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The Hastings Banner — Thursday, May 18, 2023 — Page 3

Debate continues to swirl over lake level project on

Pine Lake; Drain commissioner’s office at a standstill

Jayson Bussa
Editor
County efforts to probe methods for con-
trolling the lake level of Pine Lake in Prai-
rieville Township have stalled, the latest chap-
ter in a long-running and contentious matter.
Barry County Drain Commissioner Jim Dull
appeared in front of the county’s Committee of
the Whole on Tuesday morning requesting a
pledge of full faith and credit from the county
for his department to complete a permit with
Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great
Lakes and Energy that would allow him to
pump water from Pine Lake into a nearby
gravel pit in Gun Plain Township (Allegan
County) to see if it is a feasible way of con-
trolling the level of the lake.
Dull originally wanted to conduct this
experiment in April but could not because he
had not yet secured an irrevocable line of
credit with the bank. The drain commission-
er’s office had planned to leverage the coun-
ty’s credit standing to provide EGLE with a
$150,000 surety bond, which is required to
secure the permit.
The $150,000 was not an expense and
would likely not have been drawn on.
However, citing a disagreement over the
high legal lake limit of Pine Lake – or if there

is even one established – Commissioner Mark Doster, who represents that district, convinced the board to put the brakes on the entire effort. Doster lobbied for the county board to remove itself entirely from the process of setting a legal lake level and suggested that the residents take up the issue directly through a petition process. Until the courts established the high lake level, Doster did not want the county spending any more money on the project – not even the minimal

costs associated with experimental pumping to the gravel pit. David Tripp, an attorney with Hast- ings-based Tripp, Tagg & Storrs Attorneys at Law, is representing a group of lake residents organized under the name Friends of Pine Lake. He also represented a group called the Pine Lake Association in a 1996 effort to establish a legal lake level. In his experience, he said that a clear majority of lake residents are not interested in controlling the level of the lake.

Tripp spoke during the public comment portion of Tuesday’s meeting. “It should be the small, vocal members around Pine Lake who want this that can file an action in circuit court. That's where this belongs,” he said. The Committee of the Whole ultimately voted to table the request for a full faith and credit pledge, which handcuffs Dull’s efforts to explore this project further. “I want to clarify with you tabling the full faith and credit – and I want everyone to understand – we will not be able to finalize our permit,” Dull stated at the end of the meeting to commissioners. “Without being able to finalize our permit, we will not be able to pump to the gravel pit. Without pumping to the gravel pit, we can’t see if it’s feasible. I want it on record that the commissioners are okay with this. Because I will get a lot of blowback.” The Pine Lake issue initially resurfaced late last year when the current Board of Com- missioners felt it best to table the issue so the newly-seated board could address it. Ever since, a steady parade of Pine Lake residents have appeared in front of commissioners at both Board of Commissioner and Committee of the Whole meetings. These residents have been on both sides of the issue

for and against controlling the level of the
lake. Some residents who saw their properties
flooded and damaged were among those to

speak to commissioners. Meanwhile, Dull and his office issued surveys to residents of Pine Lake to compile data on what they were looking to achieve in regards to a lake level. In 1969, Barry County circuit court established a lake level for Pine Lake. In 1997, the courts modified the language around the lake level, stating that a “normal” level was 890.5 feet, a judgment that still stands. But the 890.5-foot mark isn’t considered the high level. 890.0 feet is considered low and would trigger pumps to start adding water to the lake while many channels would be difficult or impossible to navigate. And that is a sticking point. “The numbers that you’re using and the legal level you keep referring to, 890.5 (feet), was set as a low lake level,” Doster told Dull. Dull shook his head in disagreement. “Yes, it was,” Doster said. “Every single person on Pine Lake will tell you that that’s what it is. You’re the only person that believes you have the authority to drain down to that level when there are 18 pages of court orders explaining that that is the lower level for the pumps to pump up to. Before you go one iota further and spend any more money, you need to set a high lake level.” Board Chairman Dave Jackson said the board would discuss the matter further and look into Doster’s grievances and suggestions about the process.

The Barry County Christian–Kilpatrick
Campus will be located at 10005 E. Barnum
Road, the same address as the church. But,
instead of using church facilities, Strong said
that the school will bring in portable class-
rooms similar to those utilized for additional
space at the school’s flagship campus in
Hastings.
The Woodland school will initially accept
students in kindergarten through fifth grade
with the hope of eventually expanding it to
kindergarten through eighth grade and then
kindergarten through 12th grade in the com-
ing years. Registration is now open.
This new campus wasn’t one that Strong
and the team at BCCS necessarily logged any
long-term planning for, but it fell into place
after Kilpatrick Church approached the
school to learn more about the ins and outs of
starting and operating a Christian school.
Rocky Spear, the lead pastor for Kilpatrick
Church, said that the idea was sparked
through conversations with parishioners
about the benefits of a Christian education
and the challenges families have faced with
traditional public school.
“We formed an exploratory team to talk to
(Christian) schools and parents to see what
the need was,” Spear explained. “What they
came back with was a very encouraging
report to us as a team where we thought it
would be a good idea for us to pursue. It was
part of that exploratory team that had a con-
nection with Brandon and Barry County
Christian Schools. It led to further conversa-
tions between the two and ultimately led to
where we are today.”
In addition to hosting the campus on its
grounds as the new school seeks land for a
permanent campus, Kilpatrick Church will
shoulder some of the financial burden of
launching the campus.
“I think, additionally, we have those in our
congregation that God has blessed them with
financial abundance, and there will be assis-

