Detroit has finished a $40 million stormwater project designed to give roughly 1,200 far west-side homes a better chance of staying dry when the skies open up. The work moves rainwater away from the city’s overburdened combined sewer system and into new basins at Rouge Park, where it can be slowed, filtered and released instead of rushing toward neighborhood basements.
The Far West Stormwater Improvement Project was completed yesterday after construction began in 2022. Two new basins can capture more than 119 million gallons of stormwater each year, according to Axios Detroit, while the new network redirects runoff from about 213 acres.
That is a serious amount of water to keep out of the pipes — enough, by the city’s estimate, to fill more than 171 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The project is also expected to reduce basement-backup risks for at least 1,200 west-side households, as reported by the Detroit Free Press.
Two basins now handle Rouge Park runoff
The project separates stormwater from sanitary sewer flow, allowing wastewater to continue to the treatment plant while filtered runoff is sent through a new outfall to the Rouge River. The City of Detroit says the work was designed to reduce combined-sewer overflows, improve Rouge River water quality and meet state permit requirements.
The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department also disconnected downspouts for about 400 homes, replaced 14,500 linear feet of water mains and rehabilitated roughly 15,700 sewer lines in the project area. Mayor Mary Sheffield said the investment increases system capacity while making Detroit’s infrastructure more climate-resilient, according to the Detroit Free Press.
More Detroit stormwater work is waiting on funding
The far west project is being celebrated as a finished fix, but city officials say it is not the end of Detroit’s flooding problem. Three other shovel-ready stormwater projects — in Schoolcraft North, Schoolcraft South and West Chicago — still need funding, the Detroit Free Press reported.
DWSD’s FY2026-30 capital plan includes proposed grant, loan and local-match dollars for those corridors, while an earlier DWSD public notice identified West Chicago North and South along with Schoolcraft North and South as planned stormwater improvements.
Detroit’s combined sewer system carries rainwater and sanitary sewage through the same network, which can become overwhelmed during intense storms. After nearly seven inches of rain in June 2021 left several hundred Detroit households dealing with basement water and sewage backups, city officials said the system needed both large construction projects and smaller green-infrastructure fixes, according to the City of Detroit.
The Far West project was funded with $30 million from the Evergreen-Farmington Sanitary Drain Drainage District and $10 million from DWSD. For residents near Parkland and west Warren, the real test will arrive with the next major downpour — when the new basins have to do more than look tidy beside the park.
