Parke Lake residents have spoken – and the City of Clarkston’s engineering firm has paid attention.
At Monday’s Clarkston City Council meeting, Gary Tressel of Hubbell, Roth and Clark, the city’s engineering firm, announced HRC will modify its plan for the water pipe east of Main Street on Clarkston Road, eliminating a piece of the pipe lying underground on Clarkston Road.
“The only thing they’re changing is to repair the storm sewer and to make a slight modification at the hookup on Main Street,” City Manager Art Pappas said.
The action came in response to a Feb. 3 meeting of lake residents, at which Tressel was present.
At that meeting, Dr. Tom Stone, a Robertson Court resident, had announced that plans from Hubbell, Roth & Clark for the water and storm water management construction on M-15 and Clarkston Road will result in a depositing of untreated storm water from Clarkston Road directly into Parke Lake.
The residents were vocal at the Feb. 3 meeting in their opposition to a pipe built across their property, and as a result, Tressel announced at Monday’s council meeting that HRC would not proceed with that plan.
“It was very apparent that wasn’t going to get approved,” Tressel said.
Resident Dave McCarty felt Monday’s discussion was a step in the right direction. “If nothing else, we’ve increase awareness of the problem,” he said.
Stone implored the city to continue to search for ways to limit the amount of stormwater runoff into Parke Lake.
“There comes a time when you have to say, ‘Aren’t we in the 21st century?’,” he said. “We have greater concerns about what goes on with our water than we did 100 years ago. We need to take a look at our own waters. We’ve been unwittingly funneling heavy amounts of water and using Parke Lake as a repository…Sometime, we’ve got to take responsibility for the impact of what we’re doing. We have to implement some filtration techniques.”
McCarty agreed with his neighbor’s assessment. “No journey starts without the first step,” he said.
Pappas stated the city has been working with Independence, Springfield and White Lake townships, all members of the Clinton River Watershed Council, to determine ways to best protect local bodies of water.
Stone was pleased with how the Feb. 3 citizens’ meeting went.
“I thought there was an excellent turnout on such short notice,” he said. “It was diverse in representing the people of the community. There were people from Parke Lake, Main, Washington and all the areas surrounding Parke Lake. I thought it showed a clear concern about protecting Parke Lake and a concern that our waterways should be kept reasonably pure.”
At the end of the Feb. 3 meeting, Stone talked about the need for residents to take water samples of Parke Lake in order to prove there is stormwater runoff contaminating the lake. “You need to be aware this is a problem,” he said.
In other business, the council:
nApproved a resolution stating residents of Pinehurst should repair their bridges so work on Phase II of the city’s water project can begin in their area; otherwise, the special assessment district for the area will be amended to remove their residences from the district.
nApproved the following parade dates: Memorial Day (May 26), Fourth of July, Labor Day (Sept. 1) and Christmas (Dec. 13)
nApproved a resolution congratulating the Clarkston Area Chamber of Commerce on their 15th anniversary.
nPaid February’s bills in the amount of $270,119.85.