Hello and welcome to the President’s Corner of the Six Mile Lake Association’s website. This new section has been designed to give our members a quick synopsis of activities and events here on beautiful Six Mile Lake. First of all, I would like to thank our webmaster, Derrick Hakim, for his creation of and design work on our website and to Vice-President, Vicky Saenz, for managing the content. It is our goal that members come to this site in order to stay current with Six Mile Lake news.
That said, we have an exciting year planned for our members but first let me relay the winter here in review. As many of you know last fall water levels on the Chain were extremely high. The year before levels were so high that it compelled me to seek flood insurance information and I discovered that Echo Township has no provision for flood insurance so if my house would have gone in the drink I would have been on my own as regular homeowners insurance does not cover damages from flooding. (Got to love those insurance companies!) Residents in Southarm Township….you ARE able to get flood insurance just so you know. It is relatively cheap at this time but that could change in the future. If you plan on getting a flood insurance policy do your homework first. I attended a flood insurance seminar put on by Antrim County and there was talk that the federal government could compel homeowners in the future to purchase it. On the east coast it’s not cheap. Policies run into the thousands of dollars. Here, at least initially, it would be fairly inexpensive…right around $300 per year and there are lots of rules and regulations that go along with the policy. I am not an insurance expert. This is for your info only so seek advice, should you decide to pursue a flood insurance policy, from your insurance agent. At our first meeting in June 2015 we will have Mark Stone, Antrim County Drain Commissioner, as our guest speaker. The subject will be the two dams that control lake levels on the Chain so now’s your chance to see what really goes on here with water movement through our county.
The high water levels of last fall have tapered off considerably over the winter. The lake is down and the thaw has been fairly slow so, right now, it looks like we may have dodged a bullet. Now, if we could just NOT have those torrential downpours we had last year, we could almost have a normal year. Stay tuned to this website should things change. The end of January and most of February, however, we experienced record cold temperatures. Frozen pipes and frozen sewer lines were the norm all over northern Michigan. I discovered that most underground water and sewer lines are now being covered with styrofoam before being buried in order to keep the frost from penetrating and freezing the lines so consider doing this should you need to do any excavating for water purposes this year. The frost here in the County averages 7′ deep and the frost laws are on. The ice on Six Mile Lake is still about one and a half feet thick in front of my house as I write this.
Am I looking forward to Spring and Summer and seeing all of our snowbird’s faces again? You bet!!! Summer isn’t here until you all return to Six Mile Lake safe and sound!
Stay tuned to the President’s Corner for information on the SAD and the eurasion milfoil and other invasives on Six Mile Lake. Just so you know there will be a special section on this website dedicated to this topic so you all can stay updated with the latest info on invasive threats to Six Mile Lake. As long as we have a government unwilling to enforce the foreign ship ballast dumping laws in the Great Lakes we will continue to have to battle invasives that eventually make their way into the inland lakes. I know it is the goal of all Six Mile Lake residents to keep our lake as pristine as possible and we are off to a good start with the SAD and I will have an update on this next time.
See you soon!
Cherie Hogan, President