Orion Township and Village Residents Asked to Conserve Water, Outage Imminent
(Oakland County Times, May 10, 2026)
Orion Township, MI – Residents and businesses in Orion Township, including the Village of Lake Orion, are facing a water emergency following a water main break early Sunday morning.
The Township issued an emergency alert just after 2am stating:
Orion Township Supervisor Chris Barnett is urging residents and businesses to conserve water. “We need the water in our water tower to last as long as possible, typically that is less than one full day. We need to stretch it as long as possible. Do not water grass, do not shower, do not do laundry, flush as little as possible. This is a very serious situation for our community and we need to come together on this. Please be patient with our team and each other. Let’s do what we do Orion. We got this.”
On Saturday both Auburn Hills and Orion Township shared information to help people prepare for a service interruption. The problem comes from a 42 inch water main located in River Woods Park in Auburn Hills that had been leaking. A new section of pipe has been brought in and replacement is in progress, though it could take several days.
A section of Auburn Hills has been impacted as well, though as of publishing the City has not shared information for residents. This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
Here are more resources:
- CDC: Creating an Emergency Water Supply – https://www.cdc.gov/water-
emergency/about/how-to-create- and-store-an-emergency-water- supply.html - GLWA Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/glwater
- Potential Water Outage Impact Map – https://cms9.revize.com/
revize/oriontwp/ PotentialOutageMap_GLWA%2042- Inch%20Main_V4.pdf?t= 202605090954040 - Orion Township Website – https://www.oriontownship.org/
- Orion Township Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/
oriontownship/ - Auburn Hills Website – https://www.auburnhills.org/
- Auburn Hills Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/CityofAuburnHills
UPDATE: Great Lakes Water Authority shared information on their website:
To assist the impacted communities, GLWA has sent its three water trucks to the impacted communities to provide residents with one gallon containers of water. These trucks are capable of providing 2,000 one gallon contains in each trip.
The water trucks, available as soon as possible this morning at the following locations:
Orion Township
• Wildwood Amphitheater, 2700 Joslyn Court
Auburn Hills
• Auburn Hills Department of Public Works, 1500 Brown Road
Village of Lake Orion
• Atwater Park, 426 Atwater Street
The GLWA water trucks will provide water to the impacted communities as long as the emergency water outage continues.
Because the response plan had been in place since the day the leak was discovered, GLWA’s emergency contractors have already mobilized equipment, and a replacement segment of pipe is already at the break site.
Once the break is isolated, crews can excavate the site and remove standing water so that the damaged pipe can be removed and replaced. Once the pipe has been replaced, it can then be filled, disinfected, and flushed. Water quality samples will then need to pass testing before the watermain can be returned to service. At that point, the community’s will need to fill and flush their systems and conduct their own water quality sampling.
At this time, we do not have a firm estimate of when water service will be restored, however residences and businesses should be prepared to be out of water for a minimum of 14 days.
This is a developing situation, and more information will be shared as it becomes available.
UPDATE: Rochester Hills has been placed under a boil advisory due to drop in water pressure.
