BlueConduit to appear on ASDWA webinar
Updated: Apr 11, 2021 BlueConduit is excited to join the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators and Lead Service Line Replacement Collaborative’s webinar on the use of predictive modeling for lead service line inventories. Eric Schwartz will be presenting alongside Michigan EGLE”s Eric Oswald to talk about the use of predictive modeling in Michigan. The webinar […]
PBS documentary highlights BlueConduit’s Flint impact
A recent documentary by PBS NOVA showcases the work that BlueConduit’s team did in Flint to use machine learning to help the city target inspection and replacements to areas of highest likelihood of having a lead service line.
BlueConduit’s impact in Flint
Beginning in 2016, our team began collaborating with Flint city officials. We demonstrated that we could create a model to accurately generate estimates of homes needing service line replacement. We provided home-by-home predictions indicating which homes were most likely to have lead service lines. This would eventually guide the largest and most prominent water service line […]
BlueConduit comments on EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule Revisions
Our organization is committed to achieving a lead-free drinking water system through evidence-based decision-making. To that end, we submitted the comments regarding the EPA’s proposed modifications to the Lead and Copper Rule. Based on our team’s experience guiding the lead service line replacement project in Flint and our expertise in data science, our comments can […]
MLive: Flint replacement progress moves forward, thanks to BlueConduit team’s work
With more than 1,000 Flint residences still needing lead service line replacements, an MLive story this week shows how the predictive algorithm of Eric Schwartz, Jake Abernethy, and Jared Webb is helping the city locate those homes. One of the key points from this week’s article that has affected the city’s overall hit rate is […]
BlueConduit statement for U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
Statement for the record provided by BlueConduit to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight October 15, 2019 Dear Chairwoman Sherