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The rules were imposed by Snyder following the Flint water crisis.
A requirement that all municipalities replace lead service lines within 20 years is facing a legal challenge from a coalition of water agencies, The Detroit News reports.
The water providers — which include the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, the Great Lakes Water Authority and the city of Livonia — reportedly argue the rules "impermissibly compromise water suppliers' ability to remove lead lines to protect the public from exposure to a wide range of other contaminants in drinking water" and that they shouldn't be expected to replace private service lines for free.
The News writes:
"MDEQ launched the stakeholder engagement process in July 2017 accompanied by an announcement that the Rules would have to be finalized by the end of the year," according to the lawsuit. "This abbreviated timeline limited plaintiffs' ability to work through the numerous practical and legal complexities involved in implementing the rules which require the digging up of infrastructure on an estimated 500,000 residential properties." . . .
The new rules create an estimated $2.5 billion cost to replace both the public and private portions of lead service lines by local agencies "without any known funding from the State," according to the lawsuit. Requiring the digging up of service lines on private property may well lead to lawsuits by ratepayers against local agencies arguing violations of the Constitution and state law, officials argue in the filing.
