By: K. Michelle Moran | Grosse Pointe Times | Published May 5, 2026
GROSSE POINTE CITY — With millions of dollars in previously promised federal funding now no longer a certainty, a massive stormwater sewer separation project in Grosse Pointe City is on hold — possibly permanently.
“The project will not move forward in its current form,” City Manager Joseph Valentine said April 20.
After severe flooding in the summer of 2021 damaged homes, businesses and property, the city learned in October 2023 that it had qualified for $21,627,583 in mitigation dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for sewer system improvements that were estimated in 2022 to cost about $28,571,344. The federal funding was supposed to be administered through the Michigan State Police’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division.
City voters in August 2024 overwhelmingly approved a 21-year, $15 million bond to cover stormwater sewer separation and, if additional funding remained, other capital improvement purchases such as new garbage trucks.
But circa July 2025, Valentine told city officials that Michigan State Police Hazardous Mitigation Program officials informed the city that FEMA was changing its evaluation criteria for federal funding effective immediately. Two of the changes would negatively impact the city’s ability to qualify for funding. The city had been trying to argue that it was grandfathered in, as the funding had already been approved.
City officials said they have been trying since last year to find out from FEMA whether they can still get funding, but with staff reductions and the recent, lengthy partial government shutdown — which impacted the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA — it has been impossible to get that question answered. The shutdown ended May 1, but it’s unclear when FEMA officials — who are likely backlogged — will be able to look into the city’s case.
Lacking the FEMA funds, the city couldn’t meet the state deadline for a low interest loan from the Clean Water Revolving Fund, Valentine told the Grosse Pointe City Council during a meeting April 20.
With rising materials and labor costs, the amount the city would need in matching funds has soared from $7 million a couple of years ago to $30 million now, Valentine said.
“Right now, given the circumstances we have … we’re unable to make this work,” Valentine said.
Preliminary engineering also showed that the scope of the work was greater than initially thought.
“It was a perfect storm of learning it was just more complicated underground,” Mayor Sheila Tomkowiak said.
A further wrinkle is that FEMA had set a deadline of project completion — at the end of 2027 — that the city can no longer meet. If the city could still get FEMA funding, it would also need FEMA’s approval for an extension.
“Without the extension, we couldn’t move forward,” Valentine said.
It’s an issue that impacts city taxpayers. While voters approved $15 million in bonds, Valentine said the city has only issued about $1.35 million to date and only spent an estimated $600,000 to do preliminary engineering — work that would need to be done anyway to determine the scope of future system repairs. Because the city hasn’t been able to undertake the project it originally planned, it hasn’t collected the full millage from taxpayers — nor does it intend to do so under the current circumstances.
“We did not go in and activate the whole bond. … At this point, there are no plans to use any more of that bond money,” Tomkowiak said.
While the original project might not ever get off the ground, city leaders said there’s still work that needs to be done and can be done in the form of smaller individual projects. Valentine is suggesting the city come up with a phased-in stormwater plan.
If they have a plan in place, Tomkowiak said they can apply for grants toward the smaller projects.
Nonetheless, the prospect of losing millions in federal funding that would have greatly improved the city’s aging infrastructure at a time when the small municipality doesn’t have the ability to come up with that kind of money is a painful blow.
“It is very, very disappointing,” Tomkowiak said.