Granger residents asking for county help with water system troubles

GRANGER TWP. — Concerns over water system failure at Granger Lake Condominiums has led to homeowners association leaders asking Medina County for help. Built out in separate development phases since the early 1970s, the condos now lie on the north and south sides of Granger Road between State and Medina Line roads. Homeowners associations representing certain units on the north side are asking that the county put $160,000 in American Rescue Plan funds toward a new on-site water treatment plant. One of two wells serving those homes has already been taken out of service due to casing failure, said association President Mike Anderson. "It really could happen at any time, maybe even tomorrow," he said regarding when the remaining well could also fail. "That's why we want to get this done as quickly as possible. We don't have time to wait for a bigger idea or to tie in to the (county) water system. We just don't. If (the well) were to fail we would have a very big problem on our hands and would have to be in touch with the EPA immediately. There's just no time to wait and other plans are pretty cost prohibitive for us." Efforts to build a new well were halted when drilling turned up arsenic contamination, Anderson said. The total cost for water treatment improvements for Anderson's units would be at least $300,000. "We've talked to Granger (Township) to see if they're also going to be able to help out," he said. "We're still waiting to hear something about it. What I do know is we're not going to do something where I have to pass on huge costs to my residents. We don't have the time and we have a more immediate need with our wells. We've been working with the (well) that's online for us but that's not going to last." Medina County commissioners have already allocated $160,000 for this plan but officials say they want to gather more information before any work is started. Further details are expected to be discussed at commissioners' next meeting Tuesday. An alternative plan would involve building a new 16-inch main to tie into Medina County's water system and service all Granger Lake Homes. Early estimates place construction costs at $1.25 million, but additional permit and connection fees, some of which could be passed down to residents, could raise that price tag by hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to officials. American Rescue Plan funds would probably be used under either scenario. If a decision was made to connect to the county water system, planners would hope to eventually build the line out going up Medina Line Road to state Route 18. Work to connect Granger Lake would reportedly take at least one year, time that some residents say they don't have. Anderson and Chuck Messina, another Granger Lake homeowners association president, spoke on the matter Tuesday before Medina County commissioners. Messina supports the larger-scale $1.25 million tie-in but doesn't feel like it has to be a mutually exclusive choice between that or the $300,000 treatment project. "I don't think the two projects conflict," he said. "There's a dire need to get something done in the short-term but there's also four other (homeowners associations) here who are still running from old wells. We just really don't know what's going to happen yet. That's what I'm trying to find out. The other wells aren't as bad (as Anderson's units). If the county decides to bring water down here at no cost to us, some of us don't want to be in the water business anymore. Maybe some do but some of us do not. "They had the $1.25 million for the new line listed as something they wanted to use the federal money on, so we're trying to figure out what the plan is. I don't feel like going ahead with fixing the first two wells means we can't explore having (the tie-in to county water) in the future. I guess a lot about this remains to be determined." Granger Lake is made up of six homeowners associations representing 185 housing units. Medina County has roughly $17 million in American Rescue Plan money available for 2022 spending. The $1.25 million tie-in is included on a county draft request document showing preliminary spending proposals but has not been voted on by commissioners. "From what I've heard, they also want us to cover the tap-in fees, the permits, and everything else too," said Medina County Commissioner Steve Hambley. "That would bump the cost up to something like $1.5 million. That's a big difference. We put the project on the list before we decided to move forward with the ($160,000) request. It was on there as kind of a placeholder for what we were going to do. We knew we were going to do something to deal with the immediate issue." Whatever final decision is made will be based on available federal aid and what's best for Medina County as a whole, said Hambley. "It's not really that the two projects would conflict, it's that one would be expanding on a private well system that wouldn't benefit from the larger tie-in," he said. "It's clear there's a more immediate need with the wells that are being discussed with the $160,000. The other approach is a public water system expansion and that's a lot of money when you're looking at it per household. We have to consider our entire water system and many, many things when making a call on something like this." Contact reporter Jonathan Delozier at (330) 721-4050 or jdelozier@medina-gazette.com.