tance and people investing in the future of the school through that,” Spear said. “I think it all coincides with the vision we have as a congregation.” In its exploration efforts, the leadership team at Kilpatrick Church uncovered con- cerns families had with traditional public education – one of them being the lack of disciplinary avenues or discretion, which can lead to classroom disruptions. Some parents were also seeking the freedom to teach a school curriculum through a religious lens. “As followers of Christ, there are biblical principles that, due to our culture today, they’re not allowed to teach in public school settings, and so, as we looked at all this, we have a responsibility as parents to train our children and educate our children in a bibli- cally principled kind of way.” Spear made sure to dispel the notion or misconception that, by establishing a school of their own, they were against local public schools.

“I think it’s important to say that, as we pursue this, we are not pursuing as enemies of public schools,” he said. “We’re not enemies of them – we’re grateful there is education happening. It’s not a decision of us versus them. If we’re able to do this, it allows for our children to have a perspec- tive on life that is more in alignment with the scripture as what we teach as a church versus what they’re able to teach in a public setting.” Barry County Christian has been operating in Hastings for 50 years. In March 2020, school administrators established a Mid- dleville campus, which leases space inside Leighton Church. However, Strong said the school is actively working to establish a permanent campus in that same area. In Middleville, the school hired new prin- cipal Benjamin Kirsch in October of last year after a lengthy search. Currently, the Hastings campus has 162 students, and Middleville has 47 students.

“In July or April, we could (still use cop-
per sulfate). It’s still legal; it’s still permit-
ted. It would be available for use,” Filpan-
sick told the board. “The reason for the
restriction on the permit was to protect fish
eggs during peak spawning season. So (the
Michigan Department of Environmental
Quality) on the permits now says you can’t
use copper sulfate during May and June.
That’s not even an option right now. The
industry standard, in that case, is a chelated
copper algaecide.”
It won’t be the first time that SOLitude has
used the peroxygen-based treatment for the
lake. Last August, the consultant used PAK
27, a peroxygen-based algaecide.
“It worked as well as the copper-based
algaecides – no worse, no better,” Filpansick
said.
One of the areas to be treated is the channel
of the swimming beach at the Yankee Springs
Recreation Area, which “is inundated with
invasive milfoil and curly-leaf pondweed,”
Filpansick reported.
“Because there’s that boat launch in there,
(we’re) concerned that boat traffic in and out
of that could transfer these invasive plants,”
Filpansick said.
Board member Deb Masselink, who rep-
resents the Gun Lake Protective Association
on the GLIB board, presented a report on
sediment samples taken from the lake at the
end of March. The GLPA, representing about
1,000 property owners on and around the
lake, contracted the engineering firm Prein &
Newhof to take 18 samples from various
channel locations around Gun Lake, all of
which had been treated with copper-based
herbicides.
The average copper level in the lake itself
was found to be 3.36 milligrams per kilo-
gram. However, levels were much higher in

channels near the Sunrise Shores neighbor- hood on the northwest side of the lake, where levels of copper in the sediment ranged from 376 to 848 milligrams per kilogram, Mas- selink said. “We have a lot of copper built into the sed- iments,” Masselink said. “There’s a lot of variables that affect how toxic that copper is to the benthic fauna, the little creatures, the little wigglers that live in the muck.” However, Masselink reassured citizens about the impact of the copper in the sediment. “The copper is buried in the muck. It is not hurting humans. It is not hurting pets,” she said. Bryker sent a letter to GLIB and SOLitude late last year, asking for changes in how the lake is treated and how they report their find- ings on the lake’s water quality and plant activity. Bryker did not attend the May 11 meeting, but SOLitude representatives responded to more than 15 questions he sub- mitted. “The report speaks only to invasive aquatic plants. Nothing was stated about the health (or) quantity of native aquatic vegetation. A healthy fish population requires a balanced ecosystem that includes native aquatic vegetation. I consider this assessment very short-sighted,” Bryker wrote in his letter. Ashlee Haviland, an aquatic program spe- cialist for SOLitude, said the surveys and reports “focus on invasive and nuisance plants because that is the purpose of the lake board and the task of the lake consultant.” “Currently, there are no reliable methods for propagating native plants, so the program focuses on controlling invasive plants and allowing native plants that naturally repopu- late the littoral zone (the area of the lake close to the shore),” Haviland said.

