The Sewage Farm
Huron County Michigan (1972)
Wind Farm Landowner
Wind Farm Communtiy Wind Farm Resort
Wind Farm Discussion
In the 1970's industry and government proposed putting spray irrigation equpment on 655 sq miles of farmland in the Thumb and spraying 2.7 billion gallons of untreated Detroit sewage on the land everyday. It came to be known as the Sewage Farm. Also considered was a 25 square mile "energy park" with 13 nuclear and 6 coal fired power plants. Until the Sewage Farm idea was withdrawn from consideration county real estate went into a slump and home owners hesitated to maintain or improve their property. The energy center was also never built. Among the reasons the Sewage Farm and Energy Center stories are relevent today is because uncertainty about location of wind farms will hurt property values everywhere in the county, particularly residential and shorefront property.
Newspaper record (7 mb pdf) Sewage Farm Report (9 mb pdf) Pages from 1977 Energy Center Proposal
A drawing from the Sewage Farm design that a farmer can relate to.
