Residents along Eagle Lake Road and Morton Drive will now find themselves placed in a specialized tax district.

At its monthly meeting Monday, the Ontwa Township Board approved the creation of a Strategic Area District for households along the waterways between Eagle Lake Road and Morton Drive, expanding down to Christiana Lake.

Julie Jacobs, a resident of Eagle Lake Condominiums, presented the SAD proposal to the board.

The SAD would allow Jacobs to create a petition and host a public hearing for the 39 households along the waterways to create a tax to cover the cost of water treatments. The cost would come to approximately $120 per household. That pricing would hold for a five-year period.

The petition would need to receive 51 percent approval from residents to move forward.

The money raised would be used to treat the waterways from an invasive species of algae called starry stonewart, which is characterized by dense webbing and aggressive growth.

“If we don’t go through with this treatment, this algae is so aggressive that we won’t be able to drive our boats down it,” Jacobs said.

What Jacobs proposed is similar to SADs created around Eagle Lake and Pleasant Lake.

“There’s no reason not to do what they other lakes have already done,” Jacobs said. “We’re kind of last.”

In previous years, money to treat the waterways was raised on a voluntary basis by the residents of the area. By raising the money through the proposed tax, residents would benefit by having to pay a lower cost, due to full participation, Jacobs said.

“It’s something we’ve already been doing. It’s not any different,” Jacobs said. “But it will lessen the cost by having participation from people who didn’t participate in the past.”

If the proposed tax is not approved by residents, Jacobs will go door to door asking residents to contribute, though Jacobs is confident the petition will pass.

Should the petition be approved, a public hearing will take place in July or August.

In other business:

• A representative from the Van Buren Cass County Health Department will be placing two mosquito traps in Ontwa Township. The health department will study the traps over a 16-week period. The mosquito trap project comes on the heels of reports of increasing Zika virus concerns in the Midwest, said township board supervisor Jerry Marchetti.

“The government wants to get ahead of this,” Marchetti said.

• The board approved a resolution allowing Ontwa Township to apply for grant funding from the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund to support the Edwardsburg Connector Path. The grant would be used to fund the connecter path, which will be a 10-foot, motorized path on the north side of U.S. 12.