Ludington City Council, December 19, 2016: You Can Lead a Goose to Water...

[XLFD]

The last Ludington City Council meeting of the year featured the typical stuff that happens at the end of the year: 

passing the budget and capital improvement plan for the next year:  done unanimously with pats on the back

passing the pay raises for the clerk, treasurer and city manager:  done unanimously with pats on their back

reappointing the city attorneys with pay raises:  Mika Meyers was rehired without any raise (they got a big enough payoff with their incredible $50,000 agreement to handle mundane legal issues for the city's water and wastewater improvements) but the County Prosecutor Paul Spaniola was given a small raise.  Need I say, more pats on their attorney backs.

setting the meeting dates for the next year:  2nd & 4th Mondays of a month, except March and December at 6:30 PM at City Hall, and

appointing boards of the city that meet before the council's first meeting of the year, so that they can start the year with fresh appointees, if there are any.

But they also had a few other things to do that evening that weren't routine.  Three Ludington firefighters were specially commended by Mason County Sheriff Kim Cole for their part in preventing an attempted suicide at the county jail.  Gary Walton, Andy Larr and Scot Latimer, were given a certificate of appreciation for their services in that matter.  I've served with each of them; the recognition of their service (particularly Larr's) is long overdue. 

Kaley Peterson presented “Be Someone's angel” (at 23:45 in), a fundraiser for the local Cancer Service Center. The fundraiser will be an effort to break the world record of the most amount of sand angels created simultaneously and will be held on June 10, 2017 at Stearn's Beach.  Odd, my mind wandered around this point for about a minute, imagining Kaley Peterson making a sand angel with suitable beach attire on.  The fundraiser was approved, and seems a lot better thought out than Mayor Henderson's attempt to make a world record with 9000 simultaneous snow angels about six years back.

But shortly after this the other business on the agenda came within the public safety/utilities committee reports.  Three projects for the utility upgrades had multiple bidders but only one winner.  Hallack Contracting easily beat the competition in each bid, surprising the city and their engineer in reducing the projected costs several hundred thousand dollars less than what was estimated. 

That was good news, but the first thoughts of what they should do with the extra money mirrored what they said regarding the budget earlier.  Councilor Johnson had noted during the talk of the budget that the city had a revenue generating problem, and this was universally agreed to by all.  But what wasn't discussed was that there was no fat on the budget to cut.  The additional $600,000 to $800,000 that was 'saved' by getting lower bids could easily be applied to reducing the amount they wanted to raise your water and sewer bills, but this is not in the cards.

The contract the city used to get the Lakeshore Lumber property for a future fire station was mildly amended to reflect that they needed to add a Response Activity Plan to the Michigan DEQ, rather than a Due Care Plan-- a mostly cosmetic change.  An agreement with the MDOT was passed unanimously, the pact would allow the City of Ludington to hold events on state roads (Ludington Avenue, Lakeshore Avenue and James Street).

As for public comment, I decided to avoid a couple of topics on the agenda and instead politely admonish a couple of councilors for their statements at the last meeting.  The only other public comment was from County Commissioner Bill Carpenter at (1:05), who gave a rather ambivalent message about the city after my second comment, he did give a nod to the lead issue I raisedat first.   My comments follow the video of the meeting, which start at ( at 3:40 and 1:02:00 into the meeting)

December 19th, 2016 Ludington City Council meeting from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.

"The minutes from last meeting states that Councilor Winczewski said that residents can still purchase pipes with lead in them and that they can still purchase lead faucets made in China at Lowe's.  While that is not exactly what she said, it is still in error and the minutes should be amended to reflect that Lowe's does not sell lead faucets.  This is potentially slanderous and harmful to this local retailer.

I can say with great confidence that Lowe's sells only lead-free plumbing materials.  This was confirmed when I talked with Dale from Lowe's who explained it was impossible for them to sell any faucet that wasn't lead free.  The definition of lead free became more stringent in 2011, and I was assured that any brass fixture that may have been left on the shelf inadvertently since that time would have come up as unsellable when it came to the cashier.  Home Depot told me the same thing.

A final affirmation was received later from Lowe's corporate, after I told them a city councilor told the public that their company was still selling lead faucets.  They told me:  "Lowe's is committed to ensuring that our vendors properly label products pursuant to all federal and state consumer safety requirements.  Our global sourcing policies require vendors to meet or exceed all product safety regulations outlined by individual states in the U.S. and the federal governments in the U.S. and Canada."

In simpler terms, they never have and never will sell any water faucets that aren't lead-free.  The statement by the councilor was, to coin a phrase, “ridiculous and irresponsible”. 

Councilor Winczewski did implore me to educate the public, that's what I have been doing and will continue to do even if officials unreasonably try to silence my voice or ridicule my position with lies like this and the whopper that there is no lead in the water system of Ludington.  

