With our 20 Million Gallons per Day (20 MGD) capacity we provide high quality drinking water to the residents and businesses of Traverse City and portions of Garfield, Elmwood and Peninsula Townships. On Jan 6, 1997 East Bay Township was disconnected from Traverse City's water system and now is supplied by wells at Cherry Ridge Subdivision near 3 Mile and Hammond Roads.

 Daily demand runs from under 3 MGD in the winter to about 14 MGD during prolonged summer dry spells.
 
 

The source of water is Lake Michigan. The intake is a steel and wood crib about 15 feet in diameter and in about forty feet of water offshore. Raw water is pumped from a station onshore to the filtration plant about 400 yards west.
 
 

In 1881 Henry Campbell built the first water works in Traverse City at the site of the present Light & Power Plant. He used hollowed out pine logs as water pipes. The pine "logs" were covered with tar and sawdust and bound with iron hoops to preserve and strengthen them. There were at one time, approximately seven miles of these log pipes in traverse City.

 By 1900, Campbell and Son's Waterworks Company could no longer meet the needs of its customers and was sold to the City of Traverse City. This was the beginning of the Traverse City Water Department.

 Studies in the early 1960's, resulted in a recommendation that the municipal water source be relocated and that a water filtration plant be constructed for the distribution of municipal water.

 By 1966 a new Water Treatment Plant was built and began supplying a much higher quality water to city residents. The new filtration plant consisted of a 36 inch intake line and two rapid sand filters giving the plant a total capacity of 5 million gallons per day.

 In 1972 a clarifier and a third filter were added to increase the capacity to 12 MGD. The plant was automated in 1988 by the addition of a PLC computer and a telephone dialing system.

 The latest expansion (1992-93) includes two flocculation basins, two additional filters, and two new pumps. To improve the reliability of the Water Plant, standby power generation was also added. This increased plant capacity to 20 Million gallons per day.

 In 1995 the disinfection system was converted from gaseous chlorine to sodium hypochlorite (bleach) for safety reasons. Zebra mussel control was installed at that time.
 
 

Our laboratory is certified by the State of Michigan to test for Total and Fecal Coliform Bacteria, the primary indicator organism for water quality, both for drinking and swimming/recreation. We also test for chlorine (disinfectant), pH, hardness, alkalinity, chlorides, turbidity and fluoride. The State Drinking Water Laboratory tests our water for other possible contaminants as required by EPA .