Engineers present 25-year water asset management plan; recommends about $30 million in pipe work

The township received a draft water asset management plan and a near-complete water reliability study during a public presentation at the Grosse Ile DPS Commission meeting. Maria Sedka, an engineer with Fishbeck, summarized an inventory of the water system, condition and criticality ratings used to prioritize replacement, and a capital-improvement plan covering roughly 20–25 years.

The plan matters because it compiles an asset inventory and condition assessment required by EGLE, ranks assets by probability and consequence of failure, and translates that analysis into a prioritized replacement list and cost estimate. The presentation focused on the age, material and size of pipes, the system’s hydraulic performance for fire flows, and how these factors drive project sequencing.

Sedka said the team combined three information sources to build the capital-improvement plan: the condition-based probability-of-failure scoring, the water reliability (hydraulic) modeling that shows where upsizing is needed for pressure and fire flow, and local operations knowledge from township staff. She said the GIS-backed inventory links all record drawings to mapped mains, valves and hydrants and makes that information available for field crews.

The inventory totals Sedka described included 605 gate valves, 681 hydrants and…