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A crew works to replace a water service line in this Flint Journal file photo.

(Flint Journal file photo)

FLINT, MI -- More than one in five excavations performed by crews removing lead and galvanized water service lines in Flint so far have been dead ends, leading to copper pipes that do not pose a threat of leaching lead.

City records requested by The Flint Journal-MLive through the Freedom of Information Act show 252 of 1,155 excavations -- 22 percent -- tied to the Flint water crisis have led to copper lines.

"I call it (22 percent) a failure rate because we shouldn't have to spend time" at the property unless there is a lead or galvanized line, said Michael McDaniel, project coordinator for the Flint Action and Sustainability Team.

As contractors kick off the first full year of service line replacements, McDaniel is pushing for a special meeting of the Flint Receivership Transition Advisory Board so that $1.2 million in contracts for hydro excavation contractors can be approved.

Hydro excavation trucks use pressurized water and industrial-strength vacuums to drill into the ground, allowing operators to identify whether service lines are made of lead or galvanized steel and need to be replaced.

The process takes less time and causes less disruption to the ground around homes than digging a trench to find out the same information.

City officials have known since late 2015 that they would have problems identifying which of 55,000 properties in Flint have lead or galvanized water service lines, which connect homes to water mains.

Former Department of Public Works director Howard Croft revealed more than 18 months ago that city records about the composition of service lines were stored on about 45,000 index cards.

But even those records were incomplete and information wasn't always reliable, McDaniel said, creating the need for hydro excavation.

"That is much less cost than having someone come over with a backhoe," he said.

The two contracts already approved by the Flint City Council and proposed by Mayor Karen Weaver are $700,000 for M.L. Chartier Excavating and $550,000 for Dependable Sewer Cleaner.

Flint has contracted with four companies to remove and replace 6,000 service lines during this calendar year -- six times as many as were carried out in 2016.

Companies awarded city contracts to do the service line work are Goyette Mechanical Co., W.T. Stevens Construction Inc., Lang Constructors Inc., and Waldorf and Sons Inc.

The contract crews want to replace 600 homes in each of 10 districts created by the city as part of the FAST program.