I’m just wondering— How do you charge these guys for crappy pipes owned by home owners. The water didn’t have lead in it, the crappy pipes did.
The water was supposed to have chemicals added to it to prevent the new, different pH water from leaching lead out of pipes.
Somebody made the decision not to treat the water as necessary with corrosion inhibitiors to prevent the lead leaching into the water (something that WAS done with the previous water supply), but I’m betting it wasn’t these guys.
The water was too acidic. The epa made us add a phosphate to our water to correct for this condition. epa’s fault!
Many of the pipes taking the water from the water pumping station are lead or they have lead solder so even having PVC in your house does not stop you from having lead in your water.
That is why they have to check the PH of the water to make sure it is not acidic enough to leach the lead out of the pipes.
If the water department had dug up all their old their pre 1986 water pipes and replaced them you might have an argument. But they did not.
This is not just a problem in Flint, anywhere you have old pipes the potential is there if the water has the wrong PH balance.