Overview
- GLWA formally committed $81 million on Tuesday to a three-year program that moves the agency from short-term repairs to multiyear replacement and monitoring of the 14 Mile transmission main.
- The project will replace three miles of the aging 48-inch main with a new 54-inch steel pipe, inspect and renew another three-mile stretch to the Franklin Pump Station, and install acoustic fiber-optic cable to continuously detect leaks.
- The line has suffered multiple major breaks over recent years, including incidents in September 2025, March 2026 and May 2026, and officials say the pipe began failing at roughly half its expected 100-year service life.
- GLWA will fund the work through its capital improvement program using utility revenues and bond financing, with construction scheduled to begin in November 2026 and run into early 2028.
- Residents should expect traffic disruptions during construction and longer-term benefits include faster detection of leaks, fewer water outages and clearer accountability from GLWA after repeated boil-water advisories and local flooding.