By Shelby Stewart
Staff Writer
Ortonville- During the regular Monday night meeting, the village council unanimously approved a resolution to create a drainage district. The resolution is part of an effort to investigate the feasibility of hooking onto the Genesee County sewer system.
“This project is a completely different approach to sanitary sewers than what was voted on within the village in 2015,” said Village Manager Ryan Madis. “That approach called for a local plan with all of the cost falling directly on the village residents. This approach spreads the cost over several municipalities and multiple counties and multiple drainage districts, it is likely to be much more feasible for each resident than that 2015 approach.”

The project would include servicing areas of Brandon, Groveland and Holly townships, along with the Village Holly and Ortonville.
“Conversations centered around ARPA money, American Rescue Plan Act funds, that each community could commit to the project,” said Madis. “We would be willing to commit our ARPA money if Oakland County could commit the other almost 10 million to connect to that system. At this point, the conversation is still around capacity in that system because Genesee County is ready to design it. If they design it without capacity for us we will never be able to connect to it in the future.”
Once capacity is allotted, it allows for the possibility of receiving federal or state funds, but capacity would have to be guaranteed first.
“Pursuing this now allows for the engineering and feasibility of the system to be studied, as discussed at previous Village Council meetings,” he said. “After these take place, we will have a much better understanding of all associated costs and opportunities prior to incurring additional fees or the commitment of taxpayer money.”