The City of Detroit, having failed to come to terms with its suburban customers on a lease of its capital-starved water system, now wants private contract operators to respond to an RFI on April 7 and to an RFP on June 1 for a long-term management contract of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Dept. (DWSD) facilities.

The unusually short response time and the difficulty experienced by the counties in getting accurate financial information from DWSD suggest the RFP may be an effort to elicit ballpark numbers on options available to the city.