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Council approves GLWA contract amendment after agency details repeated 14 Mile main failures
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Summary
The Walled Lake City Council unanimously approved amendment No. 6 to its water-service contract with the Great Lakes Water Authority after GLWA officials described four failures since 2017 on a 14-mile transmission main and outlined expensive replacement and monitoring plans.
The Walled Lake City Council voted unanimously to approve amendment No. 6 to its water-service contract with the Great Lakes Water Authority after a detailed briefing from GLWA leaders about repeated failures on a 14-mile transmission main that serves the community.
Suzanne Coffey, chief executive officer of GLWA, told the council the pipe network has experienced “four failures” since 2017 and that the affected 42-inch transmission main is showing accelerated deterioration. “This is not the level of service your citizens deserve. It's not the level of service GLWA wants to provide,” Coffey said, urging investment and a change in strategy beyond routine inspection and renewal.
Coffey said GLWA is using a four-year contract review cycle to update exhibits in the model contract—maps and demand tables that planners use to set charges—and that the amendment before council updates those exhibits for Walled Lake. Pete Fromm, GLWAdirector of water transmission, described work on the 42-inch main along 14 Mile Road: crews finished installing the new 42-inch pipe on April 10, and GLWA is filling, chlorinating and testing sections with a goal of returning the entire run to service from west of M-5 to Wixommaster meter by the end of the month or early May.
GLWA said the failures are not isolated: the agency inspected the broken segment five years earlier with no detected defects, then saw further breaks in September and again in March. Coffey said forensic analysis is under way on removed pipe segments and that experts have recommended a hybrid approach—larger-scale replacement in places and the use of continuous monitoring technology, such as acoustic fiber-optic cables that can detect wire breaks in prestressed concrete pipe. She warned these steps will require “many, many millions of dollars.”
Council members pressed GLWA on causes and on emergency communications to residents. Officials described transient pressure waves (similar to "water hammer") as a risk when power or pumps cycle and said GLWA rigs transient monitors and reduces pressures where feasible. On public notice, GLWArepresentatives said their control room notifies municipal public works operators and that municipalities must fan out alerts because the wholesaler bills cities—not individual customers—and does not maintain a citizen contact database. Council members urged exploring push notifications and social-media alerts to reach residents more quickly.
After the briefing, Councilmember Speaker 2 moved to adopt the resolution amending the GLWA contract; the motion carried on a roll-call vote recorded by the clerk. The resolution updates the contract exhibits and formally records the agreed planning demands.
What happens next: GLWA and city staff said they will continue follow-up meetings on both operational fixes and communications. Council members requested continued reports on schedule and cost estimates for pipe replacement and road restoration work linked to the main replacement.
