News Photo by Steve Schulwitz The Alpena Municipal Council gets ready to go into closed session during a special meeting on Wednesday. After coming back into open session, the council voted to accept the terms of a settlement with Alpena Township and to drop its lawsuit over water and sewer rates.

ALPENA — The decade-long litigation saga between Alpena and Alpena Township over water rates has ended after both municipalities voted during special meetings on a settlement agreement on Wednesday.

The Alpena Municipal Council also voted to file the needed paperwork to have the lawsuit against the township dropped.

Neither government has released any details about the terms of the proposed settlement.

Early Wednesday afternoon, the township Board of Trustees voted unanimously to approve the settlement at a special meeting and the Alpena Municipal Council signed off on the deal during a special meeting later in the evening.

The township buys water and sewer services from the city to sell to township residents and refused to pay higher rates years ago when the city ended a service contract with it and the two sides have been in and out of court since.

The litigation has cost the two governments millions of dollars in attorney and consulting fees over the years.

This is not the first time a proposed settlement has been brought to the two boards in recent weeks.

The township voted to approve a settlement on Dec. 5, but the city council didn’t vote after a lengthy closed session on Monday.

Alpena Township has for decades bought water and sewer services for many of its residents from Alpena. The city sued the township in 2014, when the township refused to pay a rate hike, claiming the township is a wholesale customer and entitled to reduced rates.

The township continued to pay the lower rate it paid before the rate increase and city leaders hope to use the court battle to collect the difference between those two amounts.

Since Alpena filed the suit against the township and the dispute moved forward, the two parties continued to bargain on the side but made little to no progress over the years.

In 2017, the circuit court ordered the two sides into mediation. That lasted only one day, however, as city officials didn’t see enough progress to continue.

A settlement appeared likely early in 2018, when both governing boards voted to approve “principle terms” for an agreement. That vote wasn’t for a deal on rates but on seeking a process for establishing rates that could end the dispute.

After continuing negotiations failed to yield a deal, the local court essentially ordered the two sides to adhere to the terms they’d reached earlier in the year.

Shortly after, the township appealed a portion of that ruling to the Michigan Court of Appeals, and the city filed a cross-appeal. The appellate court also ordered mediation, which again yielded no agreement.

The appeals court then ruled that the 2018 proposed agreement was non-binding, which the township appealed to the state Supreme Court. The state’s highest court declined to hear the case and sent it back to the circuit court in Alpena.

During the initial hearing in circuit court, then-judge Michael Mack ordered the opening of an escrow account in the name of both governments. Mack required the township to deposit into that account the difference between the old rates the township had paid and the higher rates the city set for all of its customers.

The township now has about $4 million in escrow, city attorney Bill Pfeifer told The News last month. It is unknown how that money will be split between the two parties.

The two municipalities had worked together toward establishing a water authority several years ago that would oversee water and sewer operations for both governments and reached a draft agreement on a water and sewer authority early in 2022.

However, that plan fell apart, leaving the fate of the matter in the court’s hands.