City Council - Regular Meeting

existed uh and one of the mills is still uh still shown on some of those early maps from the early 1900s. So then the face change occurred in the 1930s. Henry Ford, if you're familiar with him, uh went around southeast Michigan uh and started a lot of what they call cottage industries. So several different areas uh he created and particularly was very interested in uh energy production for self-sustaining industries. It created a a number of small industries powered by hydroelect electric power. And so in the 1930s and specifically more about 1935, we know that a new dam was constructed in its current location. Uh so we have basically earn dam and as well as the the concrete spillway was installed at that point in time as well. And there was also basically a channel created uh to service the then uh mill at the time uh to provide electric power for small cottage industries. So we see the the raceway or the race the way that uh that the mill race that occurred at that point in time that was constructed in the 1930s. Then you see a series of photos here again kind of that original 1930s configuration 1968. I don't know if people know that they actually failed um and washed out. Um most of the earth engagement uh had to be completely rebuilt at that point in time. They also reconstructed the concrete spillway as well as adding two radio gates. Uh and and that was took several years. Uh finally the power was reestablished about 1972. Uh so it took several years to rebuild the dam adding the radial gates and changing uh that concrete structure to again provide more flow and hope would prevent uh a future failure. And that's basically how this is from 1972 to present day uh configuration uh is uh how the dam exists today with very

little modification after that point. This was uh obviously then into the 1990s and this is where basically the city took over management of the uh of the dam and previously was managed by the county drain commission or water resources commission and then the city took that over in the 1990s at that point in time. Maybe the next slide. We'll play the video and talk a little bit more about the history of that. Also some of the elements that were added to historical register at that time in the 1990s.

I don't want to hold the mic out of my computer. What I'm saying? Imagine the excitement when Henry Ford himself arrived in the small rural village of Saline to restore the long I was going to make it full screen but we're just going to watch you here. Apologies. Imagine the excitement when Henry Ford himself arrived at the small rural village of Saline to restore the long dilapitated Schuler Gristel. Locals could hardly believe he was interested in this quiet corner of Michigan. But like all great visionaries, Ford saw what others did not. A chance to merge urban industry with rural agriculture using a little known and underutilized crop to soybean. Ford hired over 700 area farmers to grow soybeans, trucking their harvests to saline where they are processed into soybean oil for use in automotive paints. To power the soybean processing facility, Ford constructed the dam that created the saline mill pond in 1935. The mill pond channeled water into the head race which turned a turbine inside wellers generating electricity for the refiner. The water then flowed through a stone tail race beneath the building before rejoining the saline river. these structures.

I think you have to open up YouTube directly to make it because it it's trying to play in the PowerPoint and it's free. Imagine the excitement when Henry Ford arrived in the small rural village of whatever reason probably a to restore the longitative Grisville. Locals could hardly believe he was interested in this quiet corner of Michigan. But like all great visionaries, Ford saw what others did not. A chance to merge urban industry with rural agriculture using a little known and underutilized crop, the soybean. Ford hired over 700 area farmers to grow soybeans, trucking their harvests to saline, where they are processed into soybean oil for use in automotive paints. To power the soybean processing facility, Ford constructed the dam and created the saline mill pond. 1935

channel water into the race. It's it's I think the issue is try to run the video through good news is now I haven't stopped it video. This is kind of like [ __ ] welcome channel. I think it's the transmission.

It's a transmission to what you guys are watching. It's playing fine on here. It's not a turbine inside Wellers generating electricity for the refinery. The water then flowed through a stone tail race beneath the building before rejoining the sacred river. See, it's not keeping up. You want to just I think we go back to the PowerPoint and play this when Sarah gets here. Okay, that's that's Yeah, that's

Dan, make sure you hold that mic real close because I heard from somebody who's on YouTube that's it's a little bit difficult to hear you. That goes for everybody else when we get to comments or questions. Just make sure you hold that microphone very close to your mouth. Thank you. Um, so obviously we're going to play the video again at the end. Uh, hopefully we can stream it directly through hardware connection uh in the video room. So with that, we're going to continue with the PowerPoint presentation and then we'll finish that up at the end of the at the end of the presentation. Back to the other one. So next I want to talk a little about the elements of the dam that were registered as historical elements as part of the 1990s take over by the city. Uh so there are several components including the building which was the original uh portions of the original mill. There was actually the concrete stway that was constructed in the 1930s and there uh there was what we call a swimming pool. So in the 30s and 40s I stand people actually swim. So there's a lowhead and down the river that actually formed a swimming pool area along the river and with that then we also had the the race that fed the mill as part of the concrete structure on the upper end as well as the uh as was mentioned in the beginning the the stone tail race behind the mill. So those are the historical elements of that. Uh one thing we're going to take a look at also is uh if uh we do use federal funds in either the rehab or the uh removal of the dam require a historical use. So we'll take a closer look at that based on the decision that's made whether to rehabilitate or remove the dam. Also uh just looking at that we do also report to EO which is the Michigan Department

of Environment Great Lakes and Energy. Uh this is the regulatory agency uh that regulates dam. So any change to the dam whether or not that you have in it and or it will also require permit from Eagle. So we'll go through that process process once decision which direction is debate which direction uh city council chooses to proceed. So those are some of the next steps regardless of whether it be rehab or removal some of the next steps that we need to step through. With that I want to turn this over to engineer Humber to talk a little bit about the different parts of the AM that's going to be important to understand as we look at what what would be involved in the AM and removal of the

I'm going to talk here. Can everybody hear me out of this just fine? So I'm pull a little bit closer closer. I can do that. Okay. Okay. Is that better? Better.

So, I guess I'm going to start out by saying that um this is not my comfortable forte talking to a room full of people. I'm much happier to talk to all of you after the meeting and to answer questions. Um also, obviously, it is not my forte. I'm not doing that today. Um but I I have learned a lot about our dam in the last um couple years since I've been working on this. Um and so I I guess I want to share as much I'm trying to share as much as I can here in this short short slide. It's a short slide so for all the things I've learned about the dance. So this first thank you Aaron good point. I I tend to talk with my hands in my um so I will try to stay still so you can clearly understand me and so it gets picked up on the virtual. Um so this first sign here we're looking at the components of the dam. Um I think I'm going to start here on the bottom right where the aerial view. Um we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about the main spillway and such, but as um um city manager Swallow just talked about in the 1935 when the dam was constructed, this is where the mill race that fed um the old mill here that is now the weather site. Um so this is the mil race is located. So if you're coming in from the west, it's the first gated structure you see as you come into town. And then of course the large spillway dam is here. Um looking from here up to here, this is just a better picture looking straight on from the dam with everything labeled. This over here on the left is a picture of what's on the right just color coded by what years things were built. So the things in the middle are primary spillway. Over here built in pink were built in 1935. Um as um city managers follow talked about in 1968. These side walls were not here. These gates were not here. The the it rained. It overflowed the dam and it took out all the earth next to it and it and it failed. Um it remained that way for quite a few years. I understand from people who are around here. We rebuilt it with these these radial gates in 1973. I want to talk a little bit about this is a very important point. This dam does not provide any flood control. We DPW have to go out and open up these gates every time it rains. Um these gates are

what now being able to open up the gates will prevent the other earth in abatement failure because we can allow the water the gates open up and water comes underneath them. So um it rained this weekend. We opened the gates three inches for instance. Um, another component of the dam is the empoundment. Um, this is everything that is behind the free. So, the river obviously is free flowing. At one point, a dams put in. It stops up all the flow upstream of the dam. This is the current empoundment area here. Mil Park. This is from 2024 aerial. This aerial on the right is just Oops. Oh, I did not mean to do that. Um area on the right is a just a cool picture of what it looked like in 1975 when the city was bypassing the dam um to grade and add um what we now consider to be the dog park in the rock area of Miltown Park. So all of this area here was added in the 70s and this is just happened to be an aerial that um was taken at the same time we found in his historic archives. Um, as we'll talk about a little bit later in the presentation, dams do drop sediment on the upstream side of them. And so, as part of this dam removal feasibility study, we did a a survey of the sediment that's built up in this empoundment. And this is just a color-coded estimate of how deep we think the sediment is throughout the impounded area. And we think we have about 7,400 cubic yards of sediment currently built up behind the dam. Um, reasons for dam removal. I'm going to take these in in pieces. Um I think everyone's aware we did a dam removal feasibility study. Why did we do that? Um a big one is safety and liability. Um dam owners are responsible for all the liability associated with the dam. Um the next three go together. Um it's not uncommon as asset gets longer that you have more occurring costs with asset. Um that's happening. This dam is is getting older now. Um it didn't it wasn't screaming for help. It's not uncommon for deferred maintenance of other things that are screaming for attention to get

get put to the top of the burner. And we are in facing increasing regulations as we get more increasing storm events as we um modify how much um we design the spillway capacity for we about the dam owner are getting increasing regulations to um in regards to dam. Um the next two bullets here effective asset management. Um this is this is something that I feel um I guess very um strongly about as far as the engineer for a city that owns a lot of old stuff. Um effective asset management. First thing you want to understand is what you own. The second thing is what condition is it in? And the third thing is how much investment do you need? How much useful life do you have left in it before you do capital reinvestment. So when you're looking at all the stuff the city owns um what do we own? How much does it cost to maintain it? and h um what before we reinvest money into an asset understanding what that useful life of that asset is. Um and and unfortunately this asset has outlive is no longer serving its original purpose. Um and we have lots of other old assets um that that need the time and attention and resources of city staff. So that's a large portion of the um of one of the reasons for exam removal. And then lastly, I guess we're talking about just the environmental portion. I'm going to I'm going to totally summarize here. In general, um dam removals or dams are bad for the environment. In general, removing them is good. And I'll let I guess Aaron get a little more into that. And I talk this way.

Okay. All right. Can you hear me? Okay.

All right. Good. Um I'm Eron. I'm coowner of eco. I have been working on studying rivers for uh some grad school. So about 2000 rivers, dams, how fish move around barriers and that sort of thing. So I got started here with the city of St. Le two years ago maybe and I did some data collection. And I'm going to talk a little bit about that today, but more so I'm going to talk about some of the pros and cons of having a dam and maybe not an environmental assessment as you see on the screen. That's a pretty broad term in my mind. So, um, what I'm focusing on is more of an ecological aspect, ecological assessment. So the fish, um the other aquatic uh animals, uh birds, um anything that might live around the dam, live in the river, live in the empowerment. How does the dam affect them and their habitat? So this um this is a lot to look at and I don't expect you to read all the fine print on here. All right. So, this just is a is a pretty basic um diagram of on top a free flowing river with no dam or on the bottom that would be the river with the dam. So, in this case, sailing dam. All right. So, the impacts that dams have on rivers are really well documented in the literature. Um, this is a real hot hot button topic lately. Uh, every everywhere I go on the street, people are talking about their dams, what to do with the dams. And I worked on maybe

