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Genesee county begins water service from new treatment facility

Tony Hammond
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https://flic.kr/p/E4p2bu

Genesee County began delivering water from Lake Huron Monday to several townships through its new treatment plant.

The water will be phased in across the county this week, starting in northern townships and moving south.

Jeff Wright is the Genesee County Drain Commissioner. He said the phase-in will allow pressure and bacteria tests to be completed along some portions of the water line.

“We’re already in the process of doing that on this new pipe, who is separate from the Karegnondi pipe. This is a county pipe. Once those bact-e tests are back and the pressure test is done we’ll supply the rest of the county by the end of this week.”

Wright said the new treatment facility cost the county roughly 100 million dollars.

“72 million for the plant itself and then we also built a reservoir that will hold a 14-day water supply, 150 million gallons, that ran us about 15 million. The engineering inspection and everything else brought it up to about 100 million.”

Wright says the water will not serve the City of Flint, which last week voted to remain with the Great Lakes Water Authority for the next 30 years.

He said when the county was moving forward with their treatment facility in 2013 Flint opted out, citing the 50 million it had recently put into its own city-operated water treatment facility.

Genesee County has been running tests of water quality since July.