Flint meets the real reason why cities should set up maintenance funds as lock-boxes and not piggy banks.

QuoteFlint — Flint is poised to stay with the Detroit area water system in part for the same key reason that city officials wanted to leave it three years ago — to save money.

When Congress approved $100 million for Flint in December, the city was forced by federal and state rules to review its alternatives for spending the money on water infrastructure. The cash was targeted at addressing the lead contamination crisis that followed the city's switch from the Detroit-area system — now called the Great Lakes Water Authority — to corrosive Flint River water that wasn't properly treated.

The original plan was to use much of the new federal money to upgrade the obsolete Flint water treatment plant so it could handle Lake Huron water coming through a new pipeline for the Karegnondi Water Authority. But Flint couldn't join the new Genesee County-based water system until August 2019 at the earliest, according to a Jan. 31 city letter sent to the Environmental Protection Agency.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2017/06/26/flint-water-stick-detroit/103191220/