Power of the people

Flint had been under state control ­— in one form or another — since 2011. An already caustic situation turned seriously dangerous in April 2014 when the state, in a stated attempt to save $5 million, forced the city off the Detroit water system to begin using the highly corrosive Flint River. The river was meant to be used as the city's water source during the interim while a new pipeline from Lake Huron to Genesee County was being built.

That pipeline is still being constructed, with completion slated for later this year. This will mean that the city, this time under close scrutiny from the federal government, will be changing water sources again fairly soon.

And this means that, in less than three years, as a result of decisions imposed on Flint by the state, the city's water source will have gone from the Detroit system to the river, from the river back to Detroit, and from Detroit to the Karegnondi pipeline.

It is all part of what activist Claire McClinton describes as the ongoing "debacle" created by the string of emergency managers appointed by Snyder to run Flint.

Claire McClinton, retired autoworker and longtime activist

A retired auto worker and longtime activist, McClinton, like Shariff, was active in the effort to strike down the state's original emergency manager law, and helped co-found the Flint Democracy Defense League. She was also part of the citizen-led effort to conduct independent water tests in August.

The big issue now, though, is how fast to begin replacing lead service lines — the pipes that run from water mains to individual homes.

It is a problem complicated by the fact that the city, which is supposed to keep track of such things, doesn't have much of a clue as to which homes have lead service lines and which don't.

"They don't know where the lead service lines are," says Marc Edwards, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech and the scientist who spearheaded the water tests last summer. "It has been proven that their records are no good."

Marc Edwards was hired by the city to oversee lead testing.

Working with residents to conduct those tests, Edwards was able to establish close ties to many Flint residents. As a result of the trust he established by exposing Flint's lead problem, Edwards has been hired by the city to oversee the lead testing currently under way.

Identifying the exact location of the estimated 15,000 to 25,000 lead service lines bringing water into Flint homes is a task that will take at least a year, Edwards predicted.

"People need to know that this is not going to be a quick, easy fix," he says.

Edwards has been caught in the middle of a struggle between Weaver — who won an unexpected victory over incumbent Dayne Walling last year because of her unwavering criticism of the water fiasco and a promise to address the problems immediately — and Snyder, whose administration has been engulfed in scandal as a result of its mishandling of the disaster.

Weaver, who's been impressive in the ways she's dealt with the complex and chaotic situation during her first few months in office, is pushing to move full-speed ahead to replace the city's lead service lines.

Snyder, whose administration has been dangerously slow to react at every step of the crisis, has promoted a more measured approach, initially saying he wanted an engineering firm he selected to conduct a study of service lines before beginning replacements.

Edwards says that, despite the number of homes still being found with elevated levels of lead in the water, the switch back to the Detroit system and the application of phosphates to control corrosion are slowly improving water quality.

On the other hand, he said in an interview last week he supports Weaver's plan to focus attention immediately on replacing lead service lines going into homes with the most vulnerable residents — pregnant women and children under the age of 6.

What makes Weaver's fast-forward approach feasible, says Edwards, is her decision to incorporate a method of service line removal and replacement pioneered by the Lansing Board of Power and Light. The method, which avoids digging trenches to replace the old lines, can be done at half the cost and in half the time of the traditional approach.

"I will not accept anything less than full removal of all lead pipes from our water system," says Weaver. "I continue to hear from Lansing that the people of Flint should wait to see if pipes can be 'coated.' I call on Governor Snyder to end that discussion, and to commit fully to getting the lead out of Flint."

Bowing to pressure, Synder announced last week that Flint will receive a $2 million state grant to start replacing lead lines immediately. Although that's a start, it's estimated that the cost of replacing all of the city's lead service lines will be $55 million.

In an attempt to keep pressure on the state to fund the full cost of service line replacement, activists are planning a march on the state Capitol building in Lansing on Feb. 25.