Fast Tracking of DWSD into a Metropolitan Areas Metropolitan Authority?

Detroit's Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr is interested in fast-tracking legislation to establish a metropolitan authority which would absorb Detroit Water & Sewage Department. The passage of legislation during December's flurry of 435 bills signed into law in Michigan included the Metropolitan Areas Metropolitan Authority Act.

Opposition is to be expected to moving DWSD to a metropolitan authority according to Shannon Price, chairman of the Wayne County Commission's Water Board Task Force.

Interest in buying the treatment plant from a third party is likely to be high, he said. Wayne County is facing its own financial problems outside Detroit. The threat of an emergency manager coming into the county looms, and its general fund debt was recently measured at $210 million.

But any attempt at selling the treatment plant would be met with swift legal opposition, said Dan Paletko, Dearborn Heights mayor and chairman of the committee that oversees the plant — the Downriver Joint Management Committee.

Wayne County owns the land, but Paletko said the 13 communities have some ownership claims, having made some $300 million in improvements to the plant over the years.

--- From The Detroit News