Prof estimates Flint has 8K-plus lead service pipes

Associated Press

LANSING, Mich.

A University of Michigan-Flint professor said Monday that the city has more than 8,000 old lead pipes running from water mains to homes and businesses, an estimate the mayor plans to use in ultimately replacing all of the service lines.

Dr. Marty Kaufman’s team analyzed Flint’s handwritten records, paper maps and scanned images to create a digital database of pipes in the city. State regulators failed to require Flint to treat river water with anti-corrosion chemicals when its water source was switched in 2014, allowing lead to be scraped from aging pipes and into drinking water.

The numbers and locations of lead service lines in Flint is significant because Mayor Karen Weaver, who appeared with Kaufman during a news conference at city hall, wants them removed as quickly as possible, for $2,000 to $3,000 per pipe.

“People won’t buy homes or even feel comfortable in our restaurants until every lead service line is removed,” she said. “This is an important step toward returning confidence in government.”

Kaufman stressed that while the project is a full compilation of available data, the records, which were compiled from a 1984 survey, do not always indicate the types of pipes used. His team identified 4,376 known lead service pipes and estimated 4,000-plus more based on an analysis of missing data.

Flint homes on average are 74 years old, he said, and more than 23,000 were built before 1950.

Gov. Rick Snyder, whose administration is spending up to $500,000 for a Flint engineering company to help locate pipes, estimates there are at least 5,200 lead lines among 55,000 properties. About 25,000 are not lead while another 10,000 are unknown and will need to be individually inspected, according to Snyder’s office. An additional 15,000 connect to vacant properties.

He welcomed the university’s database but also said the paper records on which the study is based “are not the most reliable,” citing instances where lines were said to be lead but were not and vice versa.

“We want to take that work and overlay it to see how it overlays with the work that had previously been done,” Snyder told reporters at the state’s new Emergency Operations Center in Lansing, where he released the results of an initial round of lead tests at key Flint sites.

The Republican governor spoke the same day that Michigan’s elections board approved a long-shot petition to recall him from office for his handling of the city’s crisis, which began when it changed its water source to save money while under state emergency financial management. To make the ballot, organizers must collect nearly 800,000 valid voter signatures within two months of starting their petition drive.