Bryker also suggested eliminating phos- phorus and alkalinity tests from the testing protocol. “I would advocate including some more meaningful testing such as total nitrogen and possibly ortho-phosphate at all the same points,” he wrote. “The other testing I would include are some sediment sample testing for heavy metals (copper from past algaecide treatments) and total carbon (from decomposition of the aquatic vegetation from herbicide treatments). This testing should absolutely be done in the canals.” Haviland said that measuring pH and alka- line levels have been part of the lake testing protocol since 2004 and still have value. “First, these are very easy and inexpen- sive parameters to test. Yes, they can be very consistent, but that is the benefit because any changes alert us to potential pollution events,” Haviland said. “Further- more, the interaction between alkalinity, pH and dissolved oxygen helps us better gauge the overall water quality of the lake. Any changes to the testing protocol included in the current project from 2022 to 2024 would need to be made by the Gun Lake Improvement Board and quoted by (SOLi- tude). The other option would be to revise the testing protocol for the next (request for proposals).” Masselink agreed that testing for pH and alkalinity should continue. “One of the critical things that affects how toxic copper can be, whether or not a creature can eat and if it’s going to kill them, is pH and alkalinity. Those are very important numbers for us.” GLIB is scheduled to hold its next meeting Thursday, June 15, at 6 p.m. at the Oran- geville Township Hall, 7350 Lindsey Rd.

PRAIRIEVILLE TOWNSHIP ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE

TO: THE RESIDENTS AND PROPERTY OWNERS OF THE TOWNSHIP OF PRAIRIEV- ILLE, BARRY COUNTY, MICHIGAN, AND ANY OTHER INTERESTED PERSONS:

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that a public hearing will be held on June 7, 2023 com- mencing at 7:00 p.m. at the Prairieville Township Hall, 10115 S. Norris Rd., Delton MI, 49046 within the Township, as required under the provisions of the Michigan Zoning En- abling Act and the Zoning Ordinance for the Township.

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that, In addition to participation during an public hearing, members of the public may also provide comments for the Zoning Board of Appeal’s consideration by emailing or mailing those comments to the Zoning Board of Appeal’s for receipt prior to the meeting, in care of the Township Zoning Administrator, Mark Thompson ([email protected]) or by leaving a phone message prior to the meeting with the Township Zoning Administrator, Mark Thompson at 269-948-4088.

PLEASE TAKE FURTHER NOTICE that the item(s) to be considered at said public hearing include, in brief, the following:

A request from property owners Joel and Catherine Schneck, 305 Grandview
Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI 49001 for a variance to allow for the construction of
a new single-family dwelling that fails to meet the front and/or rear setbacks,
pursuant to section 4.24 “Waterfront Lots” and 4.41 “Schedule of Lot, Yard, and
Area Requirements” of the Prairieville Township Zoning Ordinance. The subject
site is located at 11103 Long Point Dr, Plainwell, MI 49080. Parcel #08-12-290-
057-00 and is currently zoned R2-Single and Two Family, Medium Residential.

Such other business as may properly come before the Zoning Board of Appeals.
All interested persons are invited to be present at the aforesaid time and place,
or, if an electronic meeting is held, to participate via the electronic meeting.

Prairieville Township will provide necessary reasonable auxiliary aids and services, to individuals with disabilities at the hearing upon four (4) days’ prior notice to the Township Clerk. Individuals with disabilities requiring auxiliary aids or services should contact the Township Clerk at the address or telephone number listed below.

PRAIRIEVILLE TOWNSHIP ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS By: Dale Grimes, Chairperson Prairieville Township Hall 11015 S. Norris Rd. Delton, Michigan 49046 (269) 623-

199680

CHRISTIAN, continued from page 1 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Barry County Christian School recently celebrated its 50th anniversary at its main campus in Hastings. It also operates a K-12 campus in the Middleville area.

GUN LAKE, continued from page 1 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Sheriff’s office warns

residents against phone scam

The Barry County Sheriff’s Office shared a post on social media this week warning residents against a phone scam where scammers pose as sheriff’s deputies. According to the sheriff’s office, the scam caller will tell the person that there is a warrant out for their arrest. They will claim the reason for the warrant stems from anything from a traffic violation to missed jury duty. The scammer will then tell vic- tims that they can either surrender them- selves to the sheriff’s office for arrest or make a payment to cancel the warrant. The imposters will likely ask for payment through gift cards, money orders or a payment app. “Although the sheriff’s office will some- times make calls to inform individuals about a warrant, the sheriff’s office will

never ask for payment over the phone or offer to negotiate a reduced payment in lieu of arrest,” wrote the Barry County Sher- iff’s Office on social media. This latest alert follows another warning from the sheriff’s office about the scam in January. Anyone who has been a victim of a scam of this kind by providing private information such as Social Security or banking information is asked to report the scam to the non-emergency line of the Barry Coun- ty Central Dispatch, 269-948-4800 (option 1). Anyone who purchased gift cards or money orders to pay a fraudulent warrant is also asked to report it. The sheriff’s office urges anyone who suspects they are talking to a scammer to immediately hang up.

Barry County Drain Commissioner Jim Dull (left) and attorney Doug Kelly (right) field questions from county commissioners during Tuesday morning’s Committee of the Whole meeting. (Photo by Jayson Bussa)

Pine Lake in Prairieville and Gun Plain Townships is at the center of fierce debate over a potential lake level project. (File photo by Karen Turko-Ebright)

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