30ish dam projects. All right. Ranging from dam removals to uh damicensing where you have a a creating hydropower and they have to rever. I've worked on everything in between modifications, fish acid projects. I've studied the impact dams on aquatic organisms. So that free flowing river that you see on top, rivers have rivers have several jobs. One of their primary jobs is to transport the water and the sediment from the watered rivers depend on sediment. They need sediment in them. There is such thing as excessive sediment. Um, but there's also such thing as not enough sediment. So there's equilibrium in the river. The seven goes bouncing down the stream. U leaves go bouncing down the stream. Six woody debris, algae, soil, plankton, all those mountains down the stream. in that continuum from the headwater down to the mouth, the stream, all of these individual components are important for not only river function but for biological function. Um you know obviously they have to be independent for fish migrating upstream. Um either sturgeon sturgeon populations are decimated because of dams that were built. salmon are the poster child salmon run up stream west for thousands of miles and they had a dam and they can't go any further to get to the spawning grounds. So in that bottom picture you see some of the impacts that dam can have on a river. Not only the fish migration

upstream but fish can have a problem moving downstream to the dam. um the impoundment collects everything that that headwater would be transporting down through the system. So in the case of your milk pod, it's filling in over time. It's getting shallower. Uh with that high sediment, you have nutrients and who knows what else attached. You know, the contaminants we call they attach the sediment particles that settle out in the environment. So when the river just downstream of the dam doesn't have that sediment, it falls out of equilibrium and it will actually start to erode the banks so that it has sediment in it. It needs to settlement complicated concept. I think that's kind of you know the elementary version of how these rivers are are functioning with and without. So specific specific specific um there's not a lot of data that exists um to do a full-blown ecological assessment. Uh there's not a lot of data for the pros and cons of having that but I think the next few slides will be um interesting u and hopefully informational. I sat down and I worked with Tesa and others to come up with some of the pros of this camp specifically and it does appear to be a pretty nice habitat for waterfall waiting birds that sort of thing. Um, another potential pro here is that it does serve as sediment. So in the case where you farmland and a

heavy sediment load, maybe it's a good thing to have some of the fall. Um but even with that pro is a potential con. The sediment is filling the impoundment in right. So 50 years from now, 100 years from now, 300 years from now, we don't know. But that is going to be full and it's going to it's basically convert back to a free flowing river system through probably you know river here. That's just the process process that these rivers go through. Um the cost fish populations are pregnant and I have some data on on the next couple slides to show that that actually is happening. Um water quality in the appears to be poor. Um water can heat up um in the uh you often have algae blooms in an apartment. In fact, I saw some I've been out twice and u we don't have any data. We don't have any quality data. I tried to find some if you know any please let me know. Based on my observations of the found when I was there the water was hard to see through there were algae blooms. Um some algae is toxic. I don't know algae well enough to tell you what these were, but generally speaking, algae blooms happen when you have really warm water and a buildup of nutrients. Um, both of which you have in this compound. Uh, it's full of water fowl, which is nice to look at, you know, it's nice to have the habitat. It's nice to have the aesthetics and but water waterfall can also

detrimental. I've studied the E.coli contamination in streams throughout Michigan. In a situation like this, um there's going to be E.coli contamination and this water is not going to meet water quality standards. I can guarantee it. You've got non-native carp often times are invasive. You see those in the empowerment. And the problem with car is as they swim around and feed on the bottom, they constantly resuspend that fine sediment and the nutrients in the water column. So that's one of the reasons that there um go on the next slide. I talked too long.

Yes.

All right. So some of the data that does exist, I reached out to DNR fisheries and they sent me some data that they have regarding the fish populations in the scaling river. Um they had a 1985 survey of Newound. So that's pretty dated. That's that's 40y old data. Uh they did a survey of 2010 downstream of the dam and they did another survey in 2011 upstream of dam. They documented 33 different species of fish throughout those surveys. 12 species in the empowerment and the only species that were unique to the empowerment are the black coffee which you see in the middle slide and they found one yellow perch. So those are those are species that are kind of more oriented the standing water in the bowling water. 21 species of fish were found in the river downstream of the dam. one species in the river upstream of the dam. This is the free flowing river portions. Um the really interesting thing here is that out of the 21 species found downstream of the dam, nine of those are only found downstream of the dam. Of the 20 species found upstream of the dam, nine species are only found upstream of the dam. All right. So, there's 18 species total that are being blocked presumably by the D. 18 out of 33 species. Those fish would otherwise move up and down the river system. Um, because the river habitat is quite similar upstream of the dam as it is downream. So I I'm kind of the moderate when it comes to you know I don't I don't get

everything like a lot of people do I've worked on projects can have environmentally maybe not eologically as much but I've woric projects where they make renewable clean energy consensus among experts you know today you don't not any reason to trust me really. Um the consensus among experts is that dams are detrimental to the ecosystem um to the aquatic use ecosystem especially over over my 25 30 years of working I worked with all sorts of conservation groups limited um there's typical mid watershed council there's American rivers I work with all the agencies that are in Michigan and the federal agencies that operate here. So, DNR fisheries, Eagle, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Great Lakes Fisheries Commission, all these folks support Dam Removal to restore the ecosystem. And there's only one exception that I can think of, and that's with the federal agencies, uh, Fish Wildlife Service and Great Lakes Commission. They don't like to remove dams if they're a barrier to sea lamp in the very latest there's a whole history study they've been terrible terrible in the base of species they have here and when you have a lowermost barrier barrier as we call it so it's just the sea lamp will migate out of lake Michigan for example and then they can move upream until they get out protect those dams because they provide a function of keeping the schema health

and still a really important tool in battling. This dam is not a great barrier. I check it in island. Yeah. So the dam is a steam barrier on this system any said that there really isn't a population that so uh just to wrap this up if you don't believe if you don't believe the experts uh there's a tendency toward that lately if you want to do your own research type of and just go out and Google um how did amps benefit fish I tried it um most of the most of the information you're going to find is that maybe they have some short-term benefit if any and most of those benefits are related to when you have a pond that's deep it can support a population of fish and a fishery you know that there's a lot of that have basically a lake then people There's other variety of species. Um but you read the last part of that. It says but the long-term ecological consequ con consequences often outweigh these benefits. Uh while generally considered detrimental to mig migratory fish they provide stable deeper water environments and nonatory species. Um that's all I have. If there's not all

I was afraid for

I mentioned there's not a lot of data available and you might be asking why at this point is there not data available. Um typically this process of a city or municipality or anyone else working through this um decision on whether to remove a dam. A lot of the data collection actually comes later because if it was if it were to be collected now before a decision's even made that be a fairly significant expense um that might warrant nothing. So how these typically work is if the city were to decide that removing the dam sounds good there would be requirements um city manager swallow mentioned um to permitting that's one of the legal permitting but there are also requirements associated with ecological accident so we would have to study the impact of threatening species um wetland in great detail the muscles. I did a bit of a preliminary muscle survey year or two ago and there is a present species that lives in the river upstream of the dam detailed muscle survey would be required and if there's any federal funding uh put towards this project it's very likely that an environmental full-blown environmental assessment would be required anytime the federal government spends money on this type of thing a full report on how it how it impacts the environment and in some cases socioeconomics and a few other things.

Thank you. So, next we just have a few slides. One of the biggest things we heard in the dam removal feasibility study that was um ultimately finalized in March of 25 was what would it look like if the dammer were to be removed? Um these were presented to council back in October, but we just wanted to get them more formally out to the whole public. Everyone doesn't want council meetings. So to get everybody oriented on this first um slide, this is what we modeled. This is a version of what potentially the river um channel would look like if the dam were to be removed. Um this is the park in in yellow.

Okay. And then let me do this one more on one. It like freezes it up, right? I don't know if Sarah can now show the presentation or no too much. Does she have a copy of it?

Yeah, she does. This is me going again. I'm just not going to I'm just not going to go through the actual full. Um, so that's big enough, right, for everyone in the room at least. Okay. So, um I was saying that the yellow is the parkland gained. Um the I guess restart the river channel through here. The yellow I mean the parkland gained in Milan Park on the southern end where the empowerment currently is. What you see in red here um is the the um Selen River Valley Trail that's going in this summer. And then this pink is a potential um expansion of the trail um ultimately going under the existing bridge under US12 to get to Curtis Park. Up here on the top right of this is just a profile view of the propo or the modeled river I should say and the existing empoundment water level. So now I'm going to have to go through like this aren't that works. Okay. So this is if you were standing on Selen River Drive right now. Sling River Drive looking out at US12. Um this is the existing view with the empoundment. This is coming up the ridge um looking down at the potential river. That's what um this side is showing. I'm go to the next slide.

Um this is when you're coming down US12. So this is just looking, you know, this is the existing dam spillway. Um the radio gates we talked about earlier. Um this is the the river um which is 50 feet wide in this um rendering here um showing this is the future potential park um pathway here. Oops. as I'm now moving and adjusting our slide as I'm talking. Um, with the trail that's going in the summer way along the ridge line beyond, you know, where the river would go through underneath the existing bridge structure. Um, I'm just going to go through a couple other slides fairly quickly here. Um, this is just a potential amenity. This is a example from Dundy of the crossing below the um M50 um on the Seline River. We're thinking the same thing could occur here potentially between Mil Pond and Curtis's Park to provide safe crossing between the two parks. Um this white pond brought on is something that um Aaron was actually involved in. This was a a a dam that um my understanding is they were putting some investment in. Um and ultimately Eagle required them to draw it down which means lower the level of it a little bit. Um, so this is showing the um, if you will, mud um, that occurred um, shortly after the draw down. And then this picture was taken six weeks after that in the same area. So I thought that was kind of cool. Um, this is the um, Roundidge dam removal city. Um, just again showing that what it looked like in the um, first season of renewal versus a couple seasons later that everything had greened up and um, grown back. Now, I I do agree with um no matter what we do here, if it's um coffer damning and saving the dam or if it's removing the dam, it's going to come with a disruption to the park in a construction season. Um so, even what we're proposing to do for the mill race coming up is going to um be disturbing, right, to the site. So, the intention of these slides are just to show even if we if we do were to go forward with removal, ultimately um mother nature

would take over and and and it would the intent would not be to leave um mud flat areas. no matter what's in it. We want it to be a Park Lake setting. So now the the real reason why we're here, right? One of the things that was asked of me also in addition to the feasibility study is really what would it cost to save this dam? Um so this is the I think the crux of the meeting here over here some of these um things we printed out that Kevin's going to go over here in a minute. I'm just going to lead in introducing to Kevin give a little bit of background and let Kevin get into the all the boring assumptions and such to come up with those graphs. Um, so I'm not going to go through all of these except that it takes a lot of staff time. Um, every year there's requirements that we have to do as a regulatory agency for the dam um that um just it takes time to maintain and keep the structure. Um we estimate it takes about $68,000 a year on average for just the operation and maintenance of the dam. Um before we get into the capital reinvestment, so we're separating out the cost, you know, just to operate, maintain it versus what we have to repair, fix, capital reinvestment in it. I want to talk um just for a minute about um one of the big assumptions that we have in this. So I'm going to back up. Um this is a recent letter I got from Eagle January 30th of this year. Um we are regulated by Eagle. We are liable for damages. Um we are one of 813 dams in the state of Michigan that are significant risk um that are regulated under either significant or hazard risk that are regulated under Park 315. Um the Michigan Dam Safety Task Force which was organized in 2020 in response to the large failures up in Midland um is recommending changes to how much water our spillway needs to pass. Um that's the main structure of the dam. Um there are new storm water regulations are coming down basically saying that our spillway is going to be will likely be too small. Um so we have gone ahead and

one of the key assumption is that we will lower that spillway by um I guess what are the impacts of this regulation on our dam that's what the next slide is. So, this is the impacts for empowerment from the revised requirements that are coming. Um, we don't know how soon, but we know they're coming someday. Um, that the spillway will need to be lowered by 2 to 3 ft. So, this is the existing empowerment area right here. Um, and this is the existing profile view of the empowerment area. And again, this is just a a tempo a modeled profile view if we were to lower it two to three feet. So basically the entire empowerment area would come down a couple of feet and those are the assumptions because that's the cheapest way or the most cost effective way to maintain compliance. Um once we started once we did those graphs without um chipping away the spillway and we were actually rebuilding the dam repair of the dam you know just went shot up. Um so this was the most cost effective way to maintain the dam and repair and keep it. So I'm going to now turn it over to Kevin to to go through the the life cycle cost analysis. Can you guys hear me? Okay. now.

Yes. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. Um, so thank you, Tasha. Um, my name is Kevin Wilson from Spicer Group. I've been involved and studying STEAM for several years now. Um, I get to talk about the boring assumptions and the dollar amounts. Um,

no, I'm doing this on purpose. I think we're going to be able to get through yours. You're pretty fine. Okay. So, um let's start with capital investment needs. So, obviously talk a lot about the costs of dam removal versus damage. I'm going to talk a little bit in more detail about that in the next few slides. So of course removing the dam is a very significant upfront cost. Uh the the repairs that are necessary for the dam are also significant but they are less in the short term. Uh what's necessary in the short term for dam repairs would include repairing the intermediate pier walls. Um if you remember in one of the earlier slides um I think it was Tasha walked through the components of the dam. They're basically the original retaining walls that are you can see them on either side of the principal way. Um both of those walls are deteriorating. Um and since our Spicer's first dam inspection in 2020, um there's actually noticeable deterioration since that time. So it is actively getting worse. Um it's not I wouldn't say that it's an emergency at this time, but it is concerning enough that we should do something if the damage in place. Um, additionally on the we'll call it the floor of the spillway, there's a joint that is separated and there's actually sediment going up out from the joint leaving a void under the damage which is a structural concern, stability concern. Um mentioned lowering the spillway empowerment. Um and she's right. The we believe the most cost effective way of

improving the capacity of the dam to max flow is to actually lower the spillway which would draw down the amount of um the so currently we're also investigating the miller race. Um there's no good records of physically what the Miller race is. We can't find any records about elevations and currently we can't safely get down in the Miller race to inspect it. Um so we're actively working with the city right now on investigating the Miller race and possibly performing some repairs. Um for example, the the stop logs that are in the Miller race which assist the principles with controlling the level of the lake have failed. So, right now there's temporary measures in place that need to be um upgraded to more permanent solutions. And then the last thing on here for short-term rehabilitation is slope stabilization on the dam embankment. Um you remember uh city manager Swallow earlier mentioned that the dam had failed at some point. I think it was in 1968. Um and that failure was actually the earth bank. So the green lawn that you see as you drive down US12 is actually a structural.

The Star Trek mythos has certainly had its ups and downs, but almost every show and movie has had to be made by terrific actors. Anyway, um so I'm also going to talk a little bit about recurring maintenance that would be necessary if you keep the dam in perpetuity that also comes with the future rehabilitation needs and improvements over time. So,

those could include gate refurb seal replacement, um, gate hoist improvements. And I wanted to point out because in our last town hall, um, we had discussed the the fact that the empoundment is filling with sediment over time. It has been filling with sediment for several decades and it will continue to do so as long as the dam is in place. Um we had talked about or there has been some conversation comments online in media what have you about dredging the environment to remove that segment that has accumulated. We did not include that in any of these costs. It's a very substantial cost to do something like that. It also requires permitting from Eagle. Um, and quite frankly, we're not certain that you would get a permit just to dredge the for the sake of dredging the forgot that I wasn't. Um, so first I'll start with talking about cost over 50 years um effective of damp removal. So, just to help get everyone's bearings on this chart, and I apologize the text might be a little bit hard to see from far away, but across the bottom are years into the future, um, across the left are cumulative investment or expenditures from the city. I want to point out that we are not accounting for inflation in any of these estimates. Um, we just can't estimate that for 50 years. So, to keep it simple, we exclude inflation. And across the bottom, we did not include calendar years just because we don't know specifically when the decision will be made. Um but it it's kind of based on the assumption that a decision would be made this year, but um just because year one there is an investment. Um so in the first two years we're including the $800,000 for Miller's exploration and repairs. It's a

very rough preliminary estimate. It's not something that is necessarily occurring yet, but it is something that will likely be necessary very soon. Um, and then over the next 5 years, mostly in years four and five, is a 3.8 to 5 million investment to actually remove the dam. That would include engineering permitting um studies that Mr. Snell mentioned earlier and the actual physical removal of the dam itself. So from years 6 through 50, the gradual increase in cost overtime or accumulating expenditures over time, um we had worked with city staff to estimate how much um how much it would cost the city basically in staff equipment time to maintain a lawn. Um, if the additional park plan from removing the impoundment were to be remove were to be reverted to just green grass, that's obviously an assumption. Um, you don't have to reverted to green grass. It could be something like a meadow that's not maintained. It would save you costs on that. Or if you were to add park amenities, it could increase costs, but for the sake of keeping things simple, um, we just left it as a green line. So at the end of a 50-year cycle, we're projecting 5.8 to $6.9 million expenditure over the course of that 50.

So how that compares to repairing the dam and adding capacity? Um the x-axis and the y- axis are the same on these two charts. um still 50 years, still 0 to 11 million bottom to top. Um the the the blue shaded space is a range of approximately what we would estimate the expenditures would be. Um obviously there's a larger blue space, meaning there's more variability in our assumptions, but you can see just from the bullet points, there's a lot more things that cost the city money over the course of 50 years. So, and as we still have the $800,000 in the next couple years for Miller race exploration and repairs, but then a 1.1 to 1.4 million project in years four and five for dam repairs. Obviously, that's a much lower cost than removing the dam. Um, we also included a half million to a million for shoreland stabilization. And then all of the rest of those bullets are recurring expenses that the city would have to cover. So that includes about $3,500 for dam inspections that by law are required every 3 years for the Selen River dam. Uh $5,000 every six years for an underwater inspection. Uh $1.5 million for gate refurbishment. And we have that listed at a 25 to 50 year cycle. Um so you can see the the jump at year nine which is the first the second big jump at the top side of the blue shaded area that would be refurbishing the radio gates about 10 years from now. Um and then the jump again farther to the right on the top about year 35 that would be assuming

that you had to refurbish the gates every 25 years. they can probably last longer than that and that's why there's a top and a bottom. So, um the jump in the bottom of the blue at about year 30 is if it only needs to be refurbished every 50 years. Maybe you only have to do it once in this 50 cycle, but we it's a safe assumption that you will have to refurbish the gates at some point in the next 50 years, possibly more than one. The other costs a year, 60,000 for gate seal replacement every 20 to 30 years, 50,000 gate hoist improvements. Um that's actually a short-term one-time thing, but um to improve the hoists, really what we're looking at is motorizing the lift mechanism. Um as home, Chris mentioned earlier that the gates were raised three in I think last weekend due to the storms. Um those gates are not easy or fast to open. It takes several turns and sometimes two people to turn the wheel just to raise the gate one inch. So if a a large fast storm comes through, you're hoping that BPW gets there in time to open the gates early enough. Um, see, so we have motor replacement. I just touched on every 20 to 30 years. So if you install those motorized hoists, the motors only last so long and they'll have to be replaced. every five years you should be exercising the radial gates, just making sure that they actually do function the way that they're meant to. And then the real kicker is the operations and maintenance costs. That's just the everyday things that your DPW has to do um following their emergency action plan. Um so that's things like tabletop exercises, functional exercises, making sure like drills, making sure that everybody at DPW um all the emergency services um a contact tree, notifying the city of Milin when you open the gates, all of

that stuff. Everybody in DPW has to know how to do it. They have to be practiced in it. Um, just everyday maintenance needs, greasing the gears, things like that. Those costs add up pretty significantly. And we worked with DPW to estimate what those costs would be. We came up with $68,000 every year. So, uh, if you flip back one slide, that $68,000 every year compared to the $23,000 for mowing the lawn, it kind of makes mowing the lawn not seem like such a crazy cost. Um, so then just to kind of compare those two, we overlaid the two estimates over a 50-year period. the axes are the same. And it's pretty apparent that in the long term, um it it does save the city substant substantial dollars over 50 years cycle and in perpetuity if the dam is removed just because you're you're removing the liability, you're removing everyday things that you have to spend money on. You're removing future rehabilitation projects, etc. So to summarize that, to really boil it all down, the the high cost of removing the dam is offset by the higher recurring cost of having a dam over the course of approximately 10 to 35 years by our estimation. And that was the last of. So that covers the main issues that we want to talk about uh this evening. Uh and at this point we just want to talk a little bit about uh what what are the next steps and uh how we you know how we proceed from here. Uh so as was mentioned we do have uh regular recurring inspections of the dam every two years. So that actually occurs in 26. So that'll be good update this year

to understand exactly uh the condition of the dam. Uh we are going to request you know from Eagle exactly how we might have to modifi modify the dam in the future to disclose. Uh we talked about the mill race. We do need to investigate uh there uh as was mentioned the stop loss failed this year and so there's uh some additional investigation and we want to understand what the elevation of that is and what the condition of it is because we have not been able to inspect that to date. uh we want to engage with our other committees and commissions of the city here for their comment and then ultimately uh city council's decision uh as to how to pursue this going forward whether it be remediation or rehab and or removal. Um so with that um basically that's again the next steps and we did want to open up this evening to questions comments concerns uh and so with that know is here as well. Uh we can move the mic around and uh so if you just raise your hand the best and I'm going to walk to the back of the room and see if we have any questions coming in from online. Please say your name. Hopefully I can concern with all of this is that I noticed for both options inflation wasn't accounted for. Um we know not only the cost of things that are going to have to be removed but the maintenance the the people power basically you can't I mean right now there are a lot of factors at the moment that will affect the cost of this um removal um as far as the rehabilitation of the dam I noticed that there were a lot of things that were

priced in. However, for the removal, there was nothing on the maintenance and getting the park to the state that it is the park again after. And that is going to cost a lot of money. It's going to be a lot of years of maintenance and there will be months. It will just be a mess on there. I also noticed that even though dams usually for the most part are considered um they're ecologically it's probably best to remove them. Um, a lot of the dams in Michigan are used for recreational use and there are a lot of species there. again didn't hear anyone mention like turtles snakes that are endangered and they do go through that area and there are scientific findings and reviewable by University of Michigan's data that they exist here in the area and do use that area for reproduction and just living there. So, um, those are some factors that I noticed they weren't addressed and I'd really like to know because we we don't have a whole lot of money to throw at this and I would really hate to have everything removed turn into mud pits and then invasive plants take over all of the area because it's a lot of acreage and that usually what happens with these projects And that's pretty much my concern. Um, I do have one question is would it be in our best interest to do it in the future like rehabilitate now and while the county is so unsure with all the construction and maintenance

costs? Wouldn't it be in the city and city our citizens best interest and reealate like 10 years down the road. Tesa, I think that's a good question to answer with the timeliness of all this.

So, just uh one thing one comment relative to uh some of the removal costs did involve reshaping the channel uh and creating the flood plane so that you don't get the you know mud you know scenario. Uh so that does include some costs for moving dirt you know to recreate to make to reshape the channel and obviously one of the one of the concerns is that yes I mean the initial costs for rehab is less uh than removal and so that needs to be taken into consideration. Uh obviously you see the blue line uh for rehab is lower than the red line till you get out at least about know you can see where they cross over kind of that 17 to 18 year mark. So that is definitely a consideration. Hi, I'm Sarah Brabs. I live in North Township in this area. And I just wanted to say first, I really appreciate the city of Seline taking so much time and getting a grant to be thoughtful and fiscally responsible and responsible for what is and what may become of what is. Um, I'm not sure if everyone read the 50 plus PDFs with all the different research and things that have gone on for years that they have on their website, but I don't know if you know that's wetland area and that's a whole ecological system that actually would be much more environmentally friendly if it was returned. So, one thought I had was that owners and land owners would like to pay for any risk and future repairs that will probably happen because of this climate, because of natural disasters. I love the dam. I've put videos up. I spent the last two days with a little chunk of time. I love it. And also, I can see how it might be time to think about really letting it go. And it certainly seems even though it's a short-term pretty steep investment, the risk is much more mitigated and the long-term financial risk especially is increased. And I just want to say one more thing. I don't know if you're aware

of how Seline got the data center to not be part of Seline, but it is a few miles west. There are hundreds hundreds of gravel trucks, as I'm sure you're all aware, going by every day on the dam. And of course, this feability study was done before that, but there's a lot of information where you can just stand there and watch what happens to the damp and the road when all of them drive by. So, that is not that's ongoing. It's been going on. And if you don't know, they skipped an environmental impact report. They didn't give a [ __ ] about the environment on that end. They destroyed wetlands. They destroyed they destroyed the ecosystem. 28 football fields of building. Can we stick with the dam?

Can we stick with No, stick with the deal. I'm just What I'm saying is you actually have a unique opportunity to do so much better in the same watershed. Like we probably could have recreation. There's probably a path for your future joy. Did you have a question? Sure. No, I want to talk. Come on up. I got a question. No, I want to talk. Yeah, put that right. There you go.

All right. Um, on any of the studies or whatever, why haven't you drained that pond already to take a look at what you have? You can open the floodgates and just drain it. I did that in Dundy's dam and in 1967 when I was 15 uh we had a car boy went over the dam drown it couldn't find him January or uh December 26 was his birthday drowned on his birthday couldn't find nothing so my dad was a cop in Dundee for 9 and a half years so he had the plan take me out there to the dam open the gate drain the water behind the dam about halfway down. So, we let it up drain and he took me back out. Uh, I shut the gate and by the time the water starts coming back up, there's no water going down river towards Monroe and he found his son and that's what dad's plan that you could find him. So, that was the same thing here. We could do

to answer your question real quick. The short answer is uh we are not authorized to lower the level. There would be a permit from the state of Michigan from Eagle. Uh there's also I understand a court uh set level uh and so that would also probably require the court to weigh in on allowing us to lower that even on a temporary basis. So uh per requirements is why we can't do that. On top of that as was mentioned by um a little bit just we'd have to look at what the impact would be to the the the species that we know are there. Um and so there would be some additional studies for that. So it would be an expensive proposition just to Well, you could let me do that. I didn't have to have it for a minute. I just went out and did it. Save.

