Water and sewer bills are going to be going up by as much as $8 a month in Three Oaks to pay for upgrades to the village’s sewage lagoons. The increases follow three months of study of the system without the waste from Journeyman Distillery, which is being shipped off elsewhere to allow officials to see if the system could handle just the regular wastewater. Village Manager Mike Greene tells us it could not.
“The strength currently going into the lagoons still exceeds the design of the lagoons, and that’s what is leading this push that we need to do something,” Greene tells WSJM News. Journeyman has been shipping its waste out of the area since this summer to help the village get an accurate assessment.
“The loading coming in has decreased substantially since Journeyman began hauling its waste away, but still high enough where we need to take action.”
Greene says their plan to upgrade the sewage lagoons will need the approval of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality before it can go forward, and he’s hoping to have the work start in August.
