Officials: West Michigan sewer expansion to spur growth, but they’re $7M short

Michigan’s Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve, or SOAR, gave $60 million to expand a sewer pipeline from Muskegon to Coopersville
Cost overruns mean the project needs another $7 million, but it isn’t clear where that money’s going to come from
Officials say the project will boost economic development in west Michigan and allow businesses that connect to the pipeline to expand

MUSKEGON — A massive, multimillion-dollar sewer line extension designed to spur economic growth in west Michigan needs another $7 million, but it’s not clear where that money will come from.

Backers say the 20-mile extension of a sewer line from Muskegon to Coopersville will allow multiple businesses to expand operations and make future development possible along the entire route of the pipeline.

However, lawmakers putting together the 2026 state budget didn’t earmark any new money for the project and they eliminated the economic development fund that seeded it.

Construction on the sewer line has already begun, but inflation and the costly redesign of a pump station along the route pushed costs up.

Signing the budget on Tuesday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said lawmakers had agreed to revisit money for economic development before the end of the year, and Muskegon County officials remained hopeful the money would come.

The project will continue with or without it, officials said. Muskegon County Deputy Administrator Matthew Farrar said officials would seek other funding sources if the state doesn’t come through.

The $72 million wastewater treatment project — known as the Southeast Regional Force Main — will connect the strained infrastructure of Coopersville in Ottawa County with Muskegon County’s vast, underused wastewater system.

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The undertaking, first discussed in 2009, was initiated with a $60 million grant from the state’s Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve, which lawmakers defunded in the latest budget. Muskegon County Public Works Director Wade VandenBosch said another $5 million came from Fairlife, one of the pipeline’s first industrial users.

The Michigan Economic Development Corp. projects the infrastructure will generate $187 million in investment supporting the state’s food and agriculture industry and create 145 permanent jobs between the first five companies connecting to the expanded pipeline.

The infrastructure will be an attraction for new businesses in rural, underserved communities in both Ottawa and Muskegon counties, according to the MEDC.

For years, local food processors and manufacturers have identified a lack of wastewater capacity as a key barrier to growth. But officials believe the expansion will solve that problem for the first users along the pipeline’s path: Fairlife, Swanson Pickle Co., DeVries Meats, Continental Dairy and Applegate Dairy.

The infrastructure will allow the companies to efficiently dispose of their wastewater, sending it through a pipeline to Muskegon. Previously, Fairlife trucked its wastewater out.

Farrar, who has been involved with the project since its inception, said in a memo to the Muskegon County board that the initial connecting companies will have a big impact on agricultural growth throughout the state as they buy milk, produce and other supplies and sell those products globally.

“This truly is a statewide project,” he said in the memo.

Tim Boring, director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, echoed that statement.

“Once this wastewater infrastructure is operational, agriculture businesses will look to connect to the pipeline, which means more processing capabilities for our different commodities, opportunities for growth and expansion and broad economic prosperity for the area,” he said.

Collaboration pays off

The project was born from a regional paradox: Ottawa County’s success created a major issue that its neighbor, Muskegon County, was uniquely positioned to solve.

In Ottawa County, the food processing and manufacturing industry is a major economic driver, accounting for 4,800 jobs with an average annual wage of $72,000, according to the MEDC.

A map with green and yellow lines showing the route of a sewer line expansion — The route of the expanded sewer line between Muskegon and Coopersville. (Courtesy of Prein&Newhof)

But that success came at a cost for one of its municipalities. In Coopersville, major industrial users like Continental Dairy and Fairlife were overwhelming the city’s existing wastewater treatment plant.

The city had invested $4.3 million in 2018 to upgrade its plant, boosting capacity to 2.5 million gallons per day, said Coopersville City Manager Dennis Luce. Even with that upgrade, the plant was operating near its limit, he said.

Just 20 miles to the west, Muskegon County faced the opposite problem. Its massive wastewater treatment plant, the Muskegon County Resource Recovery Center, was operating at about 10.5 million gallons per day — a mere quarter of its total 42 million-gallon-per-day capacity.

“This turned out to be a perfect opportunity for a regional partnership that will offer substantial benefits and opportunities for growth to our current and future industries,” Luce said.

The pipeline also saves municipalities along the route of the pipe from having to build costly individual system expansions.

Polkton Township Supervisor Ted Costigan said it’s not out of the question for his rural community to see investment because the infrastructure will exist to support it.

“We are primarily agricultural and we don’t expect a lot of new development, but who knows what five to 10 years down the road looks like,” he said.

How it started

Muskegon’s excess wastewater capacity is the result of the 2009 closure of the Sappi Fine Paper mill, formerly one of Muskegon’s largest employers. When the mill shut down, it dealt a severe blow to the local economy and left behind a piece of public infrastructure built to serve a heavy industrial user that no longer existed.

That provided a solution for Coopersville, and discussions of extending the force main began the same year the mill closed. Engineers finally broke ground in Muskegon in October 2024, following years of planning and negotiation.

“At the end of the day, the delay was financial,” Farrar said. “We never lost sight of this project and throughout these 15 years we maintained contact with the stakeholders.”

Farrar said the project gained unanimous support from representatives of the management committee for the 16 municipalities that currently use the Muskegon County wastewater system, as well as Polkton and Ravenna townships, Ottawa County and the city of Coopersville.

A large black pipe is seen in a trench with construction workers around it and a truck in the background — The 20-mile extension of Muskegon County’s sewer line to Coopersville will allow businesses connecting to the route to expand. (Courtesy of Prein&Newhof)

After the state grant of $60 million and the $5 million contribution made by Fairlife kicked things off, Farrar told his board more money is needed.

The biggest single cost increase was for the new West Randall pump station in Coopersville. It was first planned as a simpler, underwater pump station costing $4 million. However, engineers realized the system needed a more heavy-duty and expensive two-part system to better handle the specific type of wastewater and because it is in a remote location that is harder for work crews to reach quickly.

That drove the cost for the pump station to $8.4 million at the end of 2023. Only four months after that, the prices for mechanical systems, excavation, and concrete had jumped by 30% to 40%, Farrar said.

There were other unexpected expenses, as well, such as moving a large gas line on Coopersville wastewater property and helping the city dispose of leftover material from its old plant, Farrar said.

Expansion and investment

The connection to the force main will be a gamechanger for companies like Fairlife, officials said.

Phil LaMothe, Fairlife’s senior vice president of manufacturing and engineering, said the project is a “win for our region” that will “eliminate a critical hurdle to our expansion plans.” A Fairlife spokesperson said it is too soon to publicly detail those expansion plans.

“Without the continued investment in local infrastructure, further expansion just isn’t possible,” LaMothe said. “Fairlife has been part of this community for more than a decade and we have every intention of continuing to grow in west Michigan.”

Continental Dairy and Fairlife are both on the same Coopersville campus. Because they produce milk products from farms across Michigan and as far south as Indiana, potentially even more jobs could be created to keep up with that growth, officials said.

The main 17.5-mile pipeline is approximately 80% complete and is projected to be finished by November.

The pump station in Coopersville is expected to be operational by February 2026, allowing it to begin accepting flow from Fairlife and Continental Dairy. Coopersville’s current wastewater treatment plant is scheduled to be decommissioned in fall 2026, Luce said.