“Environmental engineers that C&EN contacted say that, on the basis of how Flint treated the river water, the water chemistry was not optimized to control corrosion.
Most important, the treated Flint River water lacked one chemical that the treated Detroit water had: phosphate. “They essentially lost something that was protecting them against high lead concentrations,” Giammar says. Cities such as Detroit add orthophosphate to their water as part of their corrosion control plans because the compound encourages the formation of lead phosphates, which are largely insoluble and can add to the pipes’ passivation layer. By press time, C&EN was unable to get a comment from Flint city officials about why a corrosion inhibitor wasn’t added to the river water.”
Good article;
http://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i7/Lead-Ended-Flints-Tap-Water.html
good article. I came away with the conclusion that is was lead pipes in houses and distribution systems. All that needs replacing . How would like to face every day for your children wondering if the lead is flaking off any pipe to my faucet because the Ph level is off? Seems to me that time is of the essence and I wish them good luck. It was the pipes not the water. I see these criminal cases as thrown out very quickly unless they knew the total disaster was happening and did it anyway.