Matthew Dolan

Detroit Free Press

The City of Flint's effort to replace all of the city's lead pipes is expected to start Friday.

Mayor Karen Weaver said Thursday she will kick off her Fast Start initiative intended to replace all of the lead pipes in Flint to restore safe, clean drinking water as soon as possible. The city has been under a federal state of emergency since January with most residents drinking bottled water and using filters on their taps amid concerns about lead contamination.

"Fast Start is just the first step in an overall vision to restore Flint’s infrastructure to be safe and sustainable for future generations and is only part of the effort needed to heal and renew this community through access to health care, children and family services, educational resources, economic revitalization and job creation," Weaver said in a statement Thursday.

On Monday, Lansing Board of Water and Light, joined by representatives from the Michigan Department of Environmental Equality, Rowe engineering and other local contractors, took part in a training demonstration on how to replace a lead service line with a copper line, according to the mayor's office. The line was pulled from a water main to the service box in front of a vacant house owned by the Genesee County Land Bank.

Kristin Moore, spokeswoman for the mayor, said Thursday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has signed off on Weaver's demonstration plan.

A department spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

Weaver in her announcement Thursday also reiterated her call on Gov. Rick Snyder to pressure Republican leaders in the Legislature to move immediately to approve $25 million for the first phase of the $55-million plan. Snyder has said the Michigan Legislature has approved $67.4 million for Flint and he has requested additional appropriations of $165 million.

On Thursday, Weaver also asked for the governor to support the bipartisan federal plan led by U.S. Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, both D-Mich., for $220 million in clean water and health funding.

Ari Adler, a spokesman for the governor, said Thursday that Snyder supports federal efforts to bring aid to Flint and his $25-million state budget request for Flint should cover the pipe replacement outlined by the mayor.

The City of Flint and contractors are working to confirm the presence of service lines to homes made of lead or affected by lead contamination, according to the mayor. The Fast Start initiative will initially target homes in neighborhoods with the highest lead levels in tap water, as well as those with the highest number of children under 6 years old, senior citizens, pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems .

State officials say they have been working in coordination with city leaders to bring Flint's drinking water crisis to an end. The Snyder administration signed a contract with Flint-based Rowe Professional Services engineering firm last month to conduct an assessment study of Flint's water system as well as an inventory of all of its water lines. At the same time, Rowe is supposed to complete the replacement of lead lines at 30 sites before March 15.

But the mayor and the governor have spoken about different strategies when it comes to pipe replacement. Weaver has endorsed replacing all of the city's lead pipes starting immediately while Snyder has pushed for assessing the makeup and condition of the water system before deciding how much of the lead piping to replace and when.

Snyder has sent a supplemental budget request to the Legislature, including $25 million to be used for water infrastructure, like pipe replacement in Flint. The governor said that other resources could be tapped for additional funds to replace pipes if needed.

Separately, the state Department of Environmental Quality, with the federal Environmental Protection Agency, launched a new testing project for Flint's drinking water supply at hundreds of sites around the city in an effort to see whether the city's switch back to a Detroit water supply has reduced lead levels.

Flint's switch to using the Flint River as its water supply in April 2014 was followed almost immediately by complaints from residents about discolored, pungent water that caused a number of ailments. Local and state officials insisted for months the water was safe to drink but reversed course after independent testing discovered unsafe lead levels throughout the system believed to be caused by leaching from lead piping.

Some people in the city are getting frustrated by the lack of progress to replace lead pipes and are taking the matter into their own hands.

A group of volunteers raised funds to replace the lead pipes at Brittani Felton's home in northeast Flint on Thursday. But city police came out to the site and temporarily stopped worked and checked the permits.

Matt Helmer, sales manager at the contractor Waldorf and Sons, said the work continued Thursday afternoon after police gave the green light.

"It's been very frustrating," said Felton, a 29-year-old single mother to a 7- and 10-year-old. "It's been a year and 10 months since this all started and there is no reason we should have to wait. And we're paying for water we can't drink."

Contact Matthew Dolan: 313-223-4743 or msdolan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @matthewsdolan.