Retrieved from Ĭenters for Disease Control & Prevention. People exposed to Flint’s lead-tainted drinking water can now sign up for registry.

Four years of the Flint water crisis: “We’re living through something that should never happen.” Retrieved from Ĭarmody, S. Judge rules Flint Residents can sue federal government over water crisis. How GM saved itself from the Flint Water crisis: rusting engine blocks flagged big problem. Closing the valve on history: Flint cuts water flow from Detroit after nearly 50 years. So the mayor decided that contractors should excavate every house in areas where lead was possible, rather than skipping over some homes where lead was unlikely. Although the predictive model was working well and getting lead pipes identified and replaced quickly, some residents didn’t understand why a neighbor’s pipes were being replaced but theirs weren’t. The change appears to have been in large part driven by a perception problem.

The lead-pipe hit rate plummeted from roughly 70 percent in 2017 to about 15 percent in December 2018. However, in 2018, a new contractor scrapped that method at the city’s behest and began digging more broadly across the city’s wards. The city estimates it will need to replace a total of about 12,000 lead or steel pipes, so it’s a little more than two-thirds done.īut the pipe replacement efforts have also come under scrutiny.Ĭontractors had been identifying and replacing lead pipes at a good pace in 2017 thanks in large part to an artificial intelligence system that helped predict where lead pipes were most likely located, according to a 2019 article in The Atlantic. Crews in yellow vests continue to dig up streets to replace lead-tainted and galvanized steel pipes leading to Flint homes.Īs of May 30, 2019, the city had managed to explore 21,524 service lines and replaced 8,434 lead-tainted lines under its FAST Start Pipe Replacement Program. In April 2019, after two years of providing bottled water to its residents, the city of Flint declared its tap water safe again for drinking, but signs of the crisis are still visible.

Flint michigan water crisis