ANN ARBOR TWP., MI — When Robin Kunkel returned home from vacation in July 2023, her home north of Ann Arbor had no water. The Kunkels called a local well drilling company and discovered the water level in their drinking water well had dropped below the pump.
Around the same time, other residential wells in the township were having issues, including some running completely dry. Kunkel said her pump had to be lowered nearly to bottom on her well. A neighbor had to drill a new well, and another neighbor had to replace a filter due to “muck” in their water lines, she said.
It was discovered the Vella Pit, a sand and gravel mine about a mile and half away from Kunkel’s home on Earhart Road, had been “dewatering” — pumping millions of gallons of groundwater a day to extract sand and gravel, discharging the water into the local watershed. The practice has since been stopped, but worries remain…