Flint, MI– The City of Flint will be connecting to a recently completed secondary pipeline to be used in case of emergency if the city has an issue with Flint’s primary pipeline.
But when that will happen has not been announced.
Flint’s Director of Communications Melissa Brown said the City will begin testing the system by gradually incorporating more and more water from the secondary pipeline connected to the Genesee County Drain Commission’s system over the course of four weeks. Brown said the start date for this process is “TBD.”
According to Brown, the water will be tested to ensure there are not any “problems with the blending,” but that the “City of Flint and EGLE (Michigan’s department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy) do not expect any problems.”
After four weeks, once the water source has completely connected to GCDC, repairs will begin to take place on the “line/valves” coming from the city’s primary water supplier, the Great Lakes Water Authority.
Brown did not have information about why the repairs were needed, although she said the contractor estimates that it will take about six weeks. Water testing will continue during that time until the water source is switched back to GLWA, she said.
Both GLWA and GCDC use Lake Huron as the water source.
During an informational meeting about the new secondary water source, Director of Public Works Michael Brown said the two suppliers were like “two straws going to the same drink.”
At that meeting, the DPW director said that GLWA and GCDC use the same water treatment technology and that GCDC is the supplier for “almost all of our suburban communities” in Genesee County.
He said the secondary pipeline would only be used in the case of an emergency.