I just want to add to that. My general understanding, I'll let Dax speak to it, but even if we were to get a draw down, it would be very limited in how much we could draw down per day. It would have to be monitored. It would be a very expensive undertaking. I don't know how long it took to dry, you know, the raisin river, you know, got it done. He found his, you know, pound of sun. So, it worked out nice. So, that's true. And then the bid for the cost of taking out the dam uh what what bids are you satisfied with what you got or or still taking bids for them? You're just guesstimating that it would cost that much.

None of these are bidded prices. These are all estimates and the cost opinions opinions of costs that go with the removal estimates are included in 800 pages of documents available online with peace building extension. Right. So that's where that came from is that peace building. What do you have for a grant? The feasibility study was a grant for we got a grant for the feasibility study um which has now been completed not for the damn removal. Nothing correct. There's there's opportunity. We did not include any grant um we purposely withheld although we likely to get some funding to knock down that um a little bit we did not include that in this analysis.

Okay. And then that last lady which you was talking about all those trucks I went from here to Clinton 30 trucks passed just from that point. So we're not talking about that the trucks going to

my name is Mark. I live on Dennis Street and I fully support removing the dam because I'm looking at the cost over time. I mean 9,000 people live asleep. I look that up and it's very expensive and I just don't know how we could maintain that and keep it in good repair. So I I fully support removing the dam and sort of redoing it. So I just wanted to put my two cents right in.

Let's set up this side of the room. Anyone over here? Thanks so much. My name is Mar every every day. So I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this in this study. I was just wondering how much have we spent on maintenance over the last 10 years that that is you know there's a big portion of the cost roughly 30% of that cost that you're estimating for uh removing the dam or keep the dam I should say 68,000 a year times 50 years $3 million that's yeah exactly and then how much have we spent on maintenance over the last 10 years Wear we have not I mean we we've gone into this before like we've been asked this before before I mean I've only been here a few years but the we weren't tracking the costs associated with separately so

I mean but it's not unc I don't maybe I'll let um I think that I think what you're getting at is there's not been a lot of capital investment yeah everybody in this room would agree with you sure so right now though you're in terms You're you're making a little chart here with your red and blue and you're saying that there's roughly $20,000 to $60,000 difference per year over 50 years. Let's take advantage of sitting up here in the front row. You can study this graph for a couple minutes. But I'm just wondering like you haven't put money into the dam over the last 10 years. You should probably read the reports.

Respect whoever's got the microphone. So, so I guess what I'm what I'm wondering is we've got some optional activ optional assessments here. We're including that sort of raising that price up and then on the other other estimate, there's not a lot of granularity in the $5 million that's going to take to remove the so I think that's the hard part to really understand is really what the true costs are when it's just one lump sum and then we've got all these other numbers by detail here. I guess I'll be if I'm being honest with you, I'm assuming that the dam removal costs are probably still a little high because we we um I mean all of it is material management and permitting. It's actually a much simpler project than repairing and rehabilitating the dam. Um it's it all has to do with sediment management, repairing painful channel. That's all the cost of damage again as outlined in the feasibility study. So, um I think that um I I do think these this is I do think that every bullet on here is a bare minimum to maintain the dam. I do not envision that these were elevated at all. In fact, this is our smallest trajectory of maintaining the dam and all of our analysises that we went through in preparation for this meeting, all the other assumptions, the line got steeper and steeper and steeper. So I would say if I'm looking broadly at this analysis I would yeah that's I guess my broad that's why we put the ranges of years and the um assumptions and I also yeah I guess that's I don't you want to talk more about maintenance or anything?

I think uh you're not wrong in that there's deferred maintenance that you know investment should have been made prior to this neither here nor there but we're not ignoring that for the future. Uh you know recognize the fact that you know reinvest would have to happen in order to keep the dam. Yeah, Mark. I just wanted to, you know, point out that over 50 years span costs are going to be higher.

The near-term cost, if you look at this at these charts and where they intersect, over the next 10, 15 years, there's substantially higher cost of removing the damocation. It's not until we get on to the 20 30 40 year span that we're looking at significantly increased cost. So it's just we're looking at a significant investment as far as cost in the near term.

Correct. I was just wondering um obviously outside funding is likely going to be needed for this or be prioritized. How much do you anticipate having in the short term removal versus what could potentially come down the line if you were to choose the rehabilitation route? What would the contract be and what type of grants funding from state or or federal level? Um, is there a difference in what the city perceives the funding could be?

The short answer is, uh, yes. Obviously, once a decision is made, we want to pursue funding for either rehabilitation or removal. Uh, it's pretty well and I'll let maybe Spicer or maybe Streamside talk to it because they're in the business. I'm not that there's generally more funding available for removal uh because of some of the, you know, eological advantages that have been noted. And so when you apply for grants, you're going to get a higher priority or better chance of obtaining funding for removal. And

I just want to add to that real quick before we pass on. Um I yes, our research has indicated that we had some data in the feasibility study about the different um funding analysis that may be applicable to removal. Um the other thing for rehab that I guess hurts us is that our dam is rated significant risk, not a high hazard risk. So there's less funding for rehabilitation available for the medium risk dam. that we had a high risk and there would be more funding available for rehabilitation. So, um do you want to say anything about the removal you or

I'll just add one quick thing. Um Mr. Swallows and M Humphre are both correct. There's generally more funding available for damables and there's generally more funding available or you're more likely to soar well in a grant application if you are a high risk or high hazard dam instead of really significant hazard dam. Um, but with that said, we haven't gone through an application process to remove the dam or rehabilitate the dam because the decision has not yet been made. Um, and obviously I don't think Spicer or city staff wants to be presumptuous of what decision council would make at this time. So, um, once the decision is made, we can proceed with applications for whichever grant is most appropriate. And if funding is not available then it there might come a day that it has to be reassessed and maybe the decision has changed. I don't know but you know comes on

Excuse me. I'm My name is Jackie. I've lived here since well actually I was born the same year dam was built.

So I'm the oldest person here. I have experience doing all kinds of things, but I tell you this situation right now is you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. So, what I would suggest, it was me. I ran I open 40 stores, okay? I did all myself. You got to think about this because right now our situation with the dam out there that data center rather with the data center with the dirty water you got in you got major problems. You better address all of not peacemail. You got a major problem bringing people here to live with dirty water. And you talk about the dam. I think the damn right now can wait till a little more stable times because understanding when I was born when I was born a house cost $3,000. Okay, that same house today is $400,000 made them nothing. So if you want people to move here, we have great things. That pond could be a fishing place for kids. They're not on their damn phones. teach them how to fish, how to do things. Make it a real park. Fix the dam. Fix the dam. Because in the long run, if you don't have the dam, you don't have the part. It adds to the city's beauty. This thing, it was a fishing hole to bring kids in, you could charge a nominal fee to cover the maintenance of just maintaining the parcel of the park. So with that and we say I don't know if it's good or bad but I do know it requires more thought than charts. You got to get all the people to vote NC to vote on these issues but you've got three issues. You got the data center which is terrible terrible

but you've got dirty water which is terrible and then you got all I can say is question why we're doing all these assessments at this time. Could you sort of talk to that? Why we're doing this now, why these things?

Um, yeah, I I I strongly believe that um databased decisions before reinvesting um large millions of dollars in our assets will save us millions of dollars in the long run. So, I think the more data we can collect on all of our assets and and make capital reinvestment decisions based on said data, the better off we're going to be. Um, and I agree with what the gentleman just said. We have a lot of aging infrastructure. I um I've lived here before the new RO plant was online. Um, I've you know, I lived here now and we since we had the RO plant water quality plant is better than it was back before. So I agree we have um aging infrastructure issues throughout the um city but I guess I'm looking at getting all the data available for all the pieces of in so we are spending our money on essential first and working our way down to safety and then community enhancement. That would be um my recommendation.

All right. Does the parks commission or council have or ever had a vision or long range plan for the better use of Milton itself within the mil park? What a timely question. So, actually uh Councilwoman Rice might be able to answer that better than anyone because she serves on council and the parks commission and Sarah's here. So, the I know the parks commission is going to be presenting uh coming up on the 16th, right? Uh

yeah, next Monday. Um and director is here as well. Many parks commissioners are here. The parks commissioners have worked tirelessly to put together a plan sort of future visioning for Milond. We're going to present that that to council um with we've taken some tours of other parks and we kind of just you know did our hopes and dreams for Milton Park. That way we have something that we can work toward in the future. We're going to have lots of open conversations with folks over the next year or so. Um but yeah, if anyone wants to attend our meeting next Monday, parker will be presenting uh some of the things that we think would really improve the park al together. No matter if we remove the dam or not, things can be adjusted, but we wanted to kind of do that simultaneously so that we're talking about you know our most prestigious park as a whole. And just point out on you know all the graphs you know that uh removal or rehab is still two to three years out. Um we realize that you know once a decision is made we want to pursue as much uh you know health bonding state federal funding as we can and also take obviously we talked about pering process for either option. So we're still two to three years out from something significant happening uh on the end but we need to make decisions so we can move towards it.

My name is I live down the river and have property along along the river. I also worked for the city for 35 years and uh it turns those fields to open those gates many a time and it it is never open on every range. Sometimes it goes for years without being open. It should be exercised but I've seen many years go by without opening the case. So it's not done frankly. Um, one thing I've seen in tonight's report and the one about removal is I see a lot of words like estimate, potential, assumption. And quick definition of assumption is the thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen without proof. And that you're you're throwing numbers around for both removal and saving it, but they're all estimates. There's no hard numbers for people to make a decision on.

Um some of your estimates are extremely high like you have refurbishing the gates and putting these new seals on at 1,560,000. Uh that very work was done in 2005 for $134,000 that would be $224,000. So your estimate is extremely high and it may be indicative of all your estimates.

AND UH as far as the the Michigan safety task force that was um organized in 20 2020, it was dissolved in 2021. So there is no real legislation coming because um most of their recommendations require legislative authority to to enact

and one of the reasons it's probably not likely to happen is the DNR owns 200 to 280 in Michigan. So, they're shooting themselves in the foot to uh enact some of these things. And the eagle requirement for 2026 that you mentioned, I called them after your October 6 meeting and they said typically that raises

raises the amount of water 10 to 20% is what they've seen and the dam would be well capable of handling that. Uh I also asked them because in this report tonight you have that eagle requires maintenance of a minimum standard and on that standard you have reconstruct the spillway to the lower press.

I also asked about that and they said that is not mandatory that is an option they suggest but you have it down here it's mandatory. So that's incorrect. Um there's a number of other things that um you've got in here that are just extremely costly with no facts behind them. So you know some of my questions are the um comment about going under the bridge.

You say that's a potential amenity. It seems like you would have looked into that long ago because that enhances taking it out. But has anyone got MDOT's approval to take to walk under that bridge? That fears they do not. So a lot of these things really need to have solid numbers on them. and Eagle has sent you a letter and saying all they want is a left and right intermediate of peers with a focus on the trend anchor locations prepared and developing a plan for corrective action.

