Officials: Flint makes progress toward ending water crisis

Flint has taken important steps toward resolving the lead contamination crisis that made the impoverished Michigan city a symbol of the drinking water problems that plague many U.S. communities, officials said Monday.

A total of $120 million in federal and state funding has helped Flint replace more than 9,700 lead service lines, which carry water from main pipes into homes, said Kurt Thiede, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Region 5, which includes Michigan.

Fewer than 500 service lines remain to be checked — a task the city hopes to complete this month, he said. The search-and-replace operation, involving more than 26,000 digs, was required under a 2017 settlement of a lawsuit filed by Flint residents and nonprofit groups against the city and state.