Kirk Ritchie said the county drain that goes along his lakeshore property in Harrison Township was unobstructed for years, allowing residents of around two-dozen homes along it to access the lake via kayaks, canoes and other small vessels.

But about five years ago the muck that is plaguing the lake shore began to arrive and has effectively closed the drain for residents’ personal use.

“It’s terrible,” Ritchie said last week while talking about the problem with state Rep. Alicia St. Germaine of Harrison Township. “It’s a mess, really a mess.”

Ritchie explained many of the residents whose back yards abut the drain on Moran and Riveria streets, just north of Crocker Boulevard, would like it to be cleared for access.

“There’s cut-ins for boats,” Ritchie said. “We used to use it.”

“We could put out kayaks and other stuff out there,” said Riveria Street resident Alexa Hramiec. “It’s not deep enough for (full-sized) boats.”

“We’ve complained about it but nothing’s going to get done,” said a Moran resident who did not want to be identified.

County Public Works officials discussed clearing out the muck three years ago upon Ritchie’s request. Ritchie gave the county permission to place the removed muck on the next-door vacant lot that he owns where it would dry out and be moved to a final destination. But ultimately public works officials decided not to remove the muck because the muck isn’t preventing the drain’s flow, said Norb Franz, public works spokesman.

“It was determined to be too expensive, especially since it wasn’t really impacting the ability of the drain to function, which is primary,” Franz said.

The drain is called the Murdock Ballard Drain, not the similarly-named Murdock Ballard Relief Drain located in the area, according to Franz.

The area is an example of the ongoing and growing impact of the mysterious muck that for a time was known as lyngbya but was renamed last year to Microseira wollei, “M. wollei” for short, by the Army Corps, which is nearing the end of a two-year, $400,000 study of the muck problem. The results are expected to be announced this summer.

The Army’s Corps’ next step is “to figure out what chemical might get rid of it,” St. Germaine said.

Many believe the muck is facilitated by whatever is flowing from the Clinton River because the muck is predominately south of the river’s mouth.

The M. wollei typically accumulates the most in areas of more stagnant water along the shore.

When the muck first arrived as water levels were higher, Ritchie said it went over the drain seawall and his property seawall onto his yard.

“My yard was covered in probably a foot deep in all this stuff,” he said. “We had to plow it, pick it up and throw it back in the lake.”

The muck has also virtually eliminated lake access from a small park at the end of Riveria, located on the other side of the drain from Ritchie’s home, which contained a beach and was where people could fish and launch personal watercraft.

“My son used to come here with his buddies and launch their jet ski’s,” said Mary Kay Sogge, who is St. Germaine’s legislative assistant and a Harrison Township resident.

“This all actually used to be sandy beach along here,” Hannah Wenzelburger told WXYX-TV (Channel 7) in a report Friday. “We would launch kayaks and canoes, small fishing boats, jet skis off this little ramp here and every year, the muck just comes out and out.”

Wenzelburger made the comment while standing on a wooden sidewalk from the land over the muck to get to the lake. Last week, St. Germaine donned waking boots, walked out onto the muck add began to sink.

“It’s like quicksand,” Ritchie said.

The muck in front of the park has amassed to the size of a football field. That accumulation hasn’t impacted Ritchie’s property so far but he said he is worried the small bay where his home is located will fill in.

“My fear is the whole bay is going to fill in and I won’t be able to use my hoist” to put boats in the water, he said.

He believes it has already negatively impacted property values and will further erode values if the muck continues to grow. The muck is so bad that the state Department of Natural Resources last year completed a reconfiguration the Clinton River Cut Off Boating Access Site at Jefferson Avenue near the Clinton River Spillway because the ramp’s opening was being delayed every spring for several years so the muck could be removed.

Ritchie said he may take advantage of a proposed law introduced last week by St. Germain that would allow residents to remove free-floating surface debris using mechanical equipment without requiring a permit from the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. Currently, only hand-operated tools like rakes can be used without a permit from EGLE. The bill, if passed, will allow for the use of devices such as skimmers or small machines to more effectively clear debris from the water, she said.