FLINT, Mich. (news agencies) — Jeffrey Bell watched as crews dug up and replaced neighbors’ lead water pipes, hoping his mother’s house would be next. Workers told him it wasn’t on their list but probably assigned to another contractor.
With Flint’s lead pipe replacement program winding down this year, Bell and his elderly mother worried the home they share was forgotten. Betty Bell repeatedly called the city while continuing to buy bottled drinking water, as she had for years. Finally someone called to say the water line was fine — records indicate it was checked in 2017. But the Bells hadn’t known that, exemplifying residents’ confusion over a process marred by delays and poor communication.
“I have even more questions now,” Jeffrey Bell said.
About a decade after Flint’s water crisis caused national outrage, replacement of lead water pipes still isn’t finished. Although the city recently said it completed work required under a legal settlement, the agreement didn’t cover vacant homes and allowed owners to refuse, potentially leaving hundreds of pipes in the ground. The state agreed to oversee work on those properties and says it’s determined to finish by fall.
Flint’s missteps offer lessons for municipalities that face a recently imposed federal mandate to replace their own lead service lines. The Trump administration is expected to soon tell a federal appeals court if it will stand by that mandate.
“I think other cities are racing not to be Flint,” said Margie Kelly, a spokesperson with the environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, which reached a settlement with the city to force it to replace lead pipes.
Flint’s crisis was set in motion in 2014, when a state-appointed emergency manager ended a contract with Detroit’s water system and switched to the Flint River to save money. But the state didn’t require treatment to prevent corrosion that caused lead to leach into the water.
High levels of lead eventually were detected in drinking water and children’s blood. Outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease that killed a dozen people were also linked, in part, to the city’s water.
In 2017, Flint entered into a settlement requiring it to replace all lead pipes and fix dug-up yards for free within three years. Funds were directed first toward homes with known lead lines at the NRDC’s insistence, which meant workers couldn’t tackle neighborhoods systematically. And finding those homes proved challenging because many records were missing or inaccurate — some handwritten on notecards dating to the early 1900s.
“The city’s overall management of the program was ineffective,” and it could have better coordinated work geographically, said Sarah Tallman, an attorney with the NRDC.
That stalled the program and, ultimately, the city had to check every pipe anyway. COVID-19 also slowed work.
Flint Department of Public Works Director Kenneth Miller, who was hired last year, said the city didn’t know how many homeowners had opted out of lead pipe replacement or how many properties had simply been missed as contractors came and went.
“Just like any other organization, people get lax, people stop doing things, people get laid off and the person that used to do it doesn’t do it anymore,” he said.
Because the city didn’t keep accurate records of repairs, a judge ordered officials to visually check thousands of properties that had been excavated.
Yards torn up by contractors sometimes sat that way for months or years. For months, Danyele Darrough’s lawn was a mess and the sidewalk and driveway were covered, she said. Grass seed that workers applied never grew. Finally this spring, nearly three years later, she bought bags of topsoil and seed to fix her lawn herself.
