NEWS

Chemical testing could have predicted Flint's water crisis

John Wisely, and Robin Erb
Detroit Free Press
  • Experts say tests could have predicted Flint's problems.
  • Flint didn't add chemicals to water that Detroit had used successfully.

Chemical tests could have predicted the corrosion in the pipes that is now being blamed for endangering the health of thousands of vulnerable Flint residents by elevating lead levels in their water supply, experts say.

Freeman Elementary School students line up near cases of bottled water that were donated to their school on Thursday October 8, 2015. The 50 cases of water came from Lanice Lawson, who started a gofundme account to provide safe water. She has been able to deliver over 12,000 bottles of water to students at Flint community schools, day cares and senior centers in the city. Freeman had a water sample tested at 101 parts per billion  for lead exceeding the 15 parts per billion standard.

As the city scrambles to reconnect to the Detroit water system, the absence of such testing on the Flint River water is one of many missed opportunities that might have lessened or avoided the crisis, they say.

“Any competent person should have seen this water will eat up iron and eat up lead,” Marc Edwards, a Virginia Tech professor and national expert on pipe corrosion, told the Free Press. Edwards said his own research shows that Flint River water, without additional controls, corrodes the lead inside pipes at 19 times the rate of water piped from Detroit.

Why are lead levels in children higher in 2 Flint ZIP codes?

Among red flags that popped up ovethe last 18 months:
•    General Motors announced in October 2014 that it was pulling its engine plant off Flint water after workers there began noticing rust spots on newly machined parts. The city approved letting GM switch to water from Flint Township, but didn't change its own water treatment procedures.

•    The University of Michigan-Flint alerted city officials that it found elevated lead levels in its water in January, prompting the school to shut off some some drinking fountains and add water filters to others.

•    Testing in the fall of 2014 found E. coli in the city's water system, prompting "boil water" notices. The city's procedures for killing the E. coli produced chemical by-products known as trihalomethanes, which can cause cancer with long-term exposure. The city had to adopt additional measures to reduce them.

“Common sense tells you that the Flint River is not your first choice of drinking water,” said Shawn McElmurry, who teaches civil and environmental engineering at Wayne State University and has followed Flint closely.

Q & A on Flint's water troubles

Experts say the testing could have been done before the switch from the Detroit system. But officials  from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality note that that kind of testing isn’t required under federal drinking-water rules and has never been done in Michigan. What’s more, they said, the Flint River water, treated in the city’s plant, was already approved as a backup supply in case of interrupted service from Detroit.

Other experts said the testing is more nuanced, part art and part science. Still, they acknowledge that by examining things such as the acidity of water and other factors, engineers could have estimated how much corrosion to expect once water from the Flint River was pumped into homes and businesses across the city.

“Not every engineer in our field could do it, it's a pretty specialized area," said David Cornwell, a Virginia-based engineering consultant and a technical adviser to the National Drinking Water Advisory Council, a group of experts that works with the Environmental Protection Agency on drinking water issues.

Young doc takes on state over lead in Flint water

The fix now will cost  $12 million — a combination of money from the state, the city and the Flint-based non-profit C.S. Mott Foundation, which has pledged $4 million to help pay Detroit for the water while Flint waits to connect to a new water authority in partnership with Genesee County.

Water woes began shortly after switch from Detroit

Flint began using Flint River water as its main supply in April 2014. Before that, it bought Lake Huron water that was treated and delivered by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. Detroit ended that deal one day after Flint voted to join Genesee County in forming the Karegnondi Water Authority, which plans to build its own Lake Huron intake and pipe the water to the Flint Water Plant.

Flint officials wanted to remain on Detroit's system, but the two sides couldn't agree on a price and a contract length.

Once the switch to river water was made, the city, which was operating under a state-appointed emergency financial manager, faced one problem after another. Residents packed city council meetings and held protest marches to voice their anger about water quality.

Experts say Flint's lead problems could have been held in check if the city had added phosphates to the water, as Detroit has done for years. The treatment doesn't eliminate lead entirely, but it does form a film over the pipes themselves, effectively sealing in the lead and reducing the amount in the water to acceptable levels.

But when Flint switched to river water, it didn't add phosphates. Instead it added lime to soften the water.

“The lime softening process has the added benefit of some corrosion control,” said Liane Smith, chief of Michigan’s Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance.

Smith said that once the switch  was made, the state began testing for lead and copper, as is required by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

“Any new supply that comes along has to do two six-month rounds of monitoring for lead and copper out in their distribution system,” Smith said. If those tests show corrosion, additional steps, such as perhaps adding phosphates, are supposed to be followed.

The first round of testing completed in December 2014 showed lead levels of 6 parts per billion. The second round, completed in June of this year, showed they had almost doubled to 11 parts per billion. The EPA requires a remediation plan when levels reach 15 parts per billion and can demand action even below that mark on systems that serve more than 50,000 people.

Cornwell said phosphates are considered more effective than lime softening and they don't raise treatment costs substantially. But they have side effects, he said.

“The negative is that nobody really likes phosphates out in the environment,” he said, noting they can find their way into rivers and lakes, fueling algae blooms such as the ones in Lake Erie.

“There is more to it than saying we're just going to pump phosphates,” Cornwell said. “You may have to make other adjustments.”

