SALEM TOWNSHIP - Salem Township will dip into its general fund next week for $50,000 to meet its regular $112,000 sewer debt payment. But when the next bill comes due June 1, officials hope to have a plan in place to find new users for the three-year-old, $2 million system and infuse cash into the failing sewer fund.
A priority in March will be to poll residents of the hamlet area to determine if they need or want additional taps into the sewer system, Supervisor Fred Roperti said.
"We want to find out what the residents want first, before we make our next move," Roperti said.
A committee - including Roperti, Treasurer Linda Hamilton, residents of the hamlet area, and representatives from the industrial area and from the township at large - has been established to assess the hamlet's needs. It is also considering expansion of the sewer system, including which direction any expansion would go - west to serve residential users, or east into the industrial sector.
The 65-acre hamlet in the northeast corner of Washtenaw County built the sewer system three years ago under a Department of Environmental Quality mandate. Federal funds were used as seed money to build the system, with engineers projecting five new customers coming on line each year at $13,000 each, enough to meet the annual debt.
But only five new taps were sold in the three years since, and the debt stands at $1.9 million.
Salem Hills Golf Club on Six Mile Road has requested 10 taps, but that would expand the system outside its current borders. In addition, the Salem Industrial Property Owners along Salem and Chubb roads have requested inclusion, another border expansion.
To date, 139 taps remain, Roperti said.