Traverse City commissioners will vote tonight (Monday) to pursue creating the city’s first drainage district, a major step toward addressing stormwater runoff in the city. While several locations were considered, staff are recommending establishing the first drain in the Eighth Street area, which has experienced high flows during rain events and quality issues where polluted water runs off into East Grand Traverse Bay – the source of the city’s drinking water.

An ad hoc committee of city commissioners was previously tasked with exploring ways to address city stormwater. At a June 3 meeting, City Attorney Lauren Trible-Laucht explained that stormwater is an “orphan utility,” or one without a dedicated revenue stream to pay for maintenance and improvements. “There’s no funding source for it like there is for normal water and sewer and electric,” she told commissioners. “We know we need stormwater, because it's the thing that keeps our bay clean – and our drinking water – but how do we fund it?”

The committee initially looked at setting up a stormwater utility. However, such utilities have faced extensive legal challenges in Michigan, Trible-Laucht said. “That’s probably not the most utilitarian, most practical way to do this,” she said. The committee next turned to Grand Traverse County Drain Commissioner Andy Smits to explore the drain code rules for creating a drainage district, Trible-Laucht said, calling it a “very old, very established process” in the state.

A drain can be an open channel, ditch, pipe, stream, retention pond, or other similar feature that conveys stormwater. A drainage district is a legally established area of land in which stormwater drains to a common outlet (there are roughly a dozen such districts in various townships across Grand Traverse County). One of the advantages of a drainage district is it follows the watershed – not just jurisdictional boundaries – so it can account for where the stormwater is coming from, not just where it ends up, Trible-Laucht said.

It also captures assessments from all the properties in the district that benefit from having a drain, not just those being taxed. For example, churches with large parking lots – which can produce significant stormwater runoff – aren’t normally taxed but would still be assessed in a drainage district, since they’re benefiting from stormwater improvements. “All the properties that add into the system pay for the system,” Trible-Laucht said. Governmental units, like townships and the county (or the city, if a drainage district was established there) also contribute through at-large assessments.

Commissioners agreed at the June 3 meeting to have staff work with Smits on next steps in pursuing a drainage district. According to a memo from City Engineer Anne Pagano, staff and Smits identified four top potential project areas in the city. They included the Eighth Street outlet in East Bay, the north outlet of East Bay Park, the Bryant Park storm sewer, and the Ramsdell Pond outlet. Though all four projects are “considered high priority,” Pagano wrote, staff are recommending Eighth Street as the “highest priority project (that) would have the most benefit.”

Smits tells The Ticker that Eighth Street – which has an outlet into East Bay at the road end near the intersection with East Bay Boulevard (pictured) – is “problematic for several reasons.” The manhole cover at Eighth and Munson has blown off in high flows during storms, which is a “health and safety hazard,” Smits says. Extreme flows in the piping tend to overwhelm the treatment system at the end of Eighth Street, which is intended to filter out things like cigarettes and large debris. When the system is overwhelmed, pollutants can discharge directly into the bay – the source of the city’s drinking water.

“The fresh water we drink and supply to other townships comes from an intake that is pretty close to where that discharge is occurring,” Smits, noting it’s an “identified risk” in the city’s source water assessment report. A staff analysis of potential drainage district locations states that problems at the Eighth Street outlet “could affect water quality and intake for drinking water,” adding that “higher traffic volume on Eighth Street leads to higher pollutant load.”

If commissioners support establishing an estimated 134-acre drainage district for Eighth Street, a lengthy process will ensue – one Smits will outline to commissioners tonight and previously estimated could take two years to complete. It includes several steps including submitting a city application for a drainage district, determining the district boundaries, identifying the drain improvements that will be made and their costs, evaluating properties in the district (including to make sure that the majority aren’t tax delinquent), and having a “board of determination” review the project to determine it’s necessary. That board would consist of three county residents who aren’t financially affected by the project (are “disinterested”) and aren’t city residents or county commissioners.

If the project is supported by the board, next steps would include determining the proportionate share each property owner – and municipalities at large – are responsible for in the district and the amount they’ll be assessed based on estimated costs. In the Eighth Street drainage district, potential improvements could include things like capacity upgrades, rain gardens along roads such as Eighth and Woodmere to capture and treat initial runoff upstream, and an upgraded treatment system at Eighth Street’s outlet into East Bay.

City resident Sue Chang told commissioners in June she was glad to see the city explore stormwater improvements, calling them “critical infrastructure.” She added: “It’s been kicked down the road for decades. My family has been complaining about that Eighth Street pipe for generations.” Smits says the city could explore establishing more drainage districts in the future to address other high-priority areas mentioned in the staff report. Eighth Street could “probably be considered somewhat of a pilot,” he says.