Briggs: Saline's Wells Should be Inspected Each Year. They Hadn't Been Inspected in 5-6 Years.

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Cooler temperatures and rain Tuesday should help the City of Saline meet its water conservation goals as the city's biggest drinking water well is down for repair.

The city expects to pump about 1 million gallons of water per day as Well 5 is down. Typically, the city uses 1.3 to 1.4 million gallons a day. At capacity, the city's two water towers can hold 850,000 gallons, 250,000 at the tower downtown and 600,000 gallons at the tower on the east side.

At Monday's meeting, Water and Wastewater Superintendent Bill Briggs provided a brief update on the situation, prompting the city to ask residents to conserve water until Well 5 is repaired. After Acting City Manager Elle Cole suggested workers might discover what is wrong with the well on Tuesday, Briggs said it might take a little longer.

"We won't know anything tomorrow. They're going to pull it and hopefully by the end of the week we'll have an idea of what's going on," Briggs said. "This particular well has been deteriorating over the last six months to a year."

Briggs said the remaining wells can "basically" produce enough water for the city, but that it's going to be harder.

"We usually shoot between 120-140 for hardness. We're going to do about 160," he said.

If the city runs low on water, it may be harder.

That was all that was said about the situation at Monday's meeting.

In the previous meeting, however, there were more facts about Well 5. Briggs was talking about yet another delay in the completion of Well 7.

The most recent delay and $135,000 increase in the cost of the Well 7 production was caused by several things. First, the city tried to drill and complete the well on the "cheap and dirty," Briggs said, adding that's "what started the whole mess."

In addition, Briggs said, the city went ahead with work because the city's project sat on a desk at EGLE for a year.

"It wasn't emergency enough," Briggs said.

When the state took an interest, it demanded more work.

In addition, there were communication issues between Tetra Tech and MidWest.

"I should have stick them in a room and said 'figure it out,'" Briggs said.

Had Well 7 been done on time, the city could have absorbed the Well 5 issue without a call for conservation.

Two weeks ago, Briggs told council that as soon as Well 7 was fixed, he'd send parts of Wells 5 and 6 off for inspection. Briggs both wells had deteriorated. Well 5, in particular, was supposed to pump 1,000 gallons a minute. It had been down to less than half of that. Briggs estimated it might cost $50,000 to service each well.

Meanwhile, the city is expected a master plan on the city's water system by the end of the year. It could recommend more wells, a bigger water plant, or even a connection to the Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority. Currently, the YCUA water stops at Saline High School.

During a portion of the meeting, Councillor Nicole Rice asked if there was imminent work to be done in the water system between now and the time the report was presented. Briggs said as soon as Well 7 was corrected, he would have Well 5 pulled since it was producing well below capacity. Rice suggested Briggs not go too far down the line of repairing Well 5 until the report was issued.

But Briggs said wells 5 and 6 needed to be inspected.

"You should have your wells looked at and tested at least once a year," Briggs said. "These wells haven't been looked at in 5 or 6 years."

Nobody on council questioned Briggs about the lack of inspections in public. Not on Aug. 3. Not on Aug. 17.

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Not to worry. I’m sure Ali will share her extensive knowledge of this subject (or any other subject for that matter) and will remind us that the city can do no wrong and that this situation is not due to negligence of any kind by the city!  

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Sorry you feel only those looking to condemn others and view situations in the most negative light possible even absent facts should be heard from. 

On the topic of this article, seems Briggs was aware of the appropriate inspection schedule. Would like to better understand why that didn't happen. As he has been in place since late 2021, certainly COVID led to some but certainly not all delays. From the facts known at this point, it seems even absent those inspections, there was awareness that there was an issue with 5, a plan in place for some time to first introduce the new well 7 then address the issue with 5 thereby not leading to a shortfall when servicing 5 and 6. Seems reasonable. Had they shutdown 5 (or 6) voluntarily to work on them before 7 was operational, it sounds like Saline would have been in the potential "water shortfall" space voluntarily by doing that. The state contributed to the problem with their delays in reviewing the plan and communicating additional requirements.  Adding to all of this, it seems decisions were made, perhaps even the decision to forego inspections since they knew where issues existed and had a plan to address, in the interest of saving the City some money.  Even with all of this, the potential shortfall is minimal and things like not watering lawns for a short period certainly are not hardships.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Could some things have been done differently? Maybe. Does the issue fall solely with folks in Saline administration? No. Did they find the issues and have a plan in place to address? Yes. As conveyed here, their plan seemed reasonable and fiscally responsible. This is in the sometimes stuff happens category for us.  

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Is anyone ever held accountable in this city?  The biggest issue we've had recently is just capable employees to do things like get the wells inspected when they should be, hydrant flushing of the pipes so we don't have brown water, etc.  We must insist on doing better. Council needs to insist we do better

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The city’s recurring infrastructure problems stem from addressing issues only after they arise instead of proactively preventing them. Emergency work will always be more costly than investing in studies, inspections, and ongoing maintenance upfront. While unforeseen problems are inevitable, our responsibility should be to minimize them. A city master plan is valuable, but it should be supported by focused studies—such as on the water system, storm and sanitary sewers, and dams. Blaming consultants for poor communication misses the point; more often than not, consultants provide information, but the city fails to convey or act on

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Agree this can be an issue and perhaps played into this in some part. Nonetheless, a plan was in fact developed some time ago to address water needs and service needs of existing equipment. Unfortunately, bumps were hit in the road along the way of implementation and here we are. Still not terribly interested in throwing stones.

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Unbelievable!  Now who’s pointing fingers?  You sure didn’t hesitate to throw Superintendent Briggs under the bus. 
At the very least he’s being straightforward and specifically addressing what went wrong and why.  This is not the fault of one person but rather yet another example of how our city government continues to cast shade on our ongoing water issues due to long term neglect and desperate duct tape solutions.  And you continue to absolve the city of any wrongdoing?  Ridiculous 

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My comments do not "throw Briggs under the bus". In fact, they do quite the opposite acknowledging that he has shared information and that he had identified concerns and had a plan to address them which simply had some "stuff happens" along the way. Hardly blaming anyone or throwing them under the bus and in fact expressing support for him and what he has done.

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