Flint in line for grant to replace lead water lines

Gov. Snyder and Baird met with Mayor Weaver and Gen. Mike McDaniel, head of Flint’s Fast Start program, on February 8, where all parties agreed to move forward on the contract with Rowe to complete an infrastructure study before replacing lines.

It’s bad enough that the residents of Flint, Michigan, were drinking water tainted with lead, putting a future generation in jeopardy. “The people of my city have simply run out of patience and I have a moral obligation to act”. The training exercise is set to begin next week, she said.

The state says it is working with the city to remove the lead lines, starting with those that have caused very high lead levels in homes or those serving homes of young children or pregnant women.

Reportedly, this week several of the organizations are planning to protest against the Flint water crisis in Lansing, hoping to get one million signatures on a demand for Governor Rick Snyder’s prosecution and resignation. The total cost of the replacement is estimated to be between $50 million and $60 million.

Food and Water Watch conducted its survey in January 2015 and found that, on average, prices from for-profit systems were almost $200 higher than public utilities.

The state and federal governments have committed over $100 million in relief funding, but it remains uncertain when Flint residents will once again have potable water. “What’s going on?” Washington said. Everyone needs to be prepared for that possibility.

“We explain how our system works and who we’re connected to and that usually alleviates any concern”, he said. In Oct. 2014, General Motors’s Flint plant stopped using the water when they became anxious it was corroding their metal, MLive.com reported.

The department continues to serve the City of Detroit, where the corrosion control is expected to mitigate possible contamination from lead pipes used in older homes. State Treasurer Nick Khouri says that five thousand of the 29,000 residential water customers in Flint are delinquent on their bills.

The CRS identified regulatory implementation, monitoring protocols, compliance, oversight issues and the lead regulation itself as contributing factors in the failure to effectively prevent, identify and respond to high lead levels in Flint’s drinking water. In that time, crews will work to track the whereabouts of some affected 10,000 service lines.

Snyder said in a press release that the supplemental budget request was approved unanimously by the legislature last month to undergo testing of contaminated water pipes, with urgency placed on high-risk areas. “You coat the pipes, you do the infrastructure study, and you do pipe replacement”, said Snyder.

Retired National Guard Brig. Gen. Michael McDaniel, who has said he thinks replacing all of the city’s lead pipes could be done within a year by 32 crews.

Since Oct. 2, 2015, the state has assisted the city of Flint in the amount of $39.3 million. But McDaniel reiterated the plan is still in its early phases and much of it is based on “assumptions”.

EPA officials said the agency worked within the framework of the law to “repeatedly and urgently communicate” steps that the state of MI and city of Flint needed to take to properly treat Flint’s water. “This is a process we need to follow through on, and keep it consistent”.

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Rowe Professional Services in Flint has been hired to conduct the study.