A new map is helping Flint residents sift through the history of their homes to find out what kind of water pipes they have.
The interactive map allows Flint residents to type in their address and see records about the structure’s water infrastructure.
Dr. Stacy Woods is a geostatistician with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which helped design the map. She said drawing it up took a lot of digging, both literally and figuratively.
“These guys came in and the records were held in 45,000 index cards, they were spread all over the place. It wasn’t like here’s a fancy excel sheet let’s make a map.”
Woods is referring to the guys that are part of the team over at Blue Conduit, the data analysis company who helped collect the data and do the analysis needed to create the map.
Ian Robinson is the managing director of the company, he said the team has already gotten feedback from the community since the map’s release.
“So far the response has been really useful and really positive in terms of connecting people with their information. And then we’ve also gotten some really helpful feedback, there’s a part on the map where if residents know that the data needs to be updated, they can send us a correction, and we’re working on updating the map so that it reflects all of those.”
The company formed out of a U of M research team after the Flint water crisis began and up to this point Flint is their main focus, but Woods said it is only just the start.
“This kind of work started in Flint, people everywhere have a right to know, and a right to that information to protect themselves from lead in their tap water.”
To see the map you can go to https://www.flintpipemap.org/