{"id":311067,"date":"2026-05-11T23:51:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/311067\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T23:51:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:51:24","slug":"a-42-inch-pipe-broke-50-years-too-soon-heres-where-things-stand-for-oakland-county-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/311067\/","title":{"rendered":"A 42-inch pipe broke 50 years too soon. Here\u2019s where things stand for Oakland County communities"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. \u2013 A water main break in Auburn Hills prompted a State of Emergency and is impacting multiple areas as water supply dwindles<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Great Lakes Water Authority crews are working overtime to fix the issue and made several improvements on Monday. <\/p>\n

The ruptured 42-inch waterline serves Auburn Hills, Pontiac, Rochester Hills, Orion Township, Lake Orion and Oakland Township. It broke around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday and crews worked through the day and night to isolate the issue, digging 25 feet below ground to get to the damaged pipe. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey were able to cut the pipe out and remove it. 3:15 is when I got the note,\u201d GLWA CEO Suzanne Coffey said about the progress made on Monday. <\/p>\n

Soon after, crews were welding on the replacement pipe, putting pipe bedding in \u2013 along with gravel. They spent the afternoon placing the pipe. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe next step in the process is they\u2019ve got to go in and actually weld the joints to the existing pipe,\u201d Coffey said. <\/p>\n

This is all ahead of schedule. But, just because things are moving along, doesn\u2019t mean there isn\u2019t a long road of testing ahead. <\/p>\n

This pipe was installed in 1975 and was supposed to be a 100 year pipe. It\u2019s only been about 50 years. <\/p>\n

\u201cA very small percentage of this kind of pike can have a defect in it,\u201d Coffey said. \u201cThey called it a \u2018manufacturing anomaly\u2019 that creates a condition where it ages more rapidly than it should. But, 96% of the pipe is good. It\u2019s $20 million a mile to replace the pipe.\u201d<\/p>\n

As communities in the area battle dwindling water supply, Local 4 has been following the situation in Orion Township. It\u2019s one of the most impacted communities. <\/p>\n

Many eyes have been on the area\u2019s water tower, which typically holds about one day\u2019s worth of supply. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was at 28.5 \u2013 what\u2019s it sitting at now?\u201d Local 4 asked. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis morning when we came in, it was over 30, which is good because you know when people are sleeping they aren\u2019t using water all night,\u201d Orion Township Supervisor Chris Barnett said. \u201cBut, then, this morning we saw the water levels start to drop. We were able to get the water up a bit again. This is our main feed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another impacted area is Rochester Hills. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt first when it broke, we were in the teens,\u201d Nathan Mueller, the chief of communications for the City of Rochester Hills, said. \u201cWhen the restrictions went into place, we saw that jump up. It kicked our booster station on which kicked the PSI, so it\u2019s pushing water up to the north end, especially our neighbors in Oakland Township that we service for water.\u201d <\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUBURN HILLS, Mich. \u2013 A water main break in Auburn Hills prompted a State of Emergency and is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3443,143,904,145,144],"class_list":["post-311067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-auburn-hills","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-county","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}