Belle Isle (Photo by Lorraine Mleczko)
Michael Betzold is a Detroit freelancer and occasional contributor to Deadline Detroit. He is a former Detroit Free Press reporter.
By Michael Betzold
The Michigan DNR has turned Belle Isle around in the three years since it took over management of the park from the city of Detroit—but problems loom for the future.
As a state park, the jewel in the river is widely perceived as cleaner and safer—and last year it attracted a record number of visitors.
But the Feb 2014 lease between the city and the state doesn’t address who will fix—or pay for—long-term infrastructure needs—most importantly, the water mains that frequently fail all over the island.
Karis Floyd, the DNR park manager, says the pipes are seventy-five years old and estimates that replacing them will cost at least $100 million.
The mains are part of Detroit’s aging water system. Floyd says the DNR spent more than $50,000 last year repairing breaks in the main lines.
In addition, there are frequent water pressure problems in public areas like the aquarium and conservatory.
Photo from Belle Isle Conservancy
Last year, the main serving the Sunset Point comfort station failed during the Grand Prix and didn’t get fixed in time for the Freedom Festival fireworks—which brings the biggest crowds of the year to that end of the island.
They had to use port-a-johns because crews couldn’t get through the auto race’s post-event cleanup maze in time, and for awhile the DNR apparently thought the city was responsible for repairing the main.
The city water department and the DNR management haven’t been working together on the island’s water problems. They have scheduled a meeting Feb. 24 for the first time to start communicating.
There is no money in any budget for water main replacement or any other major long-term infrastructure fixes on Belle Isle—and until there is, the state will have to keep putting patches on patches every year, with potentially catastrophic results.
Like a lot of recent arrangements where the state government took over from bankrupt city structures, no one in charge thought beyond immediate crisis management—with the results of such fiscal short-sightedness now on display for all the world to see in Flint.
Currently, Belle Isle is being funded in a variety of ways. DNR chief Ron Olson says that last year 10 percent of an annual general fund allocation of $1.25 million for infrastructure capital improvements went to Belle Isle, with the other 102 state parks sharing the remaining 90 percent. In recent years Belle Isle has also gotten millions in MDOT funds for road improvements—most of them on the western end of the island, where Roger Penske’s Grand Prix is held each spring.
Since everyone must pay to enter a state park, there’s been a huge increase in DNR annual $11 “passport” fees generated in Detroit. But those fees, wherever they’re collected, go into the general state parks budget.
Businessman Michael Curis, who sits on the Belle Isle Parks Advisory Committee, says that’s unfair—since the DNR is raking in passport fees from the island, he would like to see at least 25 percent of those fees go to Belle Isle.
In any case, nothing is being set aside to repair the water mains. “We are unable to have a savings for future needs at this point,” Olson says.
