As Detroit cleans up after a disastrous water main break on Monday that sent a surge of icy water onto city streets and flooded an estimated 150 to 200 homes, the Great Lakes Water Authority wants to increase water and sewer rates.

The GLWA oversees the water main that burst during an extended cold snap, and affected at least a square mile of Southwest Detroit and left many low-income residents displaced due to flooding and damaged furnaces.

Detroit city officials are taking blame for one of the worst water main breaks in the city’s history, and are vowing to cover all uninsured repairs to homes damaged by the flooding, The Detroit News reports.

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As residents grapple with the cleanup in sub-freezing temperatures, the GLWA has proposed the highest water and sewer rate hikes in its 10-year history as a 4% cap on higher prices ends this summer, the Macomb Daily reports.

The authority serves 112 communities across eight counties in southeast Michigan. The proposed increase would raise wholesale water rates by roughly 7.73% and 5.39% for sewer rates for the 2026 fiscal year, which begins July 1. The authority’s board of directors is slated to vote on these charges during its Feb. 26 meeting.

GLWA officials say the increases are needed to cover capital investments and maintenance that have been deferred for several years, along with corrosion controls in its water.

But some local leaders have raised concerns over the rate hikes, especially when residents are already struggling with higher costs because of inflation.

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Demeeko Williams, founder and chief director of Hydrate Detroit, a water-relief nonprofit organization, told the Macomb Daily it is the wrong time for rate increases.

“Why are we raising rates when people are struggling to keep jobs, opportunity and such?” Williams asked. “… People are already struggling. That adds on to our water bills. People can’t afford their water bills.”

Eric Griffin, general manager of the Southeastern Oakland County Water Authority, called the proposed water rate increase “significant,” according to the Macomb Daily report. SOCWA contracts with GLWA to provide water services to 13 communities, including Berkley, Southfield and Royal Oak.

How much of the wholesale water rate hike will be passed on to residents is to be determined. GLWA charges cities and townships for water and sewage treatment, and then local governments set their own rates for customers. Some mayors and township supervisors said they expect to raise rates for residents by less than GLWA’s hikes.

Griffin said SOCWA will have no choice but to pass the hikes on to its member communities in Oakland County.

“I have no alternative but to pass that increase on to my communities, and they’re going to be forced to pass those increases to their residents,” Griffin said. “So, the bottom line is … that is where the increase is going to hit, and 7.5% is a big increase.”

Founded in 2014, the GLWA made a 10-year commitment to keep rate increases below 4%. The 4% Promise expires on June 30. As recently as 2023, the authority said that keeping the commitment to limit budget increases to 4% or below was “incredibly challenging.”

“I’ve been running DWSD for 10 years now, and we’ve never had a water main break this large in a densely populated neighborhood,” said Detroit Water and Sewerage Department Director Gary Brown in a FOX 2 Detroit report.

The GLWA is coordinating with the DWSD to help those impacted by the flooding. The 54-inch steel water transmission main ruptured in the subfreezing temperatures. The line is owned by the GLWA and was buried underground in the 1930s, The Detroit News reported.

Images and video from the scene show a mess both on streets and in homes, with residents being rescued on rafts and garbage cans floating down the street. The water submerged vehicles and forced the evacuation of dozens of residents who live in the area of Beard and Rowan streets.

Megan Gibson, 32, has lived her entire life on Lexington Street. On Monday afternoon, she moved drenched carpet and other damaged items outside of her house.

“There’s so much pressure from the water. The pipes are messed up and now people are left to pay for all this,” Gibson told The Detroit News. “These people are poor over here. It’s low-income over here.”

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan told reporters that residents will be compensated for any uninsured repairs such as new furnaces or water heaters, with the cost being split between the GLWA and the DWSD. He said the arrangement will speed repairs rather than going through the bureaucracy of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“There’s no act of nature in this case,” Duggan said during a press conference. “This was a failure of a Detroit-built … water main. That’s the truth, and we’re gonna fix it.”

When officials were questioned about whether the main break was preventable, they indicated it wasn’t possible given how the infrastructure was originally built.

Monday’s incident follows a series of water main breaks last month as temperatures fell far below freezing.

In January, a few dozen breaks occurred across Detroit’s 3,000 miles of water main when temperatures dropped below the teens. During a Jan. 22 news conference, Sam Smalley, DWSD deputy director, said the number of breaks that happen during severely cold weather is double to triple to what they typically experienced in the winter, The Detroit News reported.