Repairs have been completed after a broken pipe left sewage leaking into a northwest Michigan lake for months.
The leak began in mid-January but wasn’t discovered until early March.
Some one million gallons of sewage are believed to have leaked into Betsie Lake, although experts said the environmental impact is relatively minor due to colder weather and river flow pushing much of it into Lake Michigan.
Jake Riley is an environmental quality analyst with the Department of Environmental Quality. He said they initially thought the leak was a number of other issues.
“That’s why this leak took so long, they believed it was an issue with their flow meter for the incoming flow and then after that was resolved and they noticed there was still an issue they were checking some pumps because they thought they might have a pumping issue.”
Riley said once they determined a broken pipe was behind the issue, it was shut down and replaced.
He said this incident serves as an example of why monitoring and inspections are so important for wastewater infrastructure.