Transcript
This is Eileen Wray-McCann for Circle of Blue. And this is What’s Up with Water, your “need-to-know news” of the world’s water, made possible by support from people like you.
In the United States, the city of Flint is nearing a milestone. The Associated Press reports that fewer than 500 lead service lines remain in the Michigan city that just a few years ago was in the midst of a lead crisis. More than 9,700 lead service lines have been replaced so far, thanks to $120 million in state and federal funding. Service lines connect city water mains to individual homes. The lead crisis began in 2014, when officials switched the city’s drinking water source to the Flint River. After that switch, officials failed to properly treat the water, which corroded the pipes and caused lead particles to flake into the water they held. Officials said that checking and replacing the remaining 500 pipes could be done in the next month.