Robert Allen

Detroit Free Press

FLINT — The NAACP will invite "disruptive civil disobedience" in Flint if Gov. Rick Snyder doesn't present a plan in the next 30 days that has a deadline for replacing the city's water pipes, the organization's national leader said Monday.

"The NAACP, having seen the generosity of Americans from one end of this country to the other sending water bottles to Flint, (is) going to call on the people in 30 days to send bodies and conscience to Flint," and engage in a mass demonstration, said Cornell Brooks, national president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He was speaking at Christ Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church.

Brooks said his intent with civil disobedience is a responsible demonstration that, for example, doesn't disrupt schools. Asked for specifics from a woman in the audience, he said it would be a direct action, a protest "in the same way your grandparents may have engaged in civil rights movement."

Snyder's office later issued a statement saying that the project to replace lead lines "is proceeding with great urgency," and that part of $28 million approved last month will go toward utilities; $25 million was requested last week for removing lead pipelines.

Civil rights panel, NAACP concerned over Flint woes

"Work is under way to locate high-risk, high-priority areas so removal efforts can begin quickly," according to Snyder's office.

In Flint, there are about 5,000 known lead lines, 25,000 lines made of other materials and about 10,000 made of unknown materials. Further details of plans are to be announced this week, according to the statement.

Brooks on Monday said he expects a "timeline, deadline (and) price tag" for replacing the water lines. Corrosion resulting from a temporary switch in spring 2014 of the city's water source to the Flint River leached lead into the city's tap-water supply. As the crisis rose to national prominence, the state has worked in the last several weeks to restore a protective coating to the pipes using phosphate chemicals.

But Brooks said this amounts to a "bargain-basement Band-Aid" not guaranteed to keep people safe. Lead is shown to cause permanent brain damage in children.

"There's not one scholar, not one study, not one expert who can ensure, who can guarantee, who can attest that this plan will in fact work to ensure safe, clean drinking water," Brooks said.

Snyder's office in the statement pointed out that Virginia Tech University professor Marc Edwards and other experts recommended the coating process.

U.S. Sen. Gary Peters also spoke at the Monday church event, which was attended by about 80 people. He called the water crisis "an outrage." He, as well as Brooks, decried Michigan's emergency manager law that made it possible for a state appointee to make decisions over locally elected leaders. He said it has been difficult to find support in the U.S. Senate to help, but that Flint residents should to be treated the same as every other American.

"You deserve basic human rights, and there is nothing more basic than drinking water," said Peters, a Democrat from Bloomfield Township.

He was wearing jeans and said he was in town to help deliver bottled water to people who were unable to go to distribution centers set up in the city.

Contact Robert Allen: rallen@freepress.com