People in Gladwin can use their toilets and sinks again after operations at the local wastewater treatment plant were partially restored Wednesday morning. The plant was damaged amid a thunderstorm earlier this week.
Bob North is the director of Gladwin County emergency management. He said they've found a temporary solution to keep the wastewater system safely functioning, but the full extent of the damage isn't known.
"There was floor to ceiling sewage in the sub basement and 4 feet of water in the basement," North said.
According to multiple officials, the safety of drinking water in Gladwin was not in jeopardy as a result of the incident.
City Administrator Kimberly Hines told WCMU that they're still in the process of figuring out what exactly caused the plant to malfunction. The contaminated parts of the plant aren't safe enough yet to send crews to do a full-scale inspection. An initial news release from the city and emergency alerts on Tuesday said the plant was struck by lightning.
"Nobody knows 100% if it was a lightning strike or not," Hines said. "But what happened was something caused the power to surge."
She said the surge didn't completely knock out power at the plant, so they were able to create a bypass using the plant's lagoons which allowed the plant to function at a limited capacity. The solution, she said, was approved by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.
The solution is not permanent, Hines said, and officials will continue to run safety tests.
No official timeline for full restoration has been established.
When operating normally, the wastewater plant discharges treated wastewater into the Cedar River. Hines said evaluations from EGLE have not found any environmental threat stemming from the incident.
As city and state officials assessed the plant's situation, residents of Gladwin were asked not to use indoor plumbing facilities because doing so could cause sewer backups. To mitigate the inconvenience, publicly accessible porta johns were set up in multiple locations across the small mid-Michigan city of about 3,000 residents.
On Tuesday morning, the Central Michigan District Health Department directed local restaurants to close their doors in order to ensure food remained safe to consume. The order complied with guidelines laid out by the Michigan Emergency Action Plan for Retail Food Establishments.
Cheri Gary is a barista at Gladwin's Crave Coffee. She said there was a lot of uncertainty surrounding the health department's directive, and restaurants had to make adjustments to their usual operations.
"We do fresh baked goods, so that kind of factored in, you know, are we going to be able to use those tomorrow?" Gary said. "Are they not going to be fresh? Should I not put them out?"
Gary said that for other businesses, any change to the amount of foot traffic in the downtown area can hurt just as much as closing for a day.
Restaurants were able to go back to business as usual on Wednesday.
