ALBA -- Bob Marsh wants state and federal officials to consider risks to the environment and human health before making a decision that could affect a northern Michigan watershed and those who live nearby.
The Alba resident opposes a deep-injection disposal well proposed in Antrim County's Star Township that would pump wastewater from a contamination cleanup project in a wealthy Emmet County neighborhood into underground rock formations.
There's been no public action on the well site since a hearing in June, but Marsh said folks in Alba remain on alert.
"It's still a topic. It hasn't gone away. We're just in a wait-and-see mode," he said.
Marsh wants government regulators to consider the overwhelming local opposition to the well proposal and its proximity to the Jordan River watershed, but he doesn't expect them to do so. Neither does Jim Avery, who lives less than a mile from the proposed well site.
"There are a lot of things you don't want. There's not a lot you can do about it. The law is the law," Avery said.
State and federal environmental officials in January will issue decisions on permits for the disposal well. It was proposed by a subsidiary of CMS Energy, an investor in the Bay Harbor development near Petoskey.
Lavish lakeshore homes were built above abandoned cement factory kiln dust, which now seeps pollutants into Lake Michigan. The company has a $93 million cleanup effort under way there and collected water currently is taken to Grand Traverse County's septage treatment plant and a commercial disposal well in Montmorency County.
The company wants to use a closer well in Alba and also is building an on-site wastewater treatment facility.
"The long-term plan is to secure permits to treat the water at the site and discharge it back to the lake," said Tim Petrosky, CMS area manager.
A well in Alba would be a back-up. In the meantime, treatment facility construction is nearing completion, he said.
Next month, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will respond to public comments with their permit decisions on the Alba well proposal.
"We review all the facts in the application with the rules. We can't take comments like 'we don't want the well' into consideration," said Tom Godbold, DEQ geological services supervisor.
Officials received more than 300 comments about the proposed well, said William Bates, EPA permit writer.
If state and federal officials approve the well, appeals will be filed and a lawsuit will be considered, said John Richter, president of Friends of the Jordan River Watershed. That group organized a petition drive this year against the Alba well.
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