Plant History
Through the late 1800's and early 1900's, the City of Grand Haven used various wells from the east and west sides of Grand Haven. During that time, a private company and the City’s municipality provided water from both locations. The Wiley Water Works pumping station was located on the east end of Grand Haven near the area of East Grand River Park. The municipal pumping station was located near the Power Plant, which is now the location of the BLP's Diesel Plant. The City's first water filtration plant was constructed in 1927; it had a 2 million gallon per day capacity and provided safe potable drinking water to a relatively small community. Following World War II, increasing population expanded the existing water supply to incorporate a unique well system. The Ranney Collectors (wells), which utilize the lake bottom sand as pre-filtration before plant filtration, were constructed at the Grand Haven State Park; and in 1961 a submerged intake (the Crowsfoot) was installed below Lake Michigan, again using the sand as a natural barrier for impurities. This system provided water to the surrounding communities until 1983.
With an existing plan in place since 1978, the governing bodies approved an expansion project that would build a new facility capable of supplying water at 12 million gallons per day. In 1986, the first true "direct filtration" facility in Michigan was constructed.
In 1990, a third intake structure was constructed at the Grand Haven State Park in conjunction with a new Lake Pumping Station. This “North” intake structure is an infiltration (submerged) intake system that improves the overall quality of our Raw Lake Michigan water by using natural Lake Michigan sand as a pre-filtration technique (see picture). In the spring of 2001, we expanded the intake system by installing a second similar infiltration intake “South” of the existing “North” intake. Prior to the operation of the south infiltration system the existing Crowsfoot intake and the Ranney Collectors were removed from operation due to poor raw water quality and increased maintenance. Both intakes prevent Zebra and Quagga Mussel infestation. Our current North and South Intake System are capable of delivering up to 28 million gallons per day (MGD) of pre-filtered Lake Michigan water to the water treatment facility.
In 2004, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality approved a study for “deep-bed high-rate, mono-media direct filtration” as our primary filtration technique and in 2009 the existing facility was renovated and expanded using this technique, which was completed in 2011. The current facility went from 15.5 MGD capacity to the new approved rated capacity of 23.25 MGD.
Our daily average is 5.5 million gallons per day.
Last year’s total pumpage was over 2.0 billion gallons.
Our customers for the Northwest Ottawa Water Systems (NOWS) include City of Grand Haven, Grand Haven Charter Township, Village of Spring Lake, Spring Lake Township, City of Ferrysburg, and Crockery Township.