Officials with the company hired to oversee Flint's lead pipe replacement program met with city residents Thursday night.
Last November, the city hired Los Angeles-based AECOM to oversee the project to replace thousands of lead service lines connecting homes to city water mains. The international engineering firm is being paid $5 million dollars.
Thursday night, top executives delivered a broad outline of their plans.
“There are a lot of opportunities ahead of us, to be more efficient, to be more productive,” Alan Wong, the senior program manager, told the audience in the Mott Community College campus auditorium.
AECOM officials talked about the timeline for hiring contractors, beginning the next round of pipe replacements and other objectives.
Flint Mayor Karen Weaver expects, under AECOM’s supervision, the city’s pipe replacement program will accelerate.
Since 2015 when it was discovered aging pipes were leaching lead into Flint’s drinking water, the city has replaced more than 6,200 service lines. But thousands more remain in the ground.
“While we may not be where we want to be, but we’ve come a long away in the last two years,” Weaver reminded people in the audience.
