don't realize what's involved in getting grant funds," Department of Public Works Director Les Therrian said. "If you don't have a water/sewer plan together, they just look by you. It has to be shovel-ready to go."

Collecting the knowledge of veterans at the department and prioritizing repairs and improvements are other reasons Mr. Therrian said the study needs to be done.

"I'm not going to be here in 20 years," he said. "We need the experience of people here to put it together.

"It will put together our weak areas," Mr. Therrian said. "We have sewer mains that are 70 or 80 years old that are causing problems."

The last comprehensive sewer and water plan was completed in 1981, he said, and most of the items on that to-do list have already been completed.

Mr. Therrian said he suggested the idea after attending a wastewater conference and seeing the long-term plans put in place by other cities like Marquette.

"It's to put together a comprehensive plan that says, 'These are issues that need to be dealt with,'" he said.

A proposed draft of the St. Ignace 2010 budget will be presented to Council for discussion at its Monday, October 5, meeting. According to the city's charter, the budget must be approved by the last meeting in December, which this year will be December 21.

Chambers Street To Be Paved

Chambers Street will soon have a smooth, paved surface, if funding is allocated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) . The street is on the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indains' list of roads having a direct impact on the tribal population. The reason it is on this list is because Chambers Street connects tribal housing adjacent to the McCann field to a major road, US-2.

The BIA has agreed to spend $41,400 on the project, although Mr. Therrian said the city would likely cover some expenses, including the cost to covert the current intersection of Spruce and Chambers streets into a T-style intersection with a stop sign, rather than angled merging of the two streets. The current intersection allows traffic from Spruce Street to merge onto southbound Chambers after yielding the right-of-way.

The city, which will be putting out bids for the project, is still awaiting final approval and allocation of funds from the BIA, which will be funneled through the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.

Mr. Therrian said his crews will begin preliminary work while they wait on funding.

"We want to do it this fall," he said. "Our window to be able to pave is quite limited. Once we get the go-ahead we will be ready to start."

City Now Compliant with Bond

Covenants

The City of St. Ignace is now fulfilling bond covenants tied to sewer bonds the city is repaying, according to a letter it received from the Michigan Department of the Treasury.

Noted in the city's annual audit, the city was required to have $302,231 in cash reserves for bond payments and future maintenance by the end of 2009, according to requirements of the Sanitary Sewer Disposal System Revenue Bonds. At the end of 2008 , the city had only $106,333 in this fund, owing to cash shortfalls.

Mr. Dodson said the city was not putting in the $9,720 each quarter it is required to by bond covenants, but the city was able to receive confirmation of compliance from the state by using recent improvements as investments in the system.

These improvements include water and sewer main repairs like the $50,000 needed to replace pumps that broke at the Reagon Street station. These repairs are what the fund is there for, Mr. Dodson said.

"We compiled all the amounts we invested in the system," he said.

The fund is now being properly paid into, Mr. Dodson said, and $360,000 is now in the fund.

Being compliant with these covenants, he said, is an important step before the city may receive additional funding from the state.

Portage Street Project

Set To Begin

The Portage Street water system project, which also includes improvements on Central Avenue hill and other streets, will be receiving bond funds after the bond closing, scheduled for September 28.

The city has already sent out a request for bids from contractors, and Mr. Dodson said after the bond closing, the project could begin as soon as October 1.

"Anything they can do and have paved before the snow flies will be done this fall," he said. The project calls for work to be done on Portage Street near the St. Ignace school campus, but work will not be done this year as to not disrupt student transportation.

A $100,000 grant has been secured through the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which will help fund the design and planning for the project. The work will be paid for using city funds and a 40% principal payback program, in which the state will allocate federal stimulus dollars to help pay for nearly half the project's cost.

The next St. Ignace City Council meeting is scheduled for 8 p.m. Monday, September 21. The meetings are open to the public and are usually held on the first and third Mondays of every month. The September meeting was held Tuesday owing to the Labor Day holiday.