PORT OF CALL WEST MHC

Two South Haven permit holders go dark on required reporting

The Preserve at Woodland Harbor development in South Haven has simply stopped reporting. Its Clean Water Act discharge permit requires regular monitoring reports on what the facility releases into the watershed, and none have been filed, landing it in significant non-compliance for failure to report rather than for any measured exceedance. That distinction matters: there is no pollutant data to read as good or bad here, because none exists. Nearby, the Port of Call West mobile home community is also in significant non-compliance, now more than 30 days overdue on a required compliance schedule. A third local operator, South Haven Finishing, went through a similar violation and has since resolved it, so the regulatory system does eventually catch up with operators. That track record only makes the two currently open cases stand out more. The gap in reporting is compounded by a gap in independent monitoring. The closest stream gauge, on the South Branch Black River near Bangor, has logged only one reading in the past two weeks, not enough to say whether flow or gage height are running normal for mid-August. That leaves no real way, from the permit holders or from the river itself, to know what conditions look like downstream of this development. The regional impaired-waters list shows nothing newly flagged in this stretch, which offers some reassurance, but it is no substitute for the missing data.