In early 1996 the 72-inch water main (connecting the Adams Road Station to Franklin Station) will began supplying water to a number of rapidly growing communities in Oakland and western Wayne Counties who have been waiting more than 20 years for the construction route to be approved.

Problems with low water pressure in Oakland and western Wayne Counties moved the State of Michigan's Public Health Department in 1990 to ban further expansion of the local water systems in 14 communities until this project went on line in 1996.

"This 10.8-mile main," says Qaqish, "will then offer the capacity to deliver up to 200 million gallons of water from Lake Huron each day. This supply will flow through 26 miles of 120-inch and 32 miles of 96-inch PCCP on its way to Adams Station."

Planned and designed to be built in 1972, the project was strongly challenged from the outset by residents of several communities along its route. Even after the need for this line became urgent in the mid-1980s, it took six more years of negotiation before the route was fully approved in 1993.

The new water main --built entirely of 72-inch PCCP-- provides direct service to the City of Troy, Bloomfield Township, and the Southeast Oakland County Water Authority. The $35 million cost of the Adams to Franklin project will be paid over a 30-year period by the 4 million customers in the 124 communities now served by DWSD.

All design, engineering and field inspection for the project was done by the staff of DWSD. We're pleased that the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department's engineers and inspectors continue to have great confidence in PCCP and our company's ability to meet all their quality and delivery requirements.

Detroit specified only Prestressed
Concrete Cylinder Pipe for this
new 10-mile pipeline...here's why

All the design, engineering and field inspection for this project was done by the DWSD staff. "For more than 40 years, we have used prestressed concrete cylinder pipe for all DWSD transmission lines from 24-inch to 120-inch diameters," notes Awni Qaqish."Detroit installed a major 54-inch line in the mid-50s and 26 miles of 120-inch transmission line 10 years later. Our records show, in fact, we've installed some 2 million linear feet of PCCP since the mid-50s, and we have had no problems with any of it. "We experience virtually no leaks anywhere along our hundreds of miles of transmission lines, even though annual temperature ranges from minus 30 degrees in winter to over 100 degrees in summer."