February Newsletter--1993

Next meeting of Bromley Homeowners Association--Thursday, March 18, 1993, 
7:30 p.m.,
Thurston School Library.  As ususal, it is open to all residents of 
Bromley.  We may, as we often
do, have a guest speaker.  Watch the March Newsletter for further 
information.
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Neighborhood Watch
     Community Oriented Police Officer Tom Kolpacki has been helping BHA 
with this issue;
apparently there are supposed to be two captains per block; there is 
still room for more.  So, if
helping in this way is of interest to you, keep watching the newsletter, 
or call a BHA Board
member.
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Dolfins Pool--please remember to support your neighborhood pool.  The 
"fair-share" assessment
for each home, to cover the pool tax burden (only--not for membership), 
is $30 per household
annually.  What a bargain!  BHA Board member Ken Reader is current Chair 
of the Pool Board--
call Ken for further information.  The BHA Newsletter is pleased to carry 
regular announcements
from Dolfin Pool.
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Bromley Garage Sales Day
By Mary Ann Gasiorek

     Last spring Bromley held a Garage Sales Day that was very 
successful.  Would you like to do
it again?  Everyone who participated last year was pleased with the 
amount of traffice to come
through their sale.  We advertised 31 garage sales in the Ann Arbor 
News.  With this kind of
publicity you can have a full-scale garage sale or just put a few things 
out in your driveway.
     The Bromley Subdivision Garage Sale Day will be Saturday, May 8, 
from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00
p.m.  If you would like to participate, please call Mary Ann Gasiorek at 
996-4633.
     You will run your own garage sale and keep all profits.  Last year 
the Bromley Homeowners
Association paid for the ad in the paper and I have asked them to 
consider doing so (at their
March 18 meeting) once again.  Signs will be put up at every entrance to 
our neighborhood.  A
map with all participating addresses will be distributed before May 8.
     Watch the BHA Newsletter for information about the activities that 
will be held at Dolphin
Pool on the same day.
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Thurston School and Cub Scouts--Update
by Shari McConnell

     Cub Scout Pack 160 and Thurston School wish to thank the Bromley 
neighborhood for its
tremendous support this school year.  Both the Dolfin Pool Board and 
Bromley Homeowners
Association contributed scholarship money for Cub Scout registration and 
fees for boys whose
families cannot meet the $30 registration requirement.  The Pack also 
received $75 from the
Traver Village Kroger store to be used for programs and supplies.
     Thanks to the Bromley Homeowners' Assoication from Thurston School 
for purchasing two
new books for the Thurston Library.  The books are Something Big Has Been 
Here by poet Jack
Prelutsky and Ladybugs by Barrie Watts.  Both are very welcome 
additions.  The Traver Village
Kroger store also very generously donated $285 to Thurston School as a 
result of the November
24 shopping day.  Many thanks to Kroger and to all our neighbors who 
shopped that day.  Your
continuing support is much appreciated by the Cub Scouts and our 
neighborhood elementary
school.
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From the Water Treatment Plant:
Utilities Department
City of Ann Arbor
919 Sunset Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48103

Lead in Drinking Water
by
Larry Sanford, Assistant Superintendent of the Water Treatment Plant.

     Potential lead contamination has become a concern for many people.  
Based on these
concerns, the EPA has recently developed new rules for lead in drinking 
water.  In Ann Arbor,
the drinking water plant has completed the first year of the monitoring 
program and is happy to
say that we are able to meet these new rules.
     Lead can appear in drinking water from two sources.  In can be 
present in the raw water
source and if not removed can appear in the drinking water; or lead can 
leach from plumbing
materials.  In Ann Arbor, there is no detectable amount of lead in either 
the raw source water or
the water leaving the drinking water plant.  In terms of plumbing 
materials, there are two
potential sources of lead.  Recent copper plumbing done with a lead based 
solder is considered
vulnerable to lead leaching.  Plumbing done between 1981 and 1988 fits 
this category.  A lead
ban was enacted in 1988, so that plumbing done since then should have 
used a lead-free solder.
The second source of lead is found in some of the older homes where an 18 
inch lead
gooseneck was used to connect the service line to the water main.  We 
have been replacing
these goosenecks routinely for many years as the streets come due for 
resurfacing.  There are
less than 900 such services left.
     The new law requires that 90% of the homes sampled must measure 
below 15 ppb (parts per
billion) for lead.  We have tested over 100 homes two different times 
under our lead and copper
monitoring program.  There was no appreciable copper measured in any 
sample.  For lead, 90%
of the samples were below 7.5 ppb for both sample sets.  In the first 
sample set 4% (6 of 140)
were above the 15 ppb threshold.  In the second sampe set 1% (1 of 100) 
were above the
threshold.  After follow-up testing it was apparent that all lead levels 
above the 15 ppb threshold
were caused by faucets and not the rest of the plumbing.
     The Lime Softening process used in the treatment of Ann Arbor's 
Water, causes a scale
(white coating) to form very rapidly inside of pipes.  This scale is 
actually protective and
effectively prevents lead leaching.  The main source of detectable levels 
of lead appears to be
new brass facets.  Brass is allowed to be 8% lead and therefore, does 
contribute to lead in water.
Again, the formation of a scale coating will reduce this within a few 
months.  During that time,
lead can effectively be eliminated by running the faucet for a few 
seconds prior to use.  This
flushing would only be necessary if the water had not been used at that 
tap for 6 hours or longer.
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Planning Commission Meeting, January 21, 1993.

