BAY CITY, MI -- Last year, Bay City police seized heroin valued at a six-figure sum on the street. It's a figure that's nearly eight times what they confiscated in 2015.

Despite this large haul, overdose deaths keep coming.

"There's a lot of heroin on the streets, coming up from Mexico," said Bay City Public Safety Director Michael J. Cecchini. "It's not a Bay City problem; it's a nationwide problem. We're overwhelmed."

According to the agency's annual report for 2016, the department's VIPER Unit seized $127,910 in heroin, compared to $16,175 in 2015 and $11,355 in 2014. While the unit has stepped up its efforts to curtail the illicit opioid's spread, the staggering increase in what they seized reflects that there is more of the substance around, Cecchini said.

"What we do is try to educate people, try to divert them through the use of drug courts, and try to get people connected to services to help them," Cecchini said. "What we do the best in law enforcement is enforce the law and we use our VIPER Unit to do that. I can tell you they are busy doing investigations to try to stop this poison from coming into Bay City."

He cautioned, though, that it's an uphill battle.

"There's only so much they can do," he said.

The VIPER Unit comprises five officers and one sergeant. The unit partners with the FBI, DEA, the Bay Area Narcotics Enforcement Team (or BAYANET) to help stymie the opiate flood.

A large chunk of the $127,910 sum comes from a bust that resulted from such a collaboration and led to federal indictments against 18 of Saginaw's notorious Sunny Side Gang. The gang orchestrated a widespread heroin and cocaine distribution network from June 2015 through August 2016, police alleged. More than 1,000 grams of heroin and 500 grams of cocaine were involved.

On Aug. 30, 2016, personnel with the FBI's Bay City-based Mid-Michigan Safe Streets Task Force executed eight search and arrest warrants. The search of just one stash house saw investigators seize 584.07 grams of cocaine, 92.89 grams of cocaine base, and 418.79 grams of heroin, three guns, and various paraphernalia associated with packaging and selling drugs.

"These are our main suppliers of heroin in Bay, Midland and Isabella counties," the VIPER Unit's Sgt. Greg Potts previously told The Times. Potts added the investigation began in Bay City, then carried into Saginaw.

The Bay County Health Department first issued an advisory regarding the heroin epidemic in June 2015. That year, 27 people in Bay County died of opiate-related overdoses, with 23 following in 2016. Of those 23, 12 featured the presence of fentanyl or carfentanil.

From Jan. 1 to May 20 of this year, Bay City police have responded to 29 overdose calls, five of which resulted in death.

"It's being cut with fentanyl and carfentanil and that's what's causing the overdoses," Cecchini said. "It's tragic. It's a societal problem."

Fentanyl is 100 times more potent than heroin and can be lethal to humans at the 2-milligram range, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Carfentanil is a synthetic opioid 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times more potent than fentanyl, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Carfentanil is a Schedule II drug and was created in 1974 as a general anesthetic for large animals such as elephants.

Command officers with the Bay City Department of Public Safety carry and have been trained on how to administer naloxone, an opiate antagonist, should a fellow employee come into contact with carfentanil, which can be absorbed through the skin. The department's policy allows them to administer the substance to a civilian in the grips of an overdose if they beat medical professionals to the scene.

The CDC reports that since 1999, the number of opiate-related overdose deaths has quadrupled. In 2015, 33,091 people died from opiate-related overdoses nationally, more than any other year on record.

"From 2000 to 2015 more than half a million people died from drug overdoses," the CDC states, adding that 91 Americans die each day from an opiate overdose.

Michigan itself experienced a 13 percent increase in the number of opiate-related fatal overdoses from 2014 to 2015, according to the CDC.

"It's very sad that this is going on and it's a huge problem nationally," Cecchini said. "I'm sure there are many causes for it, but we're left to deal with it the best we can."

Police and health officials have attributed the rise in heroin use to people gravitating from prescription painkillers such as OxyContin or Vicodin. Heroin is cheaper than those substances and easier to ingest since pharmaceutical manufacturers changed their pills' composition so they can no longer be snorted or melted down and injected.

The amount of powder cocaine seized by VIPER in 2016 also jumped significantly, to $72,000 from $1,450 in 2015 -- a 4,865 percent hike. Much of that figure also comes from the Sunny Side Gang bust, Cecchini said.

The chart below breaks down the value of drugs seized by VIPER from 2014-2016.

2016 2015 2014 Heroin $127,910 $16,175 $11,355 Powder cocaine $72,000 $1,450 $9,885 Crack cocaine $6,820 $5,150 $15,150 Marijuana $3,280 $1,025 $9,390 All others $3,500 $600 $1,925 Totals $213,510 $24,400 $47,705 Source: Bay City Department of Public Safety annual reports

Bay City crime overall

On the plus side, the annual report reveals the majority of crime in Bay City declined in 2016.

The report indicates the agency's law enforcement side received 22,835 calls for service in 2016, compared to 26,641 in 2015. In line with that, a summary of 36 crime classifications indicates there were 3,451 reported offenses in 2016, a decline of 16 percent from 4,103 offenses in 2015.

While the worst crimes, homicide and forcible rape, increased in 2016 from zero to one and from 30 to 33, respectively, most other crimes decreased. Reports of robbery, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, aggravated assault, and overall sexual assault all dropped.

Oddly, property crimes tend to escalate as drug addiction becomes more rampant, but the annual report indicates that trend did not occur in 2016.

Cecchini attributes this to officers increasingly being involved with the community.

"We encourage the officers to get into the neighborhoods, do self-initiated activity," he said. "We've done quality of life enforcement, trying to get neighborhoods to fight blight."

Officers issued 297 blight citations in 2016, compared to 218 the previous year.

While some naysayers may criticize the department for focusing on what might seem minor issues, Cecchini said it's a systematic approach to thwarting more serious offenses from taking place.

"It's been proven that if you address the small things like blight and other disorders -- minors out after curfew, minors in possession of alcohol, loud noise enforcement -- that it has a significant impact on higher-level crimes, including felony level crimes," he said. "The public needs to rest assured that just because we're focusing on blight and disorder doesn't mean we're not doing our job when it comes to arresting burglars, people involved in motor vehicle theft, or people involved in violent crime. It's a targeted, proactive approach to things."

Fire operations

With the close of 2016, it's been four years since the city's police and fire departments merged.

The year ended with a department staff of 89 personnel -- three administrators, 11 in public safety command, 13 in fire command, 31 public safety officers, six police officers, 11 firefighters, four part-time paid-on-call firefighters, four crossing guards and six in clerical positions.

Of the total 27,756 calls for service the department received in 2016, the law enforcement division received 84 percent, leaving 4,921 calls for the fire division.

Bay City firefighters responded to 27 structure fires, five more than in 2015. They received mutual aid from other departments in eight of them and provided aid to fires outside of Bay City in three fires.