#Karegnondi A testament to all that is fetid & foul

Michigan’s big political problem isn’t the utter absence of adult leadership, it’s that leadership by children would be a step up. Doing the smart and prudent thing never seems to be an option.

Nothing symbolizes this better than the proposed 64-mile Karegnondi pipeline, meant to carry water from Lake Huron to the Flint area. It is a testament to all that is fetid and foul about politics in Michigan.

In no particular order:

• The new pipeline, which would be either four or five feet in diameter depending on the anticipated customer base, likely will run beneath Fisher Road on the Sanilac-St. Clair county line. This is only six miles north of Metcalf Road, where an existing 10-foot water main carries no more than a third of its capacity.

• The Lake Huron intake, pumping station and pipeline have an estimated price tag of $272 million, but ancillary projects such as a water-treatment plant in Lapeer will lift the bottom line to more than a half-billion dollars. State funds doubtlessly will be required, meaning most of us will get a chance to contribute. Hooray.

• If not for cronyism and crooked politicians, there could be no justification for the Karegnondi pipeline. In a state with clean government, there is no need to even consider building a second pipeline to mirror an existing one.

• This same corruption has contributed mightily to perpetuating the largest source of pollution in the Great Lakes Basin. When I said fetid and foul, I meant we can swim in it. Literally.

• No governor or legislator, no president or congressional representative, no Republican and certainly no Democrat, has shown any willingness or ability to do a damn thing about it.

There has been no leadership, adult or otherwise.

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A WEEK AGO, I wrote about how public outrage at an insider land deal killed a proposed Worth Township-to-Flint pipeline in 1962. Flint instead signed a contract to buy water from Detroit, as it still does today, even though the partnership soured long ago.

Genessee County’s drain commissioner, Jeff Wright, first floated the possibility of shelling out $600 million on an alternative water source in 2006.

In the past 40 years, Flint has become an antonym for prosperity, which is a nice way of saying the community cannot snap its fingers and conjure up $600 million. So why would it even consider taking on such an expensive burden?

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I’M GLAD YOU ASKED. It seems the good people of the Flint area grew weary of being played for suckers by Detroit.

John O’Brien, who oversees water services for Genesee County, estimates he can produce potable water for $7.30 per thousand cubic feet (roughly 7,500 gallons) if the Karegnondi is built.

In 2009, Detroit sold water to Flint at a wholesale rate of $13.07. The price has been going up about 8 percent annually, or a bit more than $1 a year.

Flint, a so-called second-tier user, jacks up the price again when it sells water to third-tier customers such as Lapeer and Genesee County, which pay nearly $22 per thousand cubic feet.

Lapeer’s city manager, Dale Kerbyson, told Nancy R. Elliott of the Lapeer County Press that third-tier users receive 10 percent of Detroit’s water but are billed 21 percent of the costs.

“Obviously, it’s very unfair,” he said.

Obviously, sure, but it takes a whole lot of unfairness to justify spending a half-billion bucks.

Not everyone agrees with the math, but officials with the Karegnondi Water Authority argue a new pipeline would save customers in the Flint area about $200 million in the first 25 years — at which point the bonds are paid off and the real savings kick in.