JM Eagle pipe offer to Flint 'still being considered'

More than a month has passed and no action has been taken on JM Eagles' offer to provide free plastic pipe to help the beleaguered city of Flint, Mich., deal with its lead-tainted drinking water crisis — even as local officials look to fund an estimated $55 million of service line replacements.

However, the cost of the task at hand and the value of the offer made in person by CEO Walter Wang at a Feb. 22 City Council meeting is becoming clearer. A preliminary cost breakdown projects Flint needs $9.75 million for “material,” $36 million for “labor” and $9.25 million for operational, administrative and contingency costs to meet its goal of replacing 15,000 service lines — 5,000 of which are known to be lead service lines (LSLs).

Wang had told city officials his Los Angeles-based company would provide free product to replace LSLs connecting homes and business to water mains in the cash-strapped city of 100,000.

JM Eagle is the No. 1 pipe, profile and tubing extruder in North America with estimated sales of $2.5 billion, according to Plastic News' latest ranking. The company has 22 manufacturing plants that produce PVC and high density polyethylene pipe for drinking water as well as sewage and irrigation. HDPE pipe would likely be used to replace service lines.

If at least one third of the targeted service lines are lead, JM Eagle's offer is likely worth at least $3.25 million to Flint. But it could worth more based on an estimate made by a University of Michigan professor, who puts the number of LSLs going to Flint's 56,000 homes and businesses at 8,000.

About three weeks after JM Eagle's offer, Flint Mayor Karen Weaver launched the Fast Start program to replace service lines to 30 “high-risk households” that either tested high for lead levels or are occupied by children under age 6, senior citizens, pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems.

Kristin Moore, Flint's public relations director, said copper pipe is currently being used to replace service lines. The offer from JM Eagle was referred to city administrators, she added.

“The only update is that it is still being considered but for the work being done right now we're still using copper,” Moore said in a phone interview.

The replacement of service lines at the initial 30 households started March 4 and should be completed around the March 31 target date. Then, the Fast Start program is supposed to ramp up throughout the city as funding becomes available. The plan is to continue using copper pipe, Moore said, adding that she expects JM Eagle's offer will go through some kind of vetting process.

“I'm sure there would need to be some kind of inquiry about the sustainability of the product,” Moore said. “They're just not going to say ‘We'll take it.' There are processes and procedures we have to do on this end before we move forward.”

Lead leached into Flint's drinking water system after the city, while under control of state-appointed emergency managers, switched water sources from Lake Huron to the highly corrosive Flint River without providing proper treatment. The change was made in April 2014 as a cost-cutting move in the city where 41.6 percent of residents live below federal poverty thresholds.

Typically, communities use corrosion-control chemicals to coat old pipes and prevent lead from leaching. But that didn't happen in Flint — a lot of finger-pointing has since ensued — and the potent neurotoxin, which can cause permanent health effects, such as lower IQs, delayed development and behavioral problems, got into the water supply.

Although residents complained immediately about the color, odor and taste of the water flowing from their taps, and soon afterward about skin irritations from contact with it, county, state and federal agencies were slow to respond to the red flags. The source of drinking water was not switched back to Lake Huron until October 2015.

“The Flint water crisis is a story of government failure, intransigence, unpreparedness, delay, inaction, and environmental injustice,” according to a report made public March 23 by the Flint Water Advisory Task Force.

Mayor Weaver said she hopes the task force's findings spur the approval of state and federal funds to remove lead-tainted pipes from homes as well as expand early literacy programs for children and put aggressive screening programs in place to find and assist residents with high blood lead levels.

“Our residents were poisoned by drinking lead-laced water for 18 months and still cannot use the water coming out of their taps for drinking, cooking or just brushing their teeth,” Weaver said in a March 23 news release. “They are paying a high price for mistakes that were made. Yet there has been absolutely no sense of urgency by state and federal elected officials to get Flint the funding it needs.”

In the same release, the mayor points out that two months have gone by since Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said he would do everything he could to help Flint. She noted that state lawmakers have yet to approve $127 million in supplemental spending.

Flint also is waiting on $220 million in federal aid to replace damaged infrastructure and address health needs, Weaver said in the release.

In the meantime, officials with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimate that lead should stop leaching from the city's water system by May 1. But no date has been given as to when Flint residents can safely drink the water without filters.

On March 24, Dow Chemical Co. of Midland, Mich., announced it would donate $100,000 to the United Way of Genesee County for emergency support services in Flint. In addition, Dow employees have assembled water test kits, distributed water and filtration equipment, and collected baby wipes and ready-made formula for the Flint residents.