City Administrator, Nathan Burd, spoke first and said from the minute he joined the staff, he’s known about the water quality issue the City has faced. This past March the City began conducting sampling of Wolf Creek followed by weekly samplings in the River Raisin. It was from this data that our club was advised not to make contact with the River Raisin due to increasing levels of E-coli (from fecal contamination from cattle waste in farm fields, failing septic systems, algae blooms, etc.) during its annual cleanup that was in September. Nathan then asked Will, the City’s Director of Utilities, to speak about their findings.Will said that the data collected was sent to the state for further analysis. Numbers were initially low, he said. When spring came it was unusually wet which caused a lot of run off and consequently the numbers started to elevate. 300 E-coli per 100M parts, he said, was the standard. By April of this year, the numbers did start going up. Fortunately, Will said, there have been no algae blooms occurring this year. The City worked closely with the Loch Erin Property Association this year, he said. “Yet, it is difficult to track where the actual contamination is coming from”.
Will said that about 80% of Adrian water comes from the well field (ground water source) off Hamilton Highway and 20% from Lake Adrian (surface source). It was the water, Will said, from Lake Adrian that caused to bad taste. Will said that invariably the City always gets complaints about the water every year. It picked up a bit in 2017 though.
For more information about this issue please visit the City of Adrian’s website.