FLINT, MI -- The City Council's latest push to stop using the Flint River for drinking water appears dead on arrival with emergency manager Jerry Ambrose.
Ambrose issued a statement Tuesday, March 24, calling the council's vote to "do all things necessary" to return to purchasing water from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department "incomprehensible."
"Flint water today is safe by all (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) and (Michigan Department of Environmental Quality) standards, and the city is working daily to improve its quality," Ambrose's statement says. "Users also pay some of the highest rates in the state because of the decreased numbers of users and the age of the system.
"It is incomprehensible to me that (seven) members of the Flint City Council would want to send more than $12 million a year to the system serving Southeast Michigan, even if Flint rate payers could afford it. (Lake Huron) water from Detroit is no safer than water from Flint."
Ambrose's comments are in line with remarks he and former emergency manager Darnell Earley have made about the potential for returning Flint to customer status with Detroit.
The council voted for the resolution proposed by Councilman Eric Mays, 7-1 with council President Josh Freeman the lone "no" vote Monday, March 23. Councilwoman Jackie Poplar was not at the meeting.
Mays said after Ambrose issued his statement that the emergency manager is wrong to assume that a switch to Detroit water would last for 12 months and cost $12 million more than using the Flint River.
"We must talk to each other," Mays said. "I'll try to initiate an understanding."
Mays said the switch to Detroit water might last one or two months -- long enough so that some recommendations for improving the safety and quality of water can be completed.
A recent report from Veolia North America, for example, made a series of recommendations for improving the smell and appearance of Flint water as well as for keeping levels of total trihalomethanes in the range of the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Some of those recommendations will take weeks or months to carry out, the consultant said in its report to the city.
Flint's long-term plans involve connection to the Karegnondi Water Authority pipeline that's under construction -- a connection that will bring Lake Huron water to the city again -- but not until sometime in 2016.
The city has used the Flint River as its water source since April after decades of purchasing already-treated lake water from Detroit.
Since that switch, residents have increasingly complained about water quality and there have been several boil water advisories in the city because of bacteria concerns.
City water met all health and safety standards in January and February testing, but the city remains in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act because of overall TTHM levels since the switch from DWSD.
Ambrose has said the cost of water in Flint would likely rise 30 percent or more if the city returned to buying it from the city of Detroit for one year.
"If $12 million annually were available for discretionary use, it would be far better spent reducing rates paid by Flint customers and/or modernizing the City's system," Ambrose statement today says.