So why don't you get solids on those three things that people actually want

and that's all you need to do to carry this jam to a future date. I guess the short answer is obviously you know we have to rely on estimates um because we don't have detailed engineering plans um and we want to you know provide the best estimates we can that's why we have consulted with the engineers that that work on these projects work on other projects and have completed these projects in the field uh so they have experience with that in terms of the kind of the uh the Eagle regulations. I mean obviously that task force was designed around addressing what the recommendations are and then Eagle was tasked with implementing those. So it is you know it is proceeding through Eagle's regulation and there's also a pending bill in the state legislature that deals with this as well. So um that that is ongoing that is proceeding. You know I I suggest you mentioned MDOT. You know I something tells me they would prefer not to have a dam right above US12 if they didn't have to. And so Yeah. So there was some concerns and that's why we are risk risk you know higher risk as a dam because it could wash out well failed. So there are some concerns there from MDOT that have been expressed in terms of I think they're again I don't want to put words in anybody's mouth but I think you know that's one of the reasons we are a higher risk stamp. So with that I will turn over to those that actually worked on the actual dollars and cents of of developing estimates. I was just going to mention the specifically the bridge that that was evaluated as part of the feasibility study. Maybe if you want to expand on it, Kevin, but the bridge is owned by um MDOT, not MD. US 12 is an M dot road. MD dot owns the bridge as to which is down directly downstream of the dam. Um that bridge we have looked at um the height of the river and the design of the

bridge. It does appear that we could get pedestrians under there. So yeah, that that homework we did do as part of the feasibility study. Um I got the cards you're saying to get actual bids and hands costs. Um like you were saying we don't that's that would be when we're getting ready to do a project. Um a coffer dam for instance we have a bid in hand right now for the confer at the mill race that's $300,000 for just a little mill race. So we were to conquer dam the main spillway I imagine it would be however many much I mean it's much larger area that would have to be copper dam. I guess I'm going to turn it over to um Kevin to speak maybe about the gates. What's a copper dam? Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Copper dam is the temporary steel plate that you see put in um vertical to basically hold back the water. It's a temporary um water. It's a temporary dam to keep the water away from whatever structure we would be working on.

And the reason we mention that is to do any work on the spillway or for example the the raceway, we would have to have a we have to have copper dam to seal that off temporarily to be able to do the work. Obviously, you can't pour concrete and water. This dam has a built-in copper dam if you want to look at it. It has channels on the the peer walls to go to the lake and the plates are done. They the barn you slip them in or tubes that go in there. So that you don't need a copper build a copper damp. We have a we place we have the way to do it now. So you can take that cost off your list that that's not quite the same thing as a copper damp. So those are stop locks that only isolate rad to replace the seals on the radial gates. They put that correct. Coffford Dam,

correct? So those only isolate the gates. A coffford dam would isolate the entire concrete structure. So it they're similar but not quite the same thing. You can't do everything that you need to do with only the stop bus. Um and to I just wanted to comment really quickly on um the lowering of the spillway. So Eagle did not mandate that we lower the spillway right now. What that was in reference to is that at some point um you you effectively will there are recommendations from the dam safety task force to change the regulatory flow rates um and that report I don't think is quite finalized yet but Eagle has started using flow rates from it. We're working with them to try to understand that further. But um we do know that the the flow rates for this lean river dam are expected to increase fairly substantially. Um which the maximum that we've seen increase?

I don't know. It varies by region. Just of all of the dams that Spicer has worked on, we've been tracking how much the flow rates have already changed. Some have doubled.

Yes. Some some dams their Eagle mandated flow rates have doubled. So, um there's a lot of different things kind of going on. I apologize if there was some confusion on that matter, but no, Eagle is not mandating right now that the um capacity of the spillway increase right now. That's something that we're planning for in the future because if the city of Seline is going to spend millions of dollars on improving their dam, a lot of that cost is just for the startup of doing the project. So things like installing the coffer, um mobilizing cranes is extremely expensive. Um all of those things make the project cost substantially more just for the ability to do the actual work that's necessary. So there is an option to improve the dam without adding capacity, but the when the time comes that you do have to add capacity in the future, you're basically spending all of that money all over again. But you're around one you have $1.5 million for the radial gates where it was 134,000 20 years ago. So why is there such a discrepancy between those two things and you have and the city still has the stop logs to put um behind the gates to stop the water and do one gate at a time. So why is your figure 1 and a.5 million compared to 244,000 today's dollars from 20 years ago?

I'm not specifically familiar with exactly what work was done in 2005 or what the scope of that was what the estimates were. Um I can look deeper into what our estimates were. I can contact you later if you want to talk. Well, I just wonder if um you had that specifically down there and it does much cheaper, but your figures are much higher. You should listen to him. He knows what he's doing. He knows what he's talking about.

You all I mean politicians. No one at that desk. No one is a politician. They work for us. They work for all of us for our work for us. So, we have one more question over here.

Thank you. My name is Maline Loki. I live on Tower Drive and full disclosure, I am a volunteer on the environmental commission and I just wanted to say there's a lot of talk about doing just what's immediately necessary and um as a young person who has just moved into Selena and just bought a house a little less than a year ago. I don't want to think about just what we need to do right now. I really appreciate that the city is taking the time and their due diligence to look at what this means for the next 50 years because I hope to be a resident for the next 50 years and I want to know what I want to be informed when I make a decision and when I ask my representatives to vote here or there on such a big decision. giving a hand down the road and just paying like $200,000 a year and $1 million there is exactly how we get into this situation with the wastewater treatment plant. And it made a huge capital investment and that's not something that I want this community to have to pay for. You know, I think um I think we can all agree that we want our tax dollars to go towards things that are going to invest back into its community members. Um and if that's, you know, removing the dam or keeping the dam that's great, but I want us to make an informed decision and that's what I would want to do and I think that's what we all want to do here. And I just want to echo what Nicole said earlier. These are all civil service. These are these are people that have dedicated their careers into becoming experts so that they can be of service to you. They are not politicians and they do not deserve your hire.

Hi, I'm Lisa. I've lived here since I was three and I live on Park Street now. So, I could wax poetic about the pond. I really love it. I think it's a jewel of the city. It's beautiful in the fall. The way the trees are collected on the water, it's stunning. Um, I think my overall disdain for the way that this is going on is really about what someone alluded to earlier. It's about the overall the um every everything here, the everything here. no longer have the financial burden um of this critical infrastructure in perpetuity, a significant investment. I'm still very unclear and I did try and go and look at our city budget. Where is the line item where our maintenance is for our infrastructure and specifically the data and what what have we spent not in the next 50 years projected but in the last 10 15 or since we've owned it since the 1990s or had responsibility for it. Um I don't know that that data exists but I would love to answer for that. Moving forward I did hear I think Mr. I heard you say an estimated median of 65k a year and that's the same number that you had mentioned as well. Is that an estimate or is that what we actually have been spending? Because if the two numbers align if there is some sort of increase, we're we're using the same numbers. We're both referring to this. I hope yes. So, this is what we went through. Um, one of the things that council asked us to do um after the dam removal feasibility study was really look at hard look at what it would take to save the dam. Um, like I said, I've learned a lot about the dam in the last few years since I've been doing this. And this is our list of everything it takes to maintain the dam on an annual basis on this. And that's where the estimate of 68,000. Now, some

of these are occur every three years. So, we divide that by three years. Some of these occur every five years. We divided it by five years. So, that's where we got with the $68,000 annual cost for money. Those and we were using the same data point. Thank you.

And I recognize you environmental engineering firm. It looks like it. I was looking at like I understand that you are here as the the experts right but so this is who looked into this but we have been kicking the can down the road we kicked in for so long that in fact now the solution is to cut our phone out and my my mom has always said um my irritation when I was little that your failure to plan does not constitute an emergency on my part and it's one of those situations where um we haven't spent that I know of that I don't think people know of. And yeah, now it's going to be and we're not asking to put in a dam environmentally probably not a good idea. We have a dam. It is our responsibility as a city to maintain our infrastructure on so that we don't get to a point where something that was identified in a survey a couple years ago on an inspection doesn't get fixed. and then the next inspection it's identified again and says hey we we pointed this out before and this is why we are where we are and I'm not a fan I think that we need to really this is not the solution they're constantly trying to save money and yet I I think we contracted out our dispatch services I think that's passed I think I know that we I did look at the line items for the money we get on the dispensary fees and tax income and licenses I know that we've done rental permits and inspections on an annual basis the cost of the homeowners that is a lot of fun too. So there's a lot of new income and we're trying to save a lot of money and yet nothing is different. Water costs more water is not brown. I do appreciate it sincerely but it is because of those types of things that I think that the trust of

individuals out here for myself is um just fix it. We should fix it. We need to fix it. Let's just move on and let our situation worked in and around city government and government work. My entire group so for about 50 some years. Um but I've been for 53 years. And I guess one of the things that always made me discouraged as a employee as a government employee was the fact that we were expected to do a lot with very little. So a lot of unions will defer simply because we didn't have the funds to do it. Now we get people in the uh seats who are running city government saying things critical state need to take action now. Um we can accuse they're not the people that kick the can down the road. They're the people who are trying to stop great here right now and do something positive for the city. So I think we need to consider the fact that these folks have the best intentions of the city uh to kind of grow some longterm problems. Just like add one more thing too. I mean aesthetics is a is a something that we are considering. I mean there you know to if you know if the consensus is the aesthetic of the pond is better than a free flowing river and you know we want to invest to maintain that that's something we do need to consider athe I don't know how to value aesthetics

but we do and that's the point the point is people we we have nice street lights downtown because the aesthetics matter we replaced all of our trees when we did them we replaced them with ginko when they grow slow and they're beautiful and aesthetic and a little bit dark those kinds of things matter and there. Um, this is one of those things I think that as somebody who's been here, it matters. That's it. I'm sorry. I have two two comments. In 2021, um, I believe a list of repairs that needed to be made. Is that correct? Um, that basically Eagle copied what was in Spicer's 2021 stressful and sent it back to us. Is that correct that nothing was really done?

No. Actually, I would say out of the 10 things on that list, I think we I could open it up. We got six of them done, maybe. I don't know. But the Yeah, the several that needed to several that were immediate, it needed to be done yesterday. I the larger ones, the more expensive ones again before the capital reinvestment, which again, we didn't go over this in this presentation, but our dam is only currently rated as fair. Um I've said in the past, well, I said a couple years ago, we have time. Um the where poor would be worse than fair. So, our dam is currently in fair condition. So the um remaining things need to be done um in the near future but are not going to be done yesterday. And have we gotten to those things that still need to be done or we just we are looking for um direction. Go ahead.

Those estimates for rehab uh is exactly why we've had looking at those because we know that those are potential costs. I'm just having trouble understanding if your decision is going to be based on all these cost charts and everything like that, but you can't get any estimates until you have the engineering plans. How are you going to get any estimates and decide what to do? This the short-term rehab has been fairly well documented in terms of estimates. We do have those.

No. Okay. You know what I'm saying, right? How can you make a decision? This is huge. This would be a huge thing to take the stam out. And how can you make any assumptions about taking it out without having any real concrete numbers? These aren't real numbers. I mean, that's how we do to quite honest. You know, any road project, you start with an engineer's estimate that sets the budget. You know, what if you start taking stuff out and then it that's not what it really is. We're in the situation that we're always in. Water treatment plant with the rec center, all these things. what you thought it was going to be, but it's not. Correct. Until you get actual Yeah. contractors in to Yeah. I I will disagree with you.

Yeah, that's right. The other thing is uh the stream uh that rendering of the stream. I'm sorry. That rendering of the stream, it's a little confusing because you say it's 50 feet wide. How wide is the actual water? 50 feet. The water's width is 50 feet. Yes. There's a there's a misconceptions in the back that has a better drawing on it. Um maybe we can pull that out on either side. How wide is that? I believe that was 80 feet on each side. Is there a there's a little chart on the front page of that Nicole that says the river wits.

Yeah. So that that outlines and so this is 50t wide here and then think 80 feet on either side. has there been any landscape people or any investment interest at all in getting estimates on what it would take to what's going to be planted in that green space because all the parks here have really big problems with invasive species all of them they just come in to take over and will we even be able to get to the water I agree with your comment on invasive species my parcel above Miltown Park and we recently did a large invasive species removal in our backyard course so yeah I agree we definitely have an invasive species problem. But um this is all intended to be that's why it's all natural. So this on the bottom right is just what you will call natural native flowers. The only improvement is this proposed pathway on this particular one.

I'm just concerned because does not have a really good track record for taking care of yourself. I mean uh the parks used to have a tennis court. We had to take it out because of disrepair. We used to go and play tennis there all the time. That foot bridge down at the end is so overgrown with invasive species. You can't even get to it anymore. And now we're talking about it sounds like we're just going to have beautiful flowing river. I just 2 and 1/2 ft deep. I don't What about in a drought season? We're not going to have that. I just don't understand where anybody thinks they're going to have that. It'll be very similar to the river that goes adjacent to your property on um Curtis, you know, because you're downstream of the dam. So, the width and the flow of the river here will be very similar to what's downstream with the exception that downstream is a little bit flatter.

