Detroit’s water affordability crisis is tied to the uneven distribution of stormwater management costs – a fraught history explains why

Beginning in July 2026, Detroiters will be paying higher water and sewer bills. That’s because The Great Lakes Water Authority, or GLWA, voted unanimously on Feb. 25, 2026, to increase water rates by 5.8% and sewer rates by 4.26% for its customers. GLWA raised rates by similar amounts in 2025. Residents at GLWA’s last rate hearing spoke of their difficulty keeping up with utility bills. For low-income customers across the GLWA system, rate increases aggravate a deeply entrenched water affordability crisis. In the coming years, utility bills will likely continue to rise, driven by maintenance costs to upgrade infrastructure nearing the end of its life cycle. Utility bills are the primary source of revenue for public water and wastewater systems. Yet both the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, or DWSD, and GLWA are caught in what utility experts call an affordability gap. That is, the discrepancy between what it costs to maintain essential infrastructure and what ratepayers can reasonably afford. Utilities across the country are facing down a similar contradiction. For DWSD customers, the gap is wider still because they carry a greater burden for water quality improvements that benefit the wider metropolitan region. I am a political ecologist at…

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