I asked the city manager at the last meeting to present some evidence that the city's water supply pipes were lead-free, I have heard nothing back.  Consider that a vast majority of our supply pipes were in place before the Safe Drinking Water Act was passed, and that a significant portion of our drinking water infrastructure was put into place before the use of lead pipes came into disfavor in the 1950s, it would be a miracle if the City didn’t have lead pipes or solder in them."

Still, lead in the city's water delivery system wouldn't be that big of an issue if Ludington and Mason County wouldn't continue to show up at the very top of the cities and counties that have children under 6 years of age with dangerous blood lead levels.  Infants and toddlers are getting this lead from somewhere, and it's not from the air they breathe. 

And don't insult our intelligence by telling us it's lead paint from our older houses.  Muskegon County has a higher percentage of older houses than us and they had a rate twenty four times smaller than us in 2013, when Mason County lead the state easily. 

City officials, like it or not, you are responsible for running this utility that we are forced to hook up to if we live in the city.  You can't just be dismissive of the issue and have any credibility to the people who elected you and see state-leading levels of blood lead in our kids over the last three years.  

My hope at this time, right before Christmas, a time of the year we try to do so much for our kids, that our city leaders hearts collectively grow bigger while becoming more proactive in finding out why our young kids are getting stricken with high blood lead levels and why our mandated lead tests are being performed not only on houses that should not have a lead issue, but also on houses where the owner would have a conflict of interest in getting accurate test results. 

For the tests to mean anything they must test at risk houses and be performed by those worried they may have lead issues.  Like all those parents of kids that have tested high over the last three years.  Thank you, and Merry Christmas."

The communications from city officials at the end of the meeting surprised even me.  At 1:09:00 Councilor Rathsack commented for a few minutes on a prioritized sidewalk improvement plan, not unlike what I and others had brought forth when the City tried to pass one that made no sense last year.  The councilor even mentioned me as doing something on a positive note.

At 1:12:50, Councilor Kathy Winczewski apologized to Lowe's for her misinformation, what I had pointed out at the beginning of the meeting.  This was perhaps the most unexpected thing I've seen at the council, a councilor actually admitting their error.  It was nice to hear her admit it, unfortunate in that even in her short statement, she was still giving out bad data.  Councilor Krauch followed up with a call to bring in the City's experts in an upcoming meeting to effectively debunk some of the myths that were out there. 

John Shay agreed to this (1:16:50), but again, both he and Krauch tried to put words into my mouth.  "Most of the old water mains are either ductile iron or cast iron, galvanized.  We have seen occasional lead goosenecks that attach the service line to the water main from time to time, but he who has dug through this city for many years has not seen, as has been alleged, lead water mains and lead water service lines all over town."

Being that there really hasn't been a lot of drinking water system projects during Shay's tenure, the admission of some lead goosenecks (as seen above) while effectively saying 'most of the old water mains are (not lead)' doesn't inspire me with a lot of confidence.  And to my knowledge, nobody has publicly claimed that lead water mains and service lines are all over town, so why does he claim that?

There is a mystery.  Blood lead levels in really young kids are elevated in our area, our mandated tests (improperly taken) show some lead in the water, yet our officials tell us there is none.  Schools test positive for mega-lead in the water, so an official tries to tell us that a local hardware store sells lead faucets, the water sat too long, and that the city has no lead in their system-- which Lowe's and even John Shay later admits is false, as per the lead goosenecks he mentions.  

Councilor Castonia suggested I spend some time in Flint, and shortly after the meeting was adjourned.  Pay the bus fare, Gary, but make sure it's not just one-way.

[AQUAMAN]

And again, we have Snowflake CC Kathy trying to get out of her misinformation, by citing the date of 2011, not 1986, as the more stringent lead rulings for sales by Lowes. Don't think that is accurate, but, she again uses that wrongful date to imply her misstatements weren't that dated, when of course they are over 30 years now. And one other comment by CC Castonia is also unwarranted, stating that X should move to Flint to see what real lead water is. If I remember correctly, Flint City officials were caught with fake tests and also caught lieing to the public about that matter over and over again, before the truths came out. Is that too what we'll see reflected when City Water officials come to speak in the New Year? Methinks they will, and not seek nor advise on newer testing performed, but some dated tests that are not today's results. Time will tell. Thanks again X for being proactive on the water lead issues that are potentially very dangerous to all the public, whether they care or not, they need a awareness, thanks.

[Willy]

Lead main water lines may not be common but the lines from the main to houses were commonly made of lead.I can't believe that those in charge of the City's water distribution do not have information regarding where lead service lines are located. Many times occupants of dwellings can see the lead pipe coming into the house so it's up to each resident to check and see what material their water lines are made of. what most people don't know is that many water mains were made of wood.

[Willy]

How to identify a lead water service line