Where's the water coming from? All right. The dam is not the dam is just where's the water coming from that feeds the dam. So, this is part of the river system. What water comes in the dam goes out. There's no control. Is it coming? Is it coming from drains? Yes. Combination of drains and steel drains. Yes. Right. So that's not a river. It's run up from the It becomes the Seline River as the Pittsfield drain. Yeah. But it's not the water in the Sen River is not coming from a river. It's coming from drain systems. As was pointed out earlier, this is not a flood control structure. It the water comes in goes out. There's no change other than maybe a little bit of evaporation.

Okay. Um, hi, my name is Jennifer. I'm the city of Seline resident and my family has lived here for over 100 years. So, I I appreciate listening to all of these comments because um I came here to get facts and information and I I think that um this brings up a lot of passions because this is a real identity piece within our community. Um, a lot has been talked about and I really like your comments and like a lot of the comments I'm hearing, but I would also like to know about the landscaping. I think that that's a totally valid question. Um, I'd like to know about what happens down the river. So, where you were talking about the fish where we have the 21 different species down where I live. So, I'd like to know all of the schematics show what's north of Michigan Avenue. I would like to know what happens south of Michigan Avenue. Um the intent so downstream I think the biggest concern with downstream the biggest concern downstream would be a failure of the dam that released all the sediment uncontrolled. So I live downstream of the dam I would be concerned about that. Um so I think after dam removal if we our intent would be to um control the sediment would be required by permitting downstream should look exactly the same. I mean it really the intent is not to change the dynamic of the river downstream. just to open up if the dam were to be removed to open up where the dam is. So, um I would I would caveat that with maybe just a little bit of the I think you touched base on the sediment hungry water that's usually downstream. So, there's oftent times directly downstream advance there's a little bit more erosion on the side banks. So, I guess I would say it could potentially be a little bit better because it would be pulling that sediment off the banks anymore.

That's a lot of water coming downstream. So the water the water that's coming out the dam does not provide flood control. The dam is a run. This is very important. The dam does not we have to open up the gates every time it rains. So however much water goes by your property now will go by your property in the future. Well potentially a little bit more of a developmental strength but um but yeah so the the dam does not provide flood control. Removal of the dam actually makes the flooding in Milan and Curtis Park teeny bit better actually. But it's really inexraable. It makes it the same. So we would still see the flooding and the flood plane in both Milond and Curtis Park. Um but it does not have an impact downstream or upstream.

My name is Gordon Peters. I live on Milton and we've been in this debate since 2011. So we've been working like crazy to try to get all the information we can. And there's a lot of assumptions we've talked about in this whole deal, but here's a couple of facts. This is the uh city's a capital improvement proposal for this coming budget year. And they say $400,000 in 27, $500,000 in 208, $500,000 29, $3 million in 30 and $3 million in 31. I think a lot of people and in the beginning were hoping for a lot of grant money, but it looks like whatever we do, we're going to pay for it.

And if We could just have one more fact.

In Ohio, there's a Gorge River dam. I've talked about this before. They're in the process of removing it. The original estimate to remove that dam 10 years ago was $50 million. Once they started the project, now the estimate is between 130 and $180 million. And all that information is on the website. You can look it up. It's a fact. So that's my big fear in addition to losing the beauty that we enjoy in our backyard of having that milk pond there is what happens when like somebody else said, we get a deal right with the water treatment where we're not talking about blowing up a few million. We're talking about hundred million and nobody can guarantee us that that's not going to happen because there's so many unknowns when you start a project like this.

Just if I comment on that briefly, um s the capital improvement plan, we know we're going to have to spend resources on the dam regardless whether rehab or removal. So we use the higher number uh in the estimates. Yeah, I'm saying that it all hoped that whatever was going to be done was going to be granted by a majority. That's still a big assumption. That plan does not identify the funding source for that. That's not general fund dollars necessarily. Well, it says here to be determined. It says it says Seline River Dam on your report and it says

and unknown funding or what. So, it's an assumption, but there is some hard facts here that this is what we're going to start doing if you approve this plan for the next budget either. I'm not talking about the money. I'm not talking about the plan for the dam. The money is going to go there. All future years have not been budgeted. Uh that requires uh that requires city council proposal from you guys. It is a projection out, you know, that we're going to have to spend some money on SL River Dam. Y great. I want to take a moment to ask uh the city manager and our colleagues here. It is 8:00. Do we have more time? Are you are you still available?

My name is Karen. I also live on River Drive. Um, I've got a couple things to say. In one of those slides, there was an indication that the dam has outlived its usability, meaning that we no longer needed to power a mill. What about the aesthetics?

What about the fishing? What about the kaying? What about the beauty? when I wake up every morning and the sunshine is sparkling on my river and why I bought the lot and why I paid a premium for it and why I've been here 42 years and you're going to just totally dismantle that and I'm supposed to be okay with that. You haven't even talked about the depreciation in our homes. I mean, show me a piece of land that's waterfront property that isn't more than one that's not you're going to change my property from waterfront, a river to a creek.

The other thing is that there's been a lot of comments about what's been done to the dam over the years, and I found out um I looked this up.

There's only been recordings for 1973, 2004, 2005, and 2023. So that just tells you why we're having to pay so much now because these repairs have been put off. The can has been kicked down the road. And I'll give you an example here. The the study that was required in uh 2020, the cost to repair everything that was in need at that time was 218,000. Now fast forward to 2026. They're saying the cost to repair the dam is 1 to 1.5 million. Shouldn't postpone things. And the other thing is if we had done everything that's called out in that 2020 report, I'm going to respectfully disagree because I've seen the inspection report for 2023 and there was at least five items that they said these deficiencies were mentioned in the 2020 report. So, in no way did we take care of everything that was called out in 2020 because it's being referenced to again.

And here's another thing for all you folks that think it's going to be so wonderful just to remove the dam. This is in Spicer's report. The temporary disturbance during removal of the dam which may take up to two years. So probably the park isn't going to be usable during those two years when they're taking it out. The project area will experience earth disturbing that will be unsightly to many.

While the empowerment is being dewatered, there is the possibility of unpleasant odor emanating from the project area that may disturb local residents and businesses. Yeah, that's what I want to do. Sit out on my jacket for two years be smelling something like that comes up in Monroe Street. I've taken logs out of that pond and they smell nasty and I don't want to be smelling for two years and I don't think Wendy's at Wellers wants her wedding guests to be smelling that when they have weddings outdoors.

So, you better think about the situation. And I didn't appreciate the city plowing 3.1 million to buy current.

Did you have a question? Obviously, you know, we did talk about the fact that for a period of two years now, in terms of the odors, I mean, that'll be short, relatively shortlived, probably about six months of that. But it it does take a while for the vegetation to reestablish. And I just want to point out that there would be no intent for the city to sell or, you know, to otherwise modify that park. You would still be potentially backing up the parkland if removal was the uh the proposal. And in the comment of misconceptions in the back, there's a couple studies referenced on property values after these types of dams are removed. But I agree with you and I um that you are viewing it as a value based and that's a value based decision whether you prefer a river or an empowerment. We're trying to look at all the engineering things that or all of the costs associated with which aren't value based. Right? So I think half people in this around maybe not half. I don't but some people in this room value the empowerment, some value the river. That's a value based thing that we're trying to we try to take out the analysis for costs. Obviously, there's not a cost.

Well, an appraisal firm needs to figure that out who actually specialize in real estate versus a year old. What's your I'm just Well, yeah. So, the appraisal they are not. So, um so I'm just curious, you know, appraisers. This is what the job is about real estate. their plans to actually consult with an appraisal firm to figure the effect of property values as opposed to citing a 20-year-old study out of Wisconsin. Wait, wait, Michael.

Um, I just there there are a few questions about what the river would look like if the impelment were gone. And I just want to clear that up a little bit. Try to clear that up a little bit. The photo that you see there is an actual photo of the river taken upstream of the impoundment and it looks really similar to what it does downstream of the impoundment. So when the the empoundment the dam it's just a widening of this of this river. So the water flowing today upstream of the empoundment would continue through the park and continue downstream. There'd be no change in the volume of water.

I have a question about that. So when I go to real quick my name is so my question is when I'm at the park and I'm at you know park up it's only like 12 or maybe at most 15t wide. So I'm curious about how you could keep it.

So the um the north end of Mil Park is where the Seline River meets the Pittsfield drain. So we have um two trib areas coming in. So if you're actually the part that swells kind of more to the I guess east if you will closer to the parking lot you know how that whole like the where the mermaid used to sit for the Celtic festival or the island if you will part of Milcom Park. Um that part of the park is um so all the way going up kind of to the northeast is coming in from the Pittsfield drain from the northwest is the Selen River. So the two come together here um and so that's and then continue down through I actually do have afterwards I brought maps of all the um Washington County drains. I also have a map of the river race and wershed just to answer just questions exactly like this.

I'm Chuck Hookham. I'm a registered civil engineer, structural engineer, longtime consumers energy employee fixing many of our dams. They're older than your dam. Um I'm not going to say a lot because a lot was shared already by the residents. The one thing that's resonating to me and I'm from Ann Arbor. We had an Argo dam not too long ago. We had to deal with that. We have a beautiful situation because we saved our god dam. The one thing I want to say here that I really think is important. Lots of stakeholders that are in this room see the data. I don't think they're seeing information. I think there's a lot that's not been shared. There's a lot of studies. There's a lot of ecological assessments. There's new slides that this team hasn't seen. The team being the stakeholders share the information. Let everybody weigh in on this because it's not a one oneway street here. It's a community that's got to make some pretty big decisions. So I would advocate for that very much.

So if you have not been to the uh the DAN website uh that posts a lot of the studies and we're actually I think they posted this presentation as well. Um you know we'll definitely trying to put as much out there as we can and so encourage people to go to that take a look at it. Um and uh and if you have questions, yeah, email myself, the chair, you know, certainly uh you know, we'll try to get you an answer.

Hey, my name is Sean Sutton. I live on Michigan. Um couple things that I'm concerned about in terms of the financial costs of this that I don't think we're really addressing here. I think um first of all is the time value of the money. Um when we are looking at replacing when we're looking at repairing the dam a lot of those costs are further out when we're looking at removing them a lot of them are earlier I think that we have been overly optimistic about the idea of getting grants and I think we really need to come to the realization that we're going to need to pay for this probably need to get up on this and if we're going to be borrowing money to do this because I don't think I got $10 million lying around um we have to realize that it's going to cost us more money to have costs earlier because we have to pay for um the interest on those bonds. Um I think the other thing we need to look at are some of the additional costs. Um landscaping was one of the items that come up. Um we had that image shown which looks AI generated because when you look at it the level is even with the roadway which is significantly higher than the the lake. Obviously, we're not going to be filling in millions of cubic feet of back to fill it up. Um, uh, the other thing is the cost of legal tense. I think that's a given based on some of the, uh, the things that I've heard in here that some of the residents nearby, um, will likely

Yeah, I'm right. If you look at it, um the uh the ground on that is even um the house that's on the very left. That's my house and it's about 6t drop from my um the back my backyard to the waterfront looking like it's even. So that's significantly higher and honestly it's going to be significantly lower. So there's going to be some landscaping. Um it's going to cost significant amounts of money. I think that's something we need to look at. We need to look at the cost of legal defense because there will be lawsuits filed. Um and we also need to look at property tax revenue. Um the there will be lost revenue. Um because there will be lost property taxes and even if we prevail in lawsuits against the city from the residents on low property there in response to the appraisal question answered your question. Um I did speak with our appraisal or our in-house assessor I should say. Um, and so none of the properties are waterfront. None of them are listed as waterfront properties because they there's no repairing. So they're not waterfront properties as far as appraisal goes. That makes

not the same as property. Ours is listed as waterfront. So we would be losing um property value from

I just wanted to add one more comment and I'll try not to rant about data center. Um the property value thing the you actually might have one of the more valuable properties because you did restoration of native species invasive. So I had seen something a report actually that said there would be no cost

to the landscaping once it's reverted back and it's all native that the possibility exists that it wouldn't be any maintenance because it's the whole point of native species. So if the if the river's healthier and the and the safety is stronger downstream because it reverts back to what it was and it doesn't cost much in the long term to me that also just makes more sense and just if you're not aware 100 million gallons being pulled minimum

a year to build that data center is going to affect your wershed I know Just so you know, it connects to your wires. So, your wall situation, your infrastructure is going to be a problem more than this. You didn't know that. I didn't know a few months ago. I just wanted to remind people that there's been some discussion about a vote so that everyone who lives in the town would have an opportunity to uh express whether they want the DM or not. And that is something that council could decide is to put the question on the ballot.

