TRAVERSE CITY — Garfield Township leaders said they want to end ongoing disputes over the township’s water purchase agreement with Traverse City.
Trustees voted unanimously at a recent meeting to send a letter to city commissioners asking to renegotiate the 25-year contract, which township Supervisor Joe McManus said is now in its 22nd year. He asserted that Garfield has addressed the issues city officials raised repeatedly since mid-2024, including the township reportedly exceeding its maximum allowed water usage.
State Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy officials suggested making the formal request, said Jennifer Graham, Gourdie Fraser’s director of engineering and the township’s engineer. She told township trustees the situation has reached an impasse, and her meetings with city administrators and staff haven’t progressed toward a solution.
“There’s always been a back-and-forth between the jurisdictions, but this is just— they keep compounding it and if anything, we’re getting further apart from each other,” she said. “And there’s just even more distrust, which is really unfortunate, because that’s never been the intent.”
City Attorney Lauren Trible-Laucht said many of the issues with the contract remain unresolved. She denied any foot-dragging on the city’s part, noting an ongoing process to move past one major sticking point: Garfield’s agreement to pipe water to a Long Lake Township subdivision.
While Garfield leaders want the city to approve six pending connection requests for developments in the township, Trible-Laucht said the city is still looking through a number of those requests the township OK’d without the city’s say-so in recent years, and awaiting data from upgraded or replaced flow meters.
“I hope that we can move toward a resolution on this, and I just— it’s drinking water, it’s very important, and it’s important that the city is a good steward and has the understanding of how much water there is and how much is being used,” she said.
The dispute began after Trible-Laucht responded in April to a request from Chuck Korn, then Garfield Township’s supervisor, to renegotiate the bulk water purchase contract. She listed out several items the township needed to address first, including Garfield curbing its water use after exceeding a 5 million gallon-per-day limit.
Trible-Laucht also raised Garfield’s agreement with Long Lake Township, asserting it violates Garfield and the city’s water purchase contract. Both Long Lake and Garfield officials previously sought to to keep the status quo so Garfield could serve a subdivision that had groundwater contamination.
Township and city officials seemingly can’t agree on how to settle the disputes — or even if Garfield exceeded its water usage limit to begin with.
McManus said the city’s contention that Garfield water users surpassed the 5-million-gallon-per-day mark in 2022, 2020 and 2018 is based on bad math. Flow data is based on a monthly average using a peaking factor, and McManus argued that since 2018, the Grand Traverse County Department of Public Works — the body that oversees city and township water and sewer contracts — used the wrong peaking factor, overstating Garfield’s water usage.
Graham told trustees that Garfield’s actual peak usage was more like 4.4 million gallons per day, based on a peaking factor calculated from EGLE figures of the city water plant’s production numbers. She forwarded what she contends are the correct usage calculations for 2017 through 2023 to the city in November.
Trible-Laucht rejected this, and said the peaking factor in question has been in use for several years without causing issues until city officials pointed out Garfield exceeded its maximum capacity.
“The reaction to that has been, ‘Well, let’s just change the math, let’s change the peaking factor and call it different so that Garfield is below 5 million (gallons per day) and we can just continue to issue permits,’” she said.
Garfield Township never disputed the peaking factor because it was never an issue before, McManus said. Township officials weren’t aware the wrong one was being used until the capacity argument arose. He argued the number in use is for planning purposes only, while the actual figure derived from plant production numbers and other factors shows Garfield’s use is below the limit.
“Why the city does not want to accept those numbers, I don’t know, but we’re using true math and true numbers,” he said. “The city is just using an arbitrary (peaking factor) of 1.5 and falsely claiming we’re over our water usage. I don’t know what their motive is.”
While Garfield officials agreed the township’s contract with Long Lake needed amending, both city and Garfield Township haven’t settled on a new one.
Garfield Township responded to a draft contract from the city with one of its own in December, and awaits the city’s response, McManus said.
Trible-Laucht said she was reviewing what she called a counterproposal to a draft contract the city sent in October, but wasn’t sure if she could recommend a contract that would allow Garfield to keep extending municipal water into Long Lake Township — McManus said that clause gives the city final say on any further extensions.
Garfield trustees asked Graham to draft a formal request to city commissioners, and to ask for the city to approve the six pending permits. Graham and township board members voiced their frustration with the city holding up those developments for several months. Graham said more developments are in the works, and she’s not sure what to do with their requests to connect to municipal water.
The disagreement could impact a proposal to fix water pressure issues at the Historic Barns Park, and other parts of the Village at Grand Traverse Commons.
Graham told trustees the proposal is to connect to an abandoned pump station to serve not only Historic Barns Park, but other buildings in between. That idea emerged in meetings between township, city and Traverse City and Garfield Township Joint Recreational Authority representatives. The Minervini Group and Grand Traverse County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority joined in as the concept expanded in reach.
City Municipal Utilities Director Art Krueger said connecting the other buildings is part of the plan because they sit between the lift station and Historic Barns Park. He agreed with a figure Graham cited that the project could eventually serve an equivalent of 600 residential units, if fully built out — several of the buildings have been vacant since Traverse City State Hospital closed in the 1980s.
Throughout the project’s planning, Graham said she repeatedly pointed out that connecting to Garfield’s infrastructure would require township approval. City and township likely would need an agreement to reimburse the township for using its water lines, as well as part of a recently built storage tank’s capacity.
McManus told trustees he wasn’t interested in approving such a project before renegotiating the bulk water purchase contract, calling it “hypocrisy” that the city would continue to block developments from connecting to Garfield’s water mains while considering a connection to township infrastructure.
City Manager Liz Vogel said she couldn’t comment on what was said at Garfield trustees’ meeting. But she rejected the contention that the project was thrust upon the township, noting Graham has been at all the biweekly meetings to discuss it.
“Of course we need to get a sign-off from Garfield, because it’s in Garfield,” she said.
Nor did Vogel think the project should be held up because of the bulk water contract issues, she said, as she considers them two separate matters.
Matt Cowall, Traverse City and Garfield Township Joint Recreational Authority’s executive director, said he’s also hoping the dispute doesn’t bog down the project. It’s vital for building classroom and event space, a demonstration kitchen and more in Barn 206’s second floor — that’ll be the home of Botanic Garden’s Debra J. Edson Family Education Center, as previously reported.
If anything, Cowall said he is hoping the water pressure fix could open the door to solving the overall dispute. He’s positive the two governments can find a way forward, especially as construction moves ahead at Historic Barns Park, and in keeping with the collaborative spirit behind so many projects at the former asylum. Cowall doesn’t want any delays in the water pressure fix to hold up the opening of an idea that’s years in the making.
“To have the building in mothballs while a water fight plays out would be a really sad outcome,” he said.
Whatever comes next, Garfield Township is sure to need more water than the city currently sells it — Graham said estimates put the township’s maximum daily usage near 6 million gallons per day within five years, potentially swelling to nearly 8 million over 20 years.
McManus agreed with trustee Molly Agostinelli the township needs an answer from Traverse City officials as to whether the city’s water plant can supply Garfield’s future needs or not.
“So we just need to know, the water we’re going to need in the future, if the city is able to provide that to us,” he said after the meeting. “If not, what are alternatives, what other sources can we come up with?”