St. Louis City Manager Bob McConkie and Michael Mulchrone of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality are working on a draft detailing a work plan for hydrogeological investigations. State lawmakers have promised a $300,000 state grant for the city of 4,500, about 50 miles north of Lansing, to find a solution.

The city council is expected to approve paperwork related to the grant at its Nov. 8 meeting. It will then have to authorize a grant contract, the Morning Sun of Mount Pleasant reported.

Formerly used as a pesticide, DDT was banned from general use in 1972 after widespread concerns about its environmental impact.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a year ago that traces of a byproduct of DDT had been measured in three wells that supply water.

Parachlorobenzene, a waste product from the manufacture of DDT, was produced in mass quantities in St. Louis by the Michigan Chemical Co.

The EPA did not indicate the presence of the chemicals constituted a health hazard, but the city has since operated with water from three other wells that have no traces of the byproduct.