Can't the residents do a referendum and then make you put it on the ballot?

It can't go on the ballot. That would be a city council decision. Hello, my name is here for 11 years. I go all the way from Chicago and I move over here because of this and if the city of have much money on what to do they have to work on their water even myself with plastic so this is I had somebody talking about 50 years you got to think about today before the 50 years start from to talk about the 50 years to come. So if you don't have a good water to drink a lot of stuff doesn't make sense.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for your patience.

So I remember from the first discussion that um and I don't know if it was a group I can't remember that if that the people who were proposing taking it down would be the same people who were who would take it down. So, is it still the same? Like, do you guys both do the assessment and te do the disrepair or um how does that work? Because if you guys are doing the estimations and your estimation is leaning one way or the other, are you going to profit from tearing it down and not profit from leaving it up? I would actually make the reverse argument. Obviously, it would be in Spicer's best interest to have an ongoing revenue source for keeping the dam. They're dam experts. Um, they I obviously am just a infrastructure or have we hired Spicer to be our expert on the dam. It's very common with large infrastructure projects that you start with a preliminary engineering estimate with assumptions and then you do you actually spend some survey dollars, you spend some study dollars, you develop plans, you develop specs and as those get then you put it out to bid. We are in that very first stage with that. Um but I think as far as Spicer making profit off of the dam, um the removal is a one and done. Um this is as you can see that keeps the money for a long time. So I think it's the exact opposite as far as Spicer goes. That would be nice.

Just clarify. That wasn't my point. Yeah. They're not contracts, so they wouldn't do the physical work. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. I shouldn't. Yeah. They back and we would then out as well that that um removal feasibility study was a grant that we received. So, we had the money to really go into detail on that because it was a grant that we received and that was what they put together for us because we had that money available to say what does this really look like if we were to remove this thing. I just I just had a little fun. Um I guess my main point was that how you know and that's why I wanted a clarification because if you guys were the ones that were putting in the numbers and you were also then going to be able to do the work that to me is a huge conflict of stuff. Okay. My other question though was the um with the fishery down river. You mentioned that there were different species. Aren't those coming from the fishery that's down there? So it's not anything that the dam is causing the different species.

Are you referring to the fish hatchery? I'm sorry. Are you referring to the fish? Yeah. Yeah. The fish hatchery. The fishery. We have one that's downstream. No, that's not related. So the the um the fish that are in the river downstream or upstream. This is a fish community that's been here for decades really. It's just these are natural occurring fish in the river. They were they they wouldn't have been stopped. We're talking about suckers and minnows and that you said that the dam was blocking some species from getting down river, but that down river had more than upstream. But isn't it true that it's because the fishery is down river? No. Okay.

No. No. Um I I don't even know what is that hatchery functional. I'm not sure. But the species that we're talking about are these um some of the pictures here. These aren't these aren't fish that are raised in hatcheries. These are just natural occurring native species to Michigan. Okay.

It's been said that our dam has passed for life without 67.4% of all Michigan dams are now used for recreation. These are dams are once built for water wheels and industry. It's our dam once built for a water wheel now used for recreation. And also I invite everybody here to talk to Dexter. They have nothing but headaches with their dam removal. and they go down seem they made it an attraction. You can see it's beautiful. They got walkways, lighting, seating. It's it's a facet to the city. It's actually beautiful. So do as few things we can and

Hi, I'm Denise. I live on the floor and my backyard is also the river. Um and I just have a small question. There is a storm uh wastewater runoff that comes underneath the main river drive from the west and drains into the empowerment. Now, how is that going to be handled if the empowerment and it don't meet anymore? It's going to run over all the grass that's there. Um I I I assume you're talking about a storm water outlet, which um Yes. So I I guess current storm water regulations um do prefer the overflow to um to putting them in cement pipes and and sending them downstream, right? You get more absorption in the the area it is. Um so yes, that would have to be reverted in a way either through a swale pipe or a enclosed pipe to get back to the pond. Now all of our renderings we do have which follows the historic of the river too. We have all of the river going on the west side if you will. So really the um the distance basically keeping the park on the east side of the river and keeping the the natural look if you will for on the west side is kind of how we envision it and it lines up with where the where the um pond was historic at least the the documentation we could find from the 1900 early 1900 where the pond wants to go because if this if the dam were to fail the river would find a way right the river is going to find a way and we actually think it's probably will find its natural bottom that was there for thousands of years right so if the dam were to fail the river was flowing through here for thousands of years, the river is going to find that natural way. And we think it's going to look a lot like this and be closer to the west and further. So that pipe or that swale would hopefully be shorter.

Hey guys, Jake also River Drive. could see all my neighbors here tonight and certainly a challenging decision. Thanks for everyone's thoughts and opinions. Um I think definitely could see it obviously going either way. Um ultimately on the value side I just want to say I would probably the aesthetic and usability side lean towards the river um more creek river side um with the rendering. Now, the one the one um I don't think you guys got to this point. So, I don't think there's an answer to it, but I think that the uh the one kind of trivation that I would have to get to that point of the rendering, right? So, there's a there's a jump there and I would just want to make sure that the funding was there for obviously a huge funding gap for whatever you do, whether it's repair or removal, but then if there was removal, then it was the funding gap to to rehabilitation and getting it to the point that it was asked. So just making sure that that money was there and we got to that point of short-term gain towards I think my perspective a enhancement of the area I can see why people think differently.

Good evening. My name is Tom. I am a resident of slain and also a homeowner in slain. Many of the people that I talked to when I wasing a table to get signatures put on ballot thought well we don't need the dam and then we said well guess what the pond will be removed if you remove the dam they didn't know about that. So my question is why doesn't the city council do a better job of telling citizens of Blaine that hey once you remove the dam you're not going to have a pond anymore.

That may change a lot of people's ideas on the dam removal who think right now it's a great idea. Uh that brings me into the next question about why didn't the city council go to the citizens of since we voted you in. Why don't you get our our feeling on on this? Sure. The people here are very very passionate but the people out there don't know the whole story of rem. Thank you. So, I can't speak to the efforts of um city council in particular, but I know from working with uh Tesa and the rest of the volunteers that make up the environmental commission that we have been having tables at the Winter Farmers Market to spread outformational leaflets about this study and what the study um addresses and the information that is available online. and all of the different pictures of the the river and that is always included in theformational material repairs too

the repair when you're talking about the dam addressing the repairs that could happen instead of just taking out the correct because it's just a study to show both options and the reason that there's more um pictures of what it would look like without the dam is in it. Are these the right there? And um so when we're talking about we are mentioning yes, that means that the river would go back into a more natural state which means losing the the

certainly talked to a lot of people who don't know that. And that's was one of the criticisms we actually heard. Uh and that's why the renderings were done is to show what it would look like if I've got one more question on the damn parts that people would like to have to concrete wall.

Mr. Wils brought that up earlier and he said the study we did in 2021 showed you know the walls needed work. He said they recently looked at it and they're much more deteriorated. Eagle sent the city a warning letter in December 16th of 2021 or 2024 and said why haven't those things been taken care of a microcosm the name is microcosm of how the city deals with infrastructure and if this was taken care of you wouldn't have eagle sending you warning letters why you're not dealing with the most important things in the damag and was probably five years ago. Eagle finds the city $100,000 for not taking care of things down at the waste treatment plant.

So why does the state of Michigan have to keep telling the city to maintain its own infrastructure? question. I think the the short answer for that is you before spending significant capital funds on rehab, I think that the decision should be made and that's what we indicated is, you know, we do need to make a decision soon on which direction we head. Why does have to keep pushing the city to maintain their own infrastructure? It is. You weren't here.

It is a concern we're pursuing. Yes. I got a couple of quick online questions. The first one is, is currently safe for swimming, fishing, or boating?

General consensus for people live there is no. Obviously has very mucky bottom. We spoke to the turbidity. Certainly, you know, there are people fishing

swimming again next week. Okay. And then my second question is, will there be a river headed? How will the land be used if the path were to go away? The the short answer is there's already a Selen Riverwalk planned uh that will go along the the basically the east side of the site. Uh if the pond were removed, it did does open up the possibility to add an extension to Curtis Park underneath US 12.

My name is I live on the west side of town here. Um, I have lots of thoughts about this. Um, but before I share much, I'm curious. Did I mention correctly that the study was done focused on removal because that was fun to have more funding in the beginning uh for the feasibility study for removal uh because we had obviously already some engineering estimates for repair rehabilitation.

Um, so we somewhat understood that already. Uh so the option of removal was investigated further. Okay. I mean that makes sense to me but at the same time it's a little confusing to me because it seems like

as part of that study we looked at what might this become right? What's the potential here? But conversely we're not really looking at what's the potential of this asset that we already have. Should we repair it? We're really just kind of looking at cost. Um, Bill Karn, as I've always understood it, has been a sort of a jewel the jewel park of the city. Um, and I know a lot of our parks budget doesn't really go to the parks themselves. Um, seems to go elsewhere. Goes to the rec center and things like that. Uh, the play structure is in bad shape. The pavilion over there needs some attention. Um, it just makes me wonder why haven't we looked at the potential? what else we might do with the department. Should we keep the dam? How can we enhance what we already have?

As I mentioned earlier, on Monday, the parkition is going to be presenting some preliminary studies that we've done. We've attended some other parks and we've seen some things and a lot of what you'll see in that documentation would include the dance. There's things like adding kayak launches. There's things like expanding the dog park depending on which way ends up. So, um, so if you on there, if you listen on Monday, we'll also put those documents online as well. Um, we the parks commission, they've been doing an amazing job of really kind of in what great opportunities are out there, what we do, hopes and dreams for the park enhancements, no matter if it's touch or not.

Well, I mean, I've lived here almost 10 years now and I've seen very little done to any of the parks in that time. I've seen disreure. There's a sidewalk that goes through to connect the two neighborhoods. That's it. Um, so it's just it's disappointing because part of what was the park.

Well, we pay taxes. We got the west side has been avoided. We don't have the sidewalks. We the US replaced a a drain at the at the park that you're speaking of 5 years ago, we still have a lake every time, right? So all of that money that was invested, it wasn't even repaired. So I mean the other thing that I find sort of interesting is that

as was mentioned earlier, we spent some money on purchasing house and this is well this is what the gateway to the city looks like on the east side. we need to maintain this important aesthetically etc etc. But on the west side of the city is essentially no harm. That is an asset to this city. And I do see kids fishing. I do see kids. I don't get fishes there pretty often. Um, and because of what I've seen out of the park, it's very hard for me to believe that if you take out the dam all these beautiful are great. Like if I had the faith that all that would happen, I might be a bigger supporter. But at this point, it's like it's pipe dream type stuff, right? If I'd like to just I I I do share your concerns with our county infrastructure needs. Um I like I said I lived here for 25 years now and um very cautiously applied for this job four years ago knowing what I was looking into. Um let's say now that I've looked behind the curtains my concerns have not gotten less. Um we have massive infrastructure needs. That capital plan that Mr. computers was referring to I believe has $160 million over the next five years in it. Um so when I look around at how I want to spend my time um I want to spend my time working on our essential services making cleaning up our water our sanitary sewer our storm sewer. So, our water and sewer rates are in a different pot of money, but the dam is, I guess, in the same pot of money as general funds. And and if we're looking at what I consider essential and general funds, it will be our storm sewer system. Um, our sanitary sewer system is eons ahead of our storm system because it has a rate paced place to to and it's and it's not ahead of others. I mean,

it's there's a lot of needs, lots and lots and lots of needs. Um, and we are only a city of 10,000 people. We are not a city. So, we don't have the funds to um we we have to choose wisely on our community um assets and enhancements. That's I guess what I have to say about that. And so, um I appreciate those that say, "Please don't throw the arrows at me. I'm I I understand that there's some bias coming out, but um I would be really bad at my job if I said please, let's spend a bunch of money and resources on this asset that's no longer serving its original."

