Some repairs will have to be made to the roof of the Benton Harbor Water Treatment plant.
City Manager Alex Little asked city commissioners this week for permission to take emergency actions to repair it. He said the damage goes back a few months and was noticed after some storms.
“As you know, that plant sits right on Lake Michigan and when you get high winds coming across the lake and storms and so forth,” Little said. “That’s one of the very first buildings in Benton Harbor that gets hit.”
Little said a recent state grant awarded to the city to install solar panels on the roofs of city hall, the Bobo Brazil Community Center, and the water plant could help with the roof repairs because some reinforcement work will have to be done to accommodate the panels.
“I immediately asked the engineers to contact industrial roofing companies to get quotes to get the work done because I wanted to move just as quick as we could before we get any other real serious storms.”
Little said the current repairs will run about $64,000 and insurance has already sent checks totaling about $42,000.
Commissioners approved the repairs that Little hopes can start on September 1.
