Contact Person(s):

Omar Doran,
Township Supervisor
(tel) 906-586-6271

 

	Germfask Township in Schoolcraft County is a small rural community with a population of about 600. Its residents rely on a municipal well and private water wells for drinking water. Although the township has not experienced any quality problems with its drinking water, current and past land-uses pose some risk to groundwater. These land-uses include informal junkyards, closed gas stations with underground storage tanks, a trucking company and abandoned wells. In 1995, representatives of the Wellhead Protection Unit in the Drinking Water and Radiological Protection Division of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) sought a pilot community in the Upper Peninsula to write a wellhead protection plan. They asked Omar Doran, the township supervisor for Germfask Township, to volunteer, and Doran agreed. Like many other small and rural townships, Germfask Township had few resources and staff to dedicate to the write-up of a wellhead protection plan. Although Doran had spent his career as an administrative officer with the US Fish and Wildlife Service at Seney National Wildlife Refuge, he lacked the technical expertise to write-up the plan. Neither did he have anyone on staff who could assist him.
	Doran took it upon himself to write up Germfask's wellhead protection plan. Using the Oxford Township Wellhead Protection Plan provided to him by the MDEQ, Doran wrote up Germfask's plan in four and half months. Doran also completed the delineation map of the township's municipal well. As a township resident for over 40 years, Doran knew where most of the water wells and septic tanks were located. Further, he went door-to-door and enlisted the help of township residents to identify water wells, abandoned wells and septic tanks that he may have missed. At the same time, he asked township residents to help him locate other potential sources of contamination in the wellhead protection area including informal junkyards and 10-12 closed gas stations that still had underground storage tanks. Germfask is the smallest community in Michigan to have an approved Wellhead Protection Program.
	The Germfask Wellhead Protection Program establishes site plan review standards for new businesses that use, store or make hazardous substances including the use of secondary containment for above-ground storage of these substances. It also requires the Fire Department to inspect all facilities that use, store or generate hazardous substances. The Program provides for educational and outreach efforts. Doran noted that township people are aware of the need to protect their groundwater but are not sure about the actions that they should take. He includes brochures on how to protect groundwater with the monthly water bills. Doran credits his educational campaign for the capping of more than a dozen abandoned wells in the township. A big concern now is the possibility of leaking underground storage tanks at the old gas stations. Doran's successful wellhead protection initiative has prompted nearby communities to consider developing a wellhead protection plan for themselves. To date, Doran has assisted about half a dozen communities in developing and writing up their wellhead protection plans.

Institute of Water Research - MSU
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