FLINT, MI -- The city of Flint's ban on a cost-effective tool and its method for finding lead water service pipes may mean it could run out of money before all its hazardous pipes are removed.

The price of digging up and burying a copper pipe increased from $285 to $3,513 after changes were made to the FAST Start replacement program in June. As a result, the city will pay millions of dollars in settlement funds reburying thousands of copper pipes.

In 2017, the city was given $97 million in a settlement after social groups like the Concerned Pastors for Social Change and the Natural Resources Defense Council demanded enough funding to replace the estimated 18,000 hazardous lead and galvanized steel pipes in Flint.

"The city's illogical approach means that hundreds of lead and steel pipes will likely stay in the ground and in use, and Flint families will remain in harm's way in the meantime," said Cyndi Roper from the NRDC.

Rather than checking homes documented to have hazardous pipes first, the city wants to dig up pipes at all 25,800 homes with active water accounts at its own pace.

The city referred all questions about its methods to AECOM, a Los Angeles-based engineering firm contracted for $5 million to oversee FAST Start.

Alan Wong, Flint program manager for AECOM, testified the city doesn't prioritize which homes are assigned to water piper replacement contractors at a Aug. 21 U.S. District Court hearing.

The city's current method for finding hazardous pipes caused social groups to seek a court order to enforce the settlement's central agreement -- prioritizing the removal of lead pipes. The court hasn't ruled on the request.

Factors like a list of homes with active water accounts, maps and historic water cards are used to assign 3,000 homes to each pipe-replacement contractor, Wong stated.

Over 140,000 historic water cards were discovered two years ago and over 95,000 of them were digitized free of charge by Captricity, a paper-to-digital processing company.

According to a city press release, of the 7,060 homes checked this year, 79 percent had pipes made of copper. The city will pay $19.4 million for digging up those copper pipes and reburying them.

A statistical analysis submitted to the court shows this year's method finds lead at a worse rate than randomly picking a home for the work. The current method's 21 percent success rate for finding lead contrasts with last year's success rate of 80 percent.

Last year, FAST Start was able to replace about 6,200 hazardous water pipes and check over 8,000 homes. This was done by utilizing a computer model built by researchers to plan which homes had a higher risk of having lead pipes and should be checked first.

The model estimates that more than half of the remaining 9,157 digs required by the settlement will uncover hazardous pipes.

AECOM isn't using the computer model to find these lead or steel pipes because the model has a 94 percent success rate, Wong said.

This heat map was made by researchers Jacob Abernethy and Eric Schwartz using their predictive model to identify service lines. The blue represents areas predicted to have copper, or safe lines, the red predicts areas that have lead or galvanized lines and the black is where AECOM has dug up pipes in 2018.

Finding lead

In 2016, retired Michigan National Guard Gen. Michael McDaniel was assigned to manage FAST Start and the city was mandated to find and replace all its lead or galvanized water service pipes.

It was a daunting task because funding or a reliable record of the city's water system wasn't available, McDaniel said.

"It was like looking for a black cat, in a dark room, in the middle of the night," McDaniel said. "Where do we start?"

After learning about Flint's problem, researchers Eric Schwartz from the University of Michigan and Jacob Abernethy from Georgia Tech worked free of charge and built a computer model that predicts what materials a home's water service pipes are made of.

"This was a laser beam of light pointing us in the right direction and it's proved to be true," McDaniel said.

The computer model uses data from the historic water cards, a home's age, value, GPS coordinates, Census data, the data from last year's replacements and data from any water testing that occurred at a home, to predict if a home has hazardous pipes.

"The model was getting better as we put more data into it," McDaniel said. "We were able to construct a map showing where we've replaced service lines and where we should go next."

Had the city used the computer model from the start, it could have saved $10 million in unnecessary costs, according to a paper the researchers published.

Using a cost analysis the city submitted to the court, it is estimated for every $10 million saved, some 2,000 homes could have their lead pipes replaced.

The computer model was utilized for planning which homes to check and a hydrovac was used to confirm and dig up hazardous pipes.

A hydrovac uses a high-pressure water and vacuum system to dig a hole. It's the cost-effective tool Mayor Karen Weaver banned contractors from using in June.

Losing ground

The ban was made shortly after Weaver expressed concern at a Flint Water Interagency Coordinating Committee meeting that a hydrovac might miss spliced lines. So far, contractors have found seven spliced lines.

A spliced line is a lead or steel pipe that leaked and was patched using a "copper band-aid." According to the city, the only way to be sure a spliced line isn't missed is by digging 8 to 10-foot wide holes uncovering the pipe.

But hydrovacing is just another means of digging that hole, said Goyette Mechanical project manager Joe Parks. Goyette is one of five companies contracted with the city to replace service water pipes.

"We're digging the same hole whether it's with a hydrovac or a backhoe," Parks said.

The only difference in using a hydrovac is that it cuts the cost of digging significantly. That difference in cost can't be disputed, Wong said.

Lead Costs Breakout_UPDATE (002).png

The most efficient method of digging up pipes is a combination of shovels, backhoes and the hydrovacs, Parks said.

"When you take away a tool from us that we planned on utilizing, it slows us down and makes the job more dangerous and expensive," he said.

The company centered its bid around the hydrovac and didn't expect to be forced to work without it, Parks said.

In a cost change sent to the city, Goyette estimates it'll incur $500,000 in extra costs by the end of the project if the ban on hydrovacing isn't lifted. So far, the city hasn't agreed to pay the company the extra costs.

Spending time in the wrong places

Researchers say the city should prioritize homes that are historically known and statistically estimated to have hazardous pipes.

"You shouldn't spend most of your time on homes that have a 10 percent chance of having a lead line because we know there are other homes remaining that have a 90 percent chance," Abernethy said.

Brenda Cristi's house on Craig Drive is in the 4th Ward, a ward predicted to have the least amount of lead or steel pipes. Only 17 of the 702 pipes dug up in this ward were found to be hazardous.

Without warning, Cristi said, all the homes on her street had their pipes dug up in August. Cristi was surprised at the urgency in digging up her neighborhood. She said her pipes are safe because she had her water tested and never had issues during the Flint Water Crisis.

In the 5th Ward, the ward estimated to have the most hazardous lines, only 163 homes have had their pipes checked. Nine out of ten homes checked had lead or steel pipes.

"My biggest concern is the residents of Flint deserve the best possible effort and use of taxpayer, city, state and federal funds," Schwartz said. "They deserve to know the most accurate and credible information about the replacement of these lines."

Wrapping up the year

The city set a goal to find and replace the estimated 18,000 lead or steel water service pipes by 2020.

As of October, the city has checked 15,893 homes and nearly half of them were found to have copper water service pipes. This year's replacements account for 76 percent of all the copper pipes that have been dug up and reburied.

At the rate the city is finding and replacing hazardous pipes, only 1,280 of the 4,800 lead or steel pipes estimated to be underground will be removed.

This has left some plaintiffs in the settlement concerned there isn't enough urgency from the city to find these hazardous pipes.

"You know something is seriously wrong when digging up service lines randomly would find more lead pipes than the city's current approach," Melissa Mays, co-founder of Water You Fighting For and a plaintiff in the settlement said. "The people of Flint deserve better."