So, we went first. Thank you. I did actually with all of the computer. So no longer um I did just really quick. Can I just make a ple this is what's being used as the information to the citizens of this is um every teacher I've ever had in schools and beyond would um get upset with me if I didn't call out the the bias in this. It is 100 this is persuasive. This is not informative. That is um that don't don't act like you're informing when you're just informative or not.

I just wanted to comment real quick. Um so I think there that with the study and everything that has been done a huge chunk or something that isn't being made transparent it's not at fault of anyone because we really don't look into it at this level I mean you would have to get some sort of hardware to do it but one of the um effects of sitting at I also sat at the table at the fair to educate the citizens to frequently about the dam and it might have been or it would possibly be removed and what it would do to the park.

Um, was the people from outside. So, we had a ton of people that actually got some of them got rather heated when we said, you know, it's possible that it might take away the Milan Park. And we've had people from Ann Arbor. We have people from surrounding counties that would travel here just for Milton Park. And I think that, you know, it is one of our most popular, if not the most popular park in our city.

We might be possibly shooting ourselves in the foot looking at what kind of um traffic get through there. and we're not really seeing it with other counties, other people who are traveling here. You know, we hear from the citizens and everything, but as far as trying to boost this news everywhere to everyone might use that park, I'm not seeing a whole lot of amplification of that. So it just concerns me that we could be losing revenue in a place that is a very big tourist attraction for.

So J is that data in the fiveyear parks plan did we when we surveyed the fiveyear parks plan did we survey you know what park do you use and capture the data on users have to review that. Okay they have to review that. Maybe we'll take a look at that and if so, if it does take me that maybe we'll put that up on the north pond as well.

Well, and I and I agree. I love Mil Park which is why I bought my car next to it and I use it all the time and um I see most of the people using the north end like I walk it all the way to Curtis and then I play um hopscotch across 12 to get to Curtis. Um and I will say that I mean although people do walk along the um goose trails if you will to get to the other side um I see a majority I agree with you the majority of us use on the north side of the park. But one of the things is if people are coming in to be tourists at Mil Pond Park, they're coming for the park. They're also going by Main Street and all the stores. They're boosting our business, right? People in that data. It's a great discussion.

I just wor back on what you said about the water as an asset. I've done some research on the surrounding communities that have ponds, waterways, and we are the only ones around here in this area that don't capitalize on that with canoes, with fishing, with kaying. I found out that there is a kayak launch down there, but you can't find because so

well, and we actually the city I mean there's no swimming, waiting, fishing signs posted, and we don't have any um buoys or control. So, We don't have but we would need to draw people and use that as an asset as opposing that. I just need clarification on if I understood this right that Spicer is only doing consulting work and no actual work because I was at a city council meeting where there was $32,000 taken from the general fund and it says to acknowledge receipt of the memorandum from engineer Humphre and to approve or not approve the contract with Spicer Group for an as needed engineering services associated with slink river dam in amount mach 32000 for miscellaneous tasks such as updating of the emergency action plan and improving the remote monitoring of the site. So these are ongoing maintenance things that they're looking at as well as obviously the time to evaluate the cost of rehab and evaluate the cost of removal. So that's the consulting work. They don't do any of the when you say that what was referenced before is they don't do any of the construction work and so there's no incentive for them to go one way or the other

improve the remote monitoring of the site. You're just giving recommendations.

So like for that for instance we needed survey work done to to set the elevations for the new updated monitoring level. So that's one of the upgrades we have done in the last couple years is put the new level sensor on it. So the I don't know if you noticed when you drive by there's a currently a a marker gauge that's painted different colors. Um and so that's an outdated antiquated system to drive by and see if you're in the red. So now we have an actual level sensor. We need Spicer's help. We get the elevations actual survey data that type of things is what they're helping with. All the engineering side of things associated with the dam. So if the dam is removed and there was talk about the annual um maintenance operation cost of 68,000 is that 32,000 part of that?

Um so the no in fact no that 32,000 is um the annual maintenance is I'm sorry I no longer have my screen but on that screen in the slideshow which just posted online all of those tasks are what are in that $68,000. Okay. So, it's and these are all um I think additional tasks and and a lot of I mean this is this is this costs money. This presentation tonight doing this analysis costs money. So, that's that's a good chunk of why we're spending more money this year, you know. And just one last question um for Spicer and this is what makes undermine you know credibility about numbers. When you did the dam feasibility study in March of 25, you estimated the cost to be six 16,000 a year for operation and maintenance if we repaired the dam and now it's 68,000. It's not even a year later. What what didn't you anticipate in the study in 2025 that made your your estimate in 2025 so grossly off 16,000 versus 68,000.

So those were very very preliminary estimates at that time and since that time we've worked with city staff to try to dissect what effort they're currently doing and what effort is recommended for the emergency action plan. But yeah, guess that did not include I think the original estimate did not include a lot of the internal you know in kind work that the DPW is doing and since they have interviewed DPW and got more detail of what they do and what we should be doing going forward. There are some things we're not doing right now that we should be.

I'll add just a little bit more on that. So internally, one of the things we've done since I've been here is historically the plant staff oper um which the wastewater plant staff just because they usually have to historically my understanding is because they have to come in during rain events but if they have to come in during rain events that means they're busy at the plant. So one of the things we've recently done is transferred ownership from the plant division over to or not ownership I should say but maintenance responsibilities to DPW. That's a relatively new thing that occurred about a year ago today. the DBW's been taking care of it and part of that um we took a good hard look internally like I said I mean I haven't been here that long and I admit we have deferred maintenance you're absolutely right everyone here is absolutely right we we haven't done things on this stand but this is we know what we should be doing and that's what that number is based on

we now I should say we now know what we should be doing right I mean I'm Sammy. I live on that house that is right on Lake, whatever you want to call it. And we can indeed boat and fish from there. However, looking at this chart, I do have some concerns about the fact that we will no longer be able to kayak or canoe. I do not personally enjoy it, but I know my father and brother love it very much. And we invite people over to our house. We have, you know, a lunch in town supporting local businesses and we can go out and spend the day on the water. However, it says here that the deck only 2 and 1/2 ft and that is not nearly enough room to boat at all with anything. And I'm wondering what we would do about that because that is also I imagine a lot of other people do that too. I have that other people can't even pass boats up there

and that's based on removal that it would go back to a quote unquote natural river and that's but with the sea in depth in terms of upstream and downstream. So that is accurate. It would be it would be shallower obviously so we would lose the ability to both which is definitely something that I know some people might not be able to do but I know that my family in particular would and one of the reasons we purchased this property for the lake specifically

and I I do understand that and I agree yes I understand concern I would like to just mention with the 2 and 1/2t depth that um that's on average. um as the river does now um in droughts it's going to be less and in rain events it's going to be more um so there's but that's on average what it would be about relationship with the city I have people here the city asking us harder it needs to be answer what we have here's they're asking us to fix the walls with a focus on the trendy thin anchors. Those are steel plates with four holes. What you got to do is fix that. Offer competitive get three big fix contractor maybe three four $500,000. I don't know. But just get it done. Fix it. That's all you have to do for now. That's this stuff. It's just pie in the sky stuff. And I don't believe you. Um, did I understand that if we remove the dam we already know we have some species that we're have to study and account for

you. you are the uh all we know is that there's one species of threatened muscle that occurs upstream of the dam in the river and I actually that would require us to do further studies what those costs are um else I've done a lot Okay. So, what do we know? Those costs built into these numbers over here.

Yeah. Can you tell us what $4,000ish? Oh, that's it. Okay. I'm $4,000 is not much. So, not to open a can of worms here. The muscle surveys and procedure are pretty complicated. So if a dam removal were to move forward and take place, there would likely have to be relocation of muscles done. So when that's dewatered and these critters are stranded, then that would be a different kind of effort. So that's a different cost. Yeah. How much is that?

It depends on what species are found and how many. Based on based on the preliminary data, there aren't many muscles in the million. I'm sorry, I couldn't hear what you said. Yeah, folks, if you could just let the the gentleman answer, please. Based on our preliminary survey, there are not many muscles in the envelope. It is not great habitat. So, it's it's impossible to know how much that would cost. Okay. The next survey to figure out what species are there, a more detailed survey is about $4,000.

And then based on what is found during that survey, it could be the end of muscle work or there might be other requirements that is dictated by the state. So we don't really know. No, we don't know. I guess it feels like that's the recurring thing. I don't know a lot about how it's a nice limitations but it just makes it hard to make these decisions when you know like I said 4,000 bucks what's that in the scheme of 5 or 10 million but you know we're talking another I don't know three 400500 billion to relocate something I don't know

I can answer I can answer the question my former community city comes we did a we had to do a draw down because we had an issue with our dam as well and it was a matter of we had previously done the survey as he said a few thousand. They had to have the staff out there during the draw down to relocate. It was literally I think it was $7 to $8,000. So it was not it's thousands of dollars. It's not, you know, beyond that. And that was a requirement once we did the survey to, you know, have people out there as the draw down happened to move the muscles. have any idea about the migrating birds and there's nesting eagles there right now.

So that that would be a question that's answered during the environmental assessment. Bald eagles is one of the species that's that's um it's a fire listed species. So that's that's why I bring it up. And would they would they nest there? I don't know. Probably not. Um eagles are found on rivers throughout Michigan. You know, they feed in the rivers. Would they nest there? I don't know.

They do. They last off to the west. So, do we have any final questions before we wrap up tonight? Again, all of the information is online and then I'll pass off with some closing statements from our our colleagues. Any final burning questions? And of course, you can always reach out um that damn mi.gov um or reach out to the the city manager. Um yes, we keep hearing this is like this is an impending decision that needs to be made. I haven't heard like what's what do we have a timeline like when when this decision will be made.

Ultimately that's up to council but my recommendation from the city management and what we've been discussing is we need to make a decision by the end of the calendar year uh pretty much because we need to either pursue you know funding for removal or funding for rehabilitation one or the other and how we're going to do that. So it is it is becoming timely because as was mentioned you know the inspections are showing that they some of the some of the gates some of the pure walls are continuing to deteriorate. So we probably only have two to three years left on those that you know repairs have to be made. So we have to make a decision in my mind within a year so that we can then proceed with funding and final engineering and permitting.

You can always reach out to council as well. council.gov. Um, we prefer it to go to Dan and MI.gov just so that if it's question answer or someone else in engineering who has expertise to answer and then she'll forward them on to us. But either way, we are open and available to chat with as well obviously since we are the politicians. We're the ones who you elected to make these decisions for you, not them. So feel free to reach out to us as well. But I'm gonna pass it back over to folks for closing statement. I think you covered it. Just uh the in terms of the followup uh obviously the information is posted online. Encourage you go to the uh so the just Google SLE Michigan DAM and it'll pop up um uh right to that page. It's basically comes right up on a Google search and then also at the email damsel.gov. We encourage you to email that with any final comments and my understanding is you we will have it as a discussion item for council coming up. Um and then you know ultimately you know, probably in the next few months a decision request one way, one direction or the other.

I'll speak for my colleagues here when I say these are really helpful conversations for us because it gets us to have questions that we may be able to ask. Um, it gets us thinking about things as well. So, um, I think I speak for all of us when I say thank you all for attending tonight. This was a really great conversation. I feel more informed about what the community wants. I obviously feel more important about what these studies have shown. Did either of you anyone want to say anything else?

I would just like to say uh the old mill has not been brought up and I understand this is about the dam, but we will be greatly affected by anything that happens because it was part of this whole river system. But we have an open house every Saturday. Anybody can come down and see inside the building. people people are that come most of our weddings honestly are from out of they're not from and when they come into the whole area they're just flabbergasted by it honestly and I doubt I don't think you ever been in the building I come on down every Saturday we're there and I'm there every Monday and Thursday too so if anybody wants to come and visit can walk around the building walk in the building walk around the property we have a lot of people that come and just walk around because it is a park setting down So, um I think you'd be surprised. So,

why that was and I guess I just wanted to add um kind of stick around as long as whoever wants to talk. I'd love to talk oneonone. I'm much more comfortable in that environment than this one. So, please come ask me questions. I I brought some additional detail or some references if you want to ask more questions. So, thank you for coming.