VBT Environmental Commission to discuss lake drawdown

In January, the Van Buren Township Environmental Commission will begin discussions on the proposed drawdown of Belleville Lake in 2019.
At its regular meeting Dec. 20, Commission Chairman Dave Brownlee said they will talk about the project from an environmental standpoint and will send a recommendation to the township board.
He said the drawdown is planned probably for 2019, probably in the fall, and for three to five weeks.
Brownlee asked board members to talk to local residents about their thoughts on the matter and to look into the microscopic issues in the water associated with drawdowns.
And, he asked commission members to seek out information on the internet on drawdowns.
“The township is looking to us for advice on this,” Brownlee said.
Matthew Best, deputy director of planning and economic development, said the township has six months to come up with something. He said the supervisor is putting together a group of volunteers.
“It’s kind of time-sensitive,” Best said. “We’ll plow through it in January. It will be one of the biggest things we do in 2018.”
Brownlee said he understands it will be a five-foot drop.
“We don’t want to go any farther than necessary,” he said, noting docks could be exposed for maintenance at that depth.
In other business at the one-and-a-half-hour meeting on Dec. 20, the commission:
• Heard Brownlee report he attended the deep injection well hearing in Romulus recently. He said he didn’t make a comment, but he did send them a letter and made a Freedom of Information Act request for the toxic plume information because the EPA representative didn’t know about it. “I’d like to know if it’s coming our way,” Brownlee said, adding no decision has been made, but he doubts if the EPA will deny the increased viscosity and pressure being sought for the well, which is in use;
• Heard Brownlee report that in the last year the commission did not go where it wanted to go with educating township residents about coal tar. He said ordinance enforcement is not the commission’s goal, but education. The pamphlet that was supposed to be coming from the Huron River Watershed Council didn’t come and so Brownlee called Rebecca at the council and she said they haven’t had any discussions with VBT about it since last spring. “That’s not true,” Best said. “We have 9,300 water bills [where the pamphlets could be inserted]. She’s working on it. I’m working on it.” Best said the township would get a better price from the HRWC. Brownlee asked if the coal tar presentation could be put on cable again to inform the public;
• Heard Best give a report on the fifth amendment to the host agreement with Waste Management for Woodland Meadows landfill, which was passed by the township board the night before this meeting. He said there are questions for the Environmental Commission to deal with, including odor, end use, and landscaping. Best said the process for the expansion is starting, but the wetland mitigation process will take two to three years. Best said in his former job he helped regulate landfills and “Woodland Meadows is relatively well run.” He said end uses might include solar farms, passive or active recreation, softball fields, walking paths, or a nature preserve with wildflowers. “This group will be asked to participate in that decision,” Best said, adding that before the new site is engineered the committee could ask for the end use so the proper base could be put into the plans. Early plans for a ski hill as the end use for the present landfill was not possible because the proper base was not put in place; and
• Heard Brownlee say the supervisor’s promotion piece shown at the recent joint meeting of all commissions. committees, and the board, had a slide that showed a significant amount of green space ready for development. He said that shocked Environmental Commission members present because the psychological interpretation of that slide was negative in painting a picture that VBT wants to develop its green space. “If we’re not careful, Belleville Lake will look like a retention pond in the middle of a parking lot,” Brownlee said. Best said the master plan meetings are coming up in 2018 and this commission can contribute to the decision on what the township should look like in the future. “I’d be happy to have VBT with 40,000 people instead of twice that like Canton,” said Trustee Paul White, who is the board liaison to the Environmental Commission.
The commission held its annual Christmas potluck meal before the meeting.