VBT Lake Workshop set Feb. 28 to educate public on the lake

Although permits for a proposed September or October drawdown of Belleville Lake this fall are yet to be approved, Van Buren Township is setting up a Lake Workshop on Feb. 28, to educate the public on what they can do with the lake.
VBT Public Services Director Matthew Best explained the meeting to the township Environmental Commission at its regular meeting on Jan. 16.
Best said the township is still waiting for information from Eagle Creek, which operates French Landing Dam, owned by the township. Eagle Creek is seeking the permits for the draw down.
The township wants to hold the Lake Workshop to explain the permits needed from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality on docks and to answer building department questions on structures and the shoreline ordinance.
Best said they will show, “Here’s what you can do without a permit and when you need permits and where to get them.”
He said people should set up one-on-one appointments with him or Director of Planning and Economic Development Ron Akers to ask about projects on particular properties.
“This is not a complaint session,” he said of the workshop.
He said they plan to invite lake shoreline and dock companies that do work to set up information tables in the hallway outside the meeting room to talk with lakeside residents.
Best also said they plan to set up a volunteer signup table for people interested in working on the drawdown. They also will try to do signups on line, he said.
Best said the township will not sponsor any part of the drawdown, but will coordinate removal of trash by volunteers, who will be needed to pick up tires and take them to the landfill.
Best said they want to give residents the basics on what they can and cannot do on the lake and township property. It will not be talking about something they did that wasn’t proper.
“We want to help the lake and the community around the lake to be better,” Best said. “This is the first step.”
Environmental Commission chairman David Brownlee noted the workshop is not specific to the drawdown.
In answer to another question, Best emphasized the township will not be undertaking any dredging projects now.
When Brownlee asked when the drawdown would be done, if they get permission, Best said the earliest it could happen would be the last week in September, noting this was a wild guess.
“We could do it all the way through November,” he said. “Eagle Creek will be telling us and it will be in their permit.”
He said Sandy’s Marina would say to schedule it for end of October, to maximize the boating season.
“This is as long as FERC lets us,” Best said, referring to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that oversees the dam operation and would have to give permission for the drawdown.
Brownlee said the drawdown of the water in the lake will expose a lot of things, such as cars and other big things that have become embedded in the lake bottom. Since people need a permit to take out things that are embedded, how will people be able to get a permit from MDEQ in the short time the water is down?
Best said the people from the state will be here every day of the drawdown and will be able to make quick decisions.
Best joked that the old sheriff of Rawsonville is supposedly down there handcuffed to a saloon post. He referred to a story of when the dam turned the Huron River into Belleville Lake in 1925.
Brownlee asked about dilapidated docks and Best said they would be handled on a case-by-case basis, but it’s hard to do enforcement without water in the lake so the places can be approached. He said a handful of docks have been given citations for being unsafe.
“Eventually, we’ll have to pull Belleville in officially,” Brownlee said, referring to the Belleville city residences along the lake.
“I talked with the city manager yesterday and for them this is a really small thing in 2019,” Best said, noting the city seawall repair is slated for this spring.
“Throw a party for volunteers?” Best suggested. “I don’t know what else they could do that we aren’t already doing.”
Brownlee asked about having someone to answer a phone for people who had questions before, during, and after the drawdown, and Best said the building and planning department number will be answered by staff.
“There will be a process in place,” Best said.
Commissioner Benjamin Ross asked about boaters on the lake during the drawdown. He said the lake is 15 feet deep at Mission Pointe.
“The DNR could say no boat wake in the drawdown,” Best said. “It happens slowly,” he said of the receding water. “Fish know it’s coming and get the hell out of the way.”
The township will be working with the volunteer group that gets formed and zones will be assigned to pick up and transport items, Best said.
“At the end, people can clean up and have a party to celebrate,” Best said, noting the township can gather donations for t-shirts for volunteers.
Private properties will do their own cleanups, he said.
Brownlee said people have asked him, “What is the drawdown going to do to my existing seawall?” Brownlee said he tells them nothing will happen because of the shortness of the drawdown and the time of year.
Brownlee asked if someone will be at the workshop to address these concerns.
“If they want to ask that question, I’ll direct them to the seawall companies or they could come in to the building department and discuss individual situations.
“It’s between the person and shoreline provider,” Best said. “Not me.”
Township Trustee Paul White asked how much were they going to lower the lake. He said he believed that had said three to five feet.
“That’s a good question,” Best said. He said the people at the dam said for the Part 12 Inspection of the dam they want to do, they might have to lower it from three to seven feet, “whatever they need for inspection.”
Best said if it goes down seven feet people will be able to see the river channel in the lake.
“That’d be pretty cool,” he said.
In other business at the Jan. 16 meeting, the commission got a report on what was at first thought to be a new drainage pipe near the North I-94 Service Drive that was draining into the roadside ditch after rainstorms.
Best said he went walking around the site and found that the pipe is not new, but goes underneath a large, established pine tree. He showed a picture of a manhole drain where rainwater drains from around the piles of stone, sand, and rocks into the pipe and into the roadside drain.
The water drains south from this area. The millings are piled elsewhere and rainwater from them drains another direction.
Commissioner Tony Gibson, who had been concerned about the possibility of contaminated water coming from the site, thanked Best for the follow up to his question about the pipe.
In another follow-up report, Brownlee said he talked to Andrew Brown at the Huron River Watershed Council and Brown told him it is safest not to use untreated water from the lake to water crops. There is no proof yet that the PFAS in the water could be harmful to crops, but it’s just good common sense. There is no concern with watering a lawn with lake water, Brownlee said.
Commissioner Ross said he saw a lot of trash on the Rawsonville Road overpass the week of Christmas, but it is cleaned up now. Gibson said he read the concerns of a resident about that trash in the Independent. Best said it could have been a trash truck without a tarp that lost some of its load.
Also, House Bill 6533, to do away with bottle recycling, never made it out of committee in the state legislature, Brownlee said.