The status of sewage disposal needs was outlined Saturday for residents attending the Annual Meeting of Glen Arbor Township.

Clay McNitt of the Benzie-Leelanau Health Department appeared at the request of township Supervisor John Soderholm. The township has received a state grant to fund a sewer needs study in Glen Arbor. Earlier this year, township officials were also pursuing plans to construct public restrooms near the township park on Ray Street.

“My experience in the past 10 years in Glen Arbor has been old plats and small commercial and residential lots,” said McNitt, who evaluates sites for water and sewage disposal permits on behalf of his department.

McNitt explained that lot size, combined with a water table anywhere from two to 10 feet below the ground surface, has forced his department to deny expansion of existing commercial buildings in the unincorporated village.

“Six or seven commercial businesses are on holding tanks and have their waste removed on a pump and haul basis,” the technician explained. “There are also a fair amount of ‘time bombs’ out there with no suitable space for a replacement system.”

McNitt responded to a question posed during the public comment portion of the Annual Meeting. Resident Janine Dean questioned whether public restrooms in the township would be necessary if business owners were to open their facilities to the public.

“It’s tricky, because most of the business owners don’t have the capacity and can’t let people come in,” he said. “Their systems are functioning … just getting by. But in the event their system fails, it will have to be brought up to code.”

Audience members also questioned at what point the community will need a municipal water system.

“At this point, we haven’t seen widespread contamination of residential wells,” McNitt said. “But I would think it’s only a matter of time … you can only load so much sewage in an area before you start seeing the effects.”

McNitt also surmised the only reason the community has not had problems with high nitrates in drinking water is that the water table is “flushed” by water flowing from the Glen lakes to Lake Michigan.

Representatives of Lapham Associates, the firm conducting the needs assessment on behalf of the township, identified a possible service area for a municipal system that encompasses the commercial district along Western Avenue, from just west of the intersection of M-109 and M-22, northeast to Egeler Road. The southern border would reach down to Northwood Drive and include a small area on either side of Ray Street (M-22) to approximately Lake Woods Drive.

The area has about 260 acres and covers four-tenths of a square mile.

Soderholm is expected to appoint a committee next month to participate in the study, the results of which are scheduled to be completed by July 1.

“As far as I know, there’s never been a sewer assessment done for Glen Arbor … and if there has, it’s been a long, long time,” the supervisor said.