     Here is a copy of the comments given on behalf of BHA; there were 
other Bromley residents
at this meeting, all of whom made constructive comments to Planning 
Commission concerning
this parcel of land (below).  There were also a great many who spoke from 
Orchard
Hills/Maplewood, and others, too.  The result was that Commission voted 6 
to 3 in favor of PUD
zoning, at the preliminary level, for residential land use on the parcel 
in question.  As a response
to community input, they appended nine requirements for the developer, 
prior to seeking the
next level of review.  This is a continuing issue;  it may be appropriate 
to consider a trip to City
Hall, in the future, to once again support our neighbors.

City of Ann Arbor, Planning Commission, January 21, 1993.

     My name is Sandra Arlinghaus; I live at 2790 Briarcliff St.  This 
address is in the Bromley
subdivision of 231 homes in northeast Ann Arbor:  bounded on the west by 
Nixon, on the north
by Bluett, on the east by Prairie (Thurston School), and on the south by 
Huron Parkway and the
back of Plymouth Road mall.
     1.  I am the Chair of the Bromley Homeowners' Association; our Board 
of Trustees has voted
unanimously to support the position of the Orchard Hills/Maplewood 
Homeowners Association on
issues pertaining to the proposed zoning change and development of the 
parcel of land off
Green Road between Windermere Apartments and Chapel Hill Condominiums.  
We encourage
you to pursue careful and thorough analysis of the various issues that 
affect the character of the
parcel itself and of the issues that affect surrounding territory.  
Individuals within our
neighborhood have raised a number of general topics that concern them:
     a.  The parcel in question is a wooded/wetland area considered very 
attractive--as is--by
many.
     b.  Others question why there is a need for any more housing in this 
area of town; they see
increased housing and commercial density coming all too often at the 
expense of much needed
park and wetland areas.
     c.  The parcel in question is viewed by some as a natural extension 
of Sugarbush Park,
interrupted only by Green Road.  They do not wish to see Sugarbush Park 
disturbed.
     d.  Others have expressed concern over the impact of the proposed 
development on the
school system.
     e.  Still others of its impact on the public transportation system 
and on emergency services.
     f.  Yet others of its impact on water pressure.
     g.  And finally, most of us have noted serious problems with our 
subdivision becoming
landlocked by the increase in traffic coming from increased development.  
Thus, we do heartily
encourage you to consider what sorts of provisions might be made, in 
advance of approving a
new neighborhood, for new traffic lights (and the like).
     2.  Not in the role of Bromley Chair, but rather as an individual, I 
raise the following issues.  I
hold a Ph.D. in mathematical geography and have published over 70 books 
and articles (in
refereed professional journals) in a variety of fields (geography, 
mathematics, engineering,
biology, psychology, and history).  Independent of the discipline, one 
fact endures:  when maps
are used as a tool for analysis, the scale of detail involved in mapping 
should match the scale of
problem conception.  As problem conception changes, the map should 
change.  Thus, dynamic
mapping is important, using Geographic Information Systems or other forms 
of computerized
mapping--or simply using a series of well-designed traditional maps that 
correspond to current
states of problem conception.
     For example, when I look at this parcel of land for the first time, 
I might well get out a United
States Geological Survey map of the area--here is one of the Ann Arbor 
area (passed around to
Commissioners--approximate location of various features noted on 
overlay).  From it, a number
of issues become apparent.  Much of the parcel in question is coded on 
the map as wetlands;
but, the map is out of date and the scale of it is not local enough to 
show a great deal of variation
in terrain.  So, next, I might wish to map more carefully the wetlands 
within this region.  Also, I
note from this USGS map that a tributary to Fleming Creek seems to have 
its source within this
parcel of land.  Thus, I might next wish to consider the possible 
environmental impact of the
proposed development on regions downstream from this site, including on 
the UM Botanical
Gardens and the pond at the Gardens that appears to be fed by this 
stream.  Beyond that, there
might well be reason to consider the impact of the proposed development 
on Fleming Creek,
itself, and indeed, on the Huron River--at some point there would be a 
reason to stop, but I
encourage you to consider carefully where that breakpoint (for 
environmental stress) is--it is not
necessarily (and perhaps not likely) at the boundaries of the parcel in 
question--maps of adjacent
regions then become important.
     Another fact that one can read from this map is that the water tower 
that appears to serve this
area is located at about the 910 foot contour on the map; assuming that 
gravity is used as the
source for pressure, one might wonder what will happen to the pressure in 
proposed housing
located at more than 950 feet (note that on the map, much of the wetland 
area is adjacent to the
950 foot contour, so presumably the housing would be higher than the 
wetland).   Map analysis
here might cause one to wonder whether additional pumps to boost pressure 
will be required,
and if so what would be their impact on housing close to the 950 (or 
whatever cutoff) contour.
Indeed, such analysis might also cause one to wonder if the City intends 
to work at getting a new
(added) water tower with more favorable topographic position.  These are 
topics that emerge
from a brief glance at a USGS map, at a scale  that shows the entire 
metropolitan region (1 inch
to 2000 feet).  I encourage you, therefore, to use evidence from a 
variety of maps as useful tools
in guiding your analysis of the entire situation surrounding this parcel 
of land.  The material
offered by the developer is no doubt very useful; I hope that you will 
use it creatively in
conjunction with other materials that inform you about the broader 
landscape.   And, in the case
where any maps are involved, I encourage you to use a sequence of them as 
tools for analysis
that offer an accurate fit to the current conception of the planning 
proposal.
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