City hopes $40K helps save banks

By Scott Sullivan
Editor
It takes bank to deal with eroding riverbanks. To that end, Saugatuck City Council agreed Monday to spend up to $40,000 installing storm sewer infrastructure on west side Kalamazoo River lots fronting Park Street.
Owners of homes at 850 and 856 Park have agreed to chip in $2,000 each for the total project, which will benefit them too.
They — the Stephen Kubica & Jacqueline Summers Revocable Living Trust at 850; and Paola & Irene Onesto, plus Drs. James Beagle and Marie Onesto-Beagle at 856 — were granted city storm sewer and erosion mitigation agreements on waterfront shown in the picture below.
Work is meant to keep docks, easements to the river and the street itself north of Mt. Baldhead Park from collapse due to high water someday.
Lake Michigan, hence attendant river water levels have dropped since setting 2020 and 2021 records, but owners of homes and municipal infrastructures then were reminded such matters historically are cyclical, plus can be costly and cyclical.
The agreement — drafted by city attorneys Chris Patterson and Hannah Stocker, engineer John Moxey, public works head Scott Herbert and Ryan Heise — was reviewed by and signed off on by the landowners as well.
It covers what city records say are unique circumstances in which Saugatuck wants to install storm sewer infrastructure on owners’ lots outside the city’s Park Street right-of-way.
The accord allows city-paid installation of a 24-inch diameter catch basin outside its 18-foot easement abd 12-inch storm sewer thence to the toe of slope.
Included will be stone riprap on geotextile fabric around the storm sewer outlet, extending to the sheet pile sea wall to the east.
Asphalt curbing will be placed on the east side of Park, with an asphalt spillway between the road pavement and the new catch basin.
The slope between asphalt and river will be restored to its pre-2020 profile. Topsoil and plant groundcover will be added.
The city, which is coordinating the contractor and engineering, will maintain a license to oversee and maintain the infrastructure for six months after completion of construction to verify its suitability, after which maintenance will be turned over to landowners.
Krohn Excavating and Kramer Services will be contracted by the city at a cost not to exceed $35,800, although some allowance has been made for contingencies.