What's New
The City of Traverse City and the Grand Traverse County Board
of Public Works have embarked upon an evaluation and planning effort for the
region's drinking water supply systems. The City of Traverse City
withdraws water from Grand Traverse Bay and treats it in a surface water
treatment plant before distributing to City residents, businesses, and
industries, as well as to several townships for similar use.
Independently, several other townships provide drinking water through their
own groundwater supply and/or treatment systems. There also exist many
other smaller public water supply systems serving individual subdivisions or
developments. Growth and development patterns have greatly influenced
the expansion of each of these water systems over the years, and will
continue to do so in the future.
A collaborative evaluation effort of the various systems in the area can
benefit the region as a whole by ensuring cooperative planning of water
supply and distribution, avoiding duplicative efforts by neighboring
systems, and improving the overall efficiency of water supply. Such
collaborative planning can lead to:
- Effectively meeting short-term peak water demands without need for expansion of supply and/or treatment facilities.
- Management of water supply costs, and therefore, customer rates, via the efficiency of operations and capital improvements.
- Emergency preparedness.
- Long-term sustainability for all parties.
The consultant team of Wilcox Professional Services and
Black & Veatch has been retained to lead this project. The consultant
team will work closely with City, County, Township, and Tribal
representatives in these efforts, and will build on existing planning
efforts already completed by each water system. In addition, the team
will seek community participation to gain insight to the opinions and ideas
of the residents, business owners, and other stakeholders in the region
(click on the link to the right to provide comments and/or volunteer).
The project will include:
- Technical planning and evaluation of water supply systems to meet forecasted future demands.
- Regional resource management planning for conservation initiatives, collaboratively meeting future challenges, intergovernmental cooperation, and future collaborative processes.
The project began in early 2007, and is expected to be complete in approximately one year.
Project Purpose
"This projects seeks to improve efficiency and cooperation among the water supply systems of the Grand Traverse Area, with an eye toward reliability, sustainability, and enhancement of the quality of life in the region."
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