A man crosses a bridge over the Flint River near the Hamilton Dam in downtown Flint on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015,

Flint River water a challenge to clean up

Flint River water was always going to pose more treatment challenges than the cold, clear water that comes from the bottom of Lake Huron, experts said.

The river has been marked by decades of industrial pollution. Its tributaries channel farmland run-off into it and its temperature varies by season. Warmer water can promote bacteria growth. All of those factors make treating it to drinking-water standards more difficult.

"The city was doing the best it could” to clean up pollutants, Edwards said, but added that corrosivity was inevitable.

He blamed the problems on a lack of expertise rather than intentional wrongdoing.

“I think it started relatively innocently. They didn’t understand testing and they didn’t understand corrosivity,” he said.

Last month, Edwards' research group released results of corrosion tests it conducted on Flint's water. For the test, researchers used copper pipe with lead solder, which is common in older homes.

The tests showed Flint River water without added phosphates corroded the lead at 19 times the rate of Detroit water. Even when phosphates were added, it corroded at 16 times the rate of  the Detroit water.

“From the second it was switched, it was doomed from the lead problem," Edwards said.

When residents began complaining about the water, the city and state should have begun to rethink their testing, Edwards said.

Problems were evident soon after the switch.

In August last year, E. coli was found in the water and residents were urged to boil it before drinking it. The city treated it with disinfectant, but that produced by-products in the water known as trihalomethanes. Long-term exposure to them can cause cancer, so the city began making treatment adjustments.

Then as summer turned to fall, workers at Flint’s GM engine plant began seeing rust on newly machined engine parts. GM's lab tests found high levels of chloride in the water used to wash down metal shavings and cool parts heated from the rapid machining action inside the plant, GM spokesman Tom Wickham said.

GM tried to treat the water in the plant. It had drinking water delivered and tankers brought water for operations, Wickham said.

But it eventually sought to connect to Flint Township's water system, which is supplied by Detroit. 
In December the connection was finalized and Detroit water began flowing to the plant, via Flint Township.

In January 2015, lead was showing up at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus. School leaders become concerned about the water supply after the city issued "boil water" advisories to kill E. coli and realized they’d never done routine, thorough water testing.

Tests in January and February showed elevated levels of lead and other problems in isolated areas —specifically in two infrequently used drinking fountains in two older buildings.

Follow-up testing found other elevated levels of lead, and those sinks and fountains then were either fitted with filters or removed, said Mike Lane, director of the environment, health and safety department

He said officials suspected the problem was in their pipes but notified the city anyway.

In June,   Miguel Del Toral of the Environmental Protection Agency drafted an internal memo noting the problems Flint had experienced with E. coli and the by-products of the chemicals used to treat it.

"A major concern from a public health standpoint is lack of corrosion control treatment in the city of Flint for mitigating lead and copper levels in the drinking water," Del Toral wrote.

The memo caused a stir when the American Civil Liberties Union exposed it. But the EPA told the Free Press  on Friday that the memo was a draft that was never delivered to MDEQ officials, including Smith, whose names appear on it.

The EPA did say it discussed the concerns raised in the memo with MDEQ officials in July, but the agency did not respond immediately to a request for details.

Leaching lead not unique to Flint

The problem of lead leaching into drinking water isn't unique to Flint. Across Michigan and around the country, pipes that carry water from the mains under the street into homes, businesses and schools often contain lead. Inside homes and business, many older plumbing fixtures and soldered pipes also contain it.

Cornwell said officials from across the nation have formed a working group to review the lead and copper rules and look for ways to improve them. Among the things being considered is a national effort to remove lead pipes from water systems.

But even if a national consensus formed around that idea, the process would take years, Cornwell said. A funding source for such a massive project also would be needed.

Still, he said, removing the pipes is the only surefire way to eliminate lead from the system.

"We can only do so much with water chemistry," he said. "We can only turn the knob so much."

Contact John Wisely: 313-222-6825 or jwisely@freepress.com

Contact Robin Erb: 313-222-2708 or rerb@freepress.com.

TIME LINE

April 16, 2013: Flint signs agreement to join the Karegnondi Water Authority.

April 17, 2013: Detroit terminates contract with Flint, giving it one year to find a new water source.

April 24, 2014: Flint switches from Detroit water to Flint River water.

April 30, 2014: Flint closes all valves connecting to Detroit water supply.

June-Sept. 2014: Flint residents complain about smell, taste and discoloration of water.

Dec. 16, 2014: Michigan Department of Environment Quality cites Flint for exceeding limits on disinfection by-products.

Dec. 27, 2014: Flint's General Motors engine  plant, citing high chloride levels in the water, switches off its hook-up to Flint, drawing water instead from neighboring Flint Township.

Jan. 9, 2015: Concerned about Flint’s water warnings, University of Michigan’s Flint campus begins testing its water, detecting lead in isolated, infrequently used areas.

June 24, 2015: Environmental Protection Agency drafts a report raising concerns about lead in Flint’s water system as a result of corrosion. It doesn’t send the report, but discusses its concerns with MDEQ officials in July.

Sept. 24, 2015: Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha releases data showing spike in blood-lead levels in Flint children.

Oct. 2, 2015: State officials tell room packed with reporters that there's a problem with Flint's water.