By Meg Peters
Review Co-Editor
A house fire on Sheron Street in November has proven to be the catalyst for Lake Orion to extensively review their deficient water pressures in sections of their outdated water system.
President Ken Van Portfliet pledged Monday night at the council meeting the village would eradicate all water system and fire hydrant deficiencies in order to continue the intergovernmental water agreement with Orion Township for the sale, purchase and delivery of water.
‘The real point here is there has been more progress done in the last five weeks than in the last 18 years, and that will continue. I’m not sure why that won’t continue,? he said.
Reports from village engineers Hubbell, Roth & Clark (HRC) have called for updates to the system, including updating four and six inch mains, since 1977.
When Village Manager Darwin McClary took office in 2013, there were no regular programs in place for the maintenance of hydrants or water main valves, he said, noting it is the village’s responsibility to maintain the water system.
At the meeting, the village put together a tentative plan, involving a water reliability study procured by their engineers and possible purchase of dry fire hydrants in sections of the village water system where pressures are inadequate for the time being.
Orion Township Supervisor Chris Barnett made it clear after a presentation to council members that the township would continue supplying resources to the village DPW if actual progress is made.
‘If a material difference happens in the system, if you find a deficient valve, we are happy to go back and re-test [hydrant pressure].?
After the township completed its list of village fire hydrant inspections Sept. 1, assistant Fire Chief John Pender reported to village DPW Director Jeremy Richert that, ‘our major issue seems to be Bellevue Island and Central Dr. There is very little to no pressure in these areas.?
Twenty-two hydrants in that area read pressures in the single digits, and three read no pressure at all, according to their reports.
When the fire occurred Nov. 20 fire fighters could not pump any water from the closest hydrant on Sheron due to nonexistent pressure.
The house was lost with damages totaling about $750,000.
Shortly after, the village began systematically checking hydrant water pressures and water main valves to try and isolate where the lack of pressure started and ended.
So far, no answers have been found.
‘If it’s not a valve issue, one of my suspicions is that it may be an iron build up problem in old sections of the system. A large part of our system is a very old water main, I would say probably 70 years or older,? he said.
The village has recently awarded a $32,000 bid to their engineers Hubbel Roth and Clark to perform the first ever Water System Reliability Study on Lake Orion, as now mandated by the state of Michigan.
The report will compute water system flows discovered by the fire department and DPW to assess where lagging water pressure is, and where the main needs to be replaced, with dollar figures.
According to HRC engineer Tom Biehl who presented to council members Monday, about 30,000 feet of the village water system is six inch piping, including roughly 2,000 feet of four-inch piping.
There are also sections of four-inch piping on four areas of the township that are serviced by the village water system including Winter Sub south of the village, Corners Court, Orion Road, and Mariday.
?1977 was the first time I said we should be updating the two’s, four’s, and six’s. You’ve taken care of the two-inch mains, some of the four’s, and are now looking at the six’s,? Biehl said.
The reliability study will be a 20-year plan to indicate what needs to be updated in the short term, while also looking into the future.
‘There are a lot of older communities that have four and six inch, and it’s not imperative it be replaced immediately. In the long term, and we’ve been saying this for a while now, they should be replacing the fours and sixes and get them up to eight inch size. They need 1,500 gallons per minute and a residual pressure of 20 psi, and an eight inch main is capable of providing that.?
The report will be completed by June 30.
Segments of the downtown have already been replaced during pavement projects, and Flint St. and Broadway now sport 12-inch water mains capable of a 2,500 gallon per minute flow.
McClary had initially thought a procedure called poly pigging could help remove possible iron build up in smaller pipes. However Biehl did not recommend this procedure, as it could bust the aging infrastructure.
Instead, he recommended what Fire Chief Bob Smith said earlier in the meeting: implementing dry fire hydrants to the three areas of the village currently unprotected by regular fire hydrants, namely Lake Orion’s islands or peninsulas.
A dry hydrant places a non-pressurized pipe into a lake or pond to provide fire tankers water to refill their trucks if no other sources are available.
They run $15,000 to $20,000 apiece, and would depend on acquiring easements.
The village said it would be obtaining a proposal from HRC to explore the dry fire hydrant option.
Currently the water and sewer department has about $1.7 million in their fund reserves.
Biehl also offered other long-term options, such as applying for a Drinking Water Revolving Fund loan after the state accepts the village’s water reliability report. Basically the village would prepare a project’such as updating all the four and six inch water mains’and the state would loan 100 percent of the money at about a 2.5 percent interest rate.
His rough estimate to replace Lake Orion’s six and four inch water mains at $150 per foot equates to $4.5 million.