Into the 21st Century: The Evolution of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department

Challenged by years of decline, Detroit is seeing renewed optimism and investment. Effective January 1, 2016, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (“DWSD”) became solely focused on retail water and wastewater utility service delivery in the City of Detroit. Responsible for operating and maintaining approximately 6,000 miles of water and sewer piping networks, DWSD embarked on a $400 Million program to renew their buried infrastructure. A key goal of the program was to transform the Department into a customer-centric organization focused on long-term infrastructure stewardship and renewal. DWSD established a Capital Improvement Program Management Organization (CIPMO) to deliver the capital improvements while fostering the establishment of best management practices within the organization.At the outset of the Program, performance benchmarks were established to monitor the impact of infrastructure improvements. These benchmarks included the reduction of untreated CSO’s, cave-ins, inflows and infiltration, water system leakage, and non-revenue water. Customer service and stakeholder engagement improvements were also tracked to better communicate how DWSD was maximizing the value of money invested in the infrastructure. New business policies and procedures were established to stem the loss of institutional knowledge, leverage available infrastructure information, inform condition assessment programs, and prioritize capital projects based on improving performance, mitigating risk and minimizing life cycle costs.The manuscript and presentation details how DWSD and the CIPMO is meeting its challenge of renewing Detroit’s water and wastewater infrastructure while simultaneously evolving into a progressive utility.