Farmington Hills — The Great Lakes Water Authority plans to replace a problematic section of water main that has ruptured twice in the past year, disrupting water service to thousands of customers and requiring boil water advisories.
GLWA CEO Suzanne Coffey announced Tuesday morning that the water authority would replace three miles of water main along 14 Mile Road between Haggerty and Farmington roads in Farmington Hills, a stretch that supplies water for the communities of Novi, Walled Lake, Wixom and Commerce Township.
The water authority will also inspect and renew the three-mile stretch of water main from east of Farmington Road to the Franklin pump station north of 14 Mile on Inkster Road, Coffey said.
The project is estimated to cost $81 million from GLWA’s capital fund balance. It will be constructed from November 2026 to early 2028, Coffey said.
The current pre-stressed concrete cylinder pipe ruptured in September 2025 and March 2026. Novi and Walled Lake were placed under boil advisories both times for several days.
The water main ruptured for the first time in 2017, according to Farmington Hills Mayor Theresa Rich.
“This is not the level of service we expect from ourselves,” Coffey said.
The pipe between Haggerty and Farmington roads is a 48-inch pre-stressed concrete cylinder pipe installed by the company Interpace in the 1970s. Roughly 4% of pipe installed by Interpace is estimated to be faulty, Coffey told The Detroit News in June.
This section of water main will be replaced with a 54-inch steel pipe, according to GLWA. It is expected to last until around 2100, said Coffey.
The water authority will also install an acoustic monitoring system between Farmington Road and the Franklin pump station. This system will listen for wire breaks within the walls of the pipe.
The $81 million toward the project is from a combination of up-front payments and bonds from GLWA’s capital fund, said Coffey.
“We have not experienced anything like this anywhere else in the system, so it was not a hard decision to make this the highest priority,” said Coffey. “What was hard was finding the money to do it.”
GLWA, which serves 3.8 million residents in eight southeast Michigan counties, is funded by water rates. The regional rate went up 5.8% starting July 1.
Coffey said in June that GLWA had $1.6 billion in unbudgeted costs to replace all the Interpace pipes in the eight counties. On top of that, GLWA is reaping the consequences of past government officials who didn’t adequately respond to deficiencies in the state’s water infrastructure that were pointed out in the 1980s.
“In the next few years alone, the state of Michigan is going to be facing tens of billions of dollars for deficits for our water infrastructure,” said state Rep. Samantha Steckloff, D-Farmington Hills.
GLWA’s Tuesday announcement comes just over two months after the water authority responded to a water main break in Auburn Hills. The rupture forced about 200,000 people in northeastern Oakland County to significantly limit their water use for three days and adhere to a boil advisory for six days.
Coffey said part of the reason they have money to put toward the 14 Mile Road project is because an emergency of that scale hasn’t happened recently.
“If another one happens in another community next month, we’re not going to have the kind of flexibility we have to put the funds toward this,” Coffey said.
Despite this reality, Farmington Hills officials were still happy with Tuesday’s announcement.
“Every household, every business, every community deserves safe, dependable water service every single day,” said Mayor Rich.
mbryan@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: GLWA plans $81M replacement of problematic water main in Oakland Co.
Reporting by Max Bryan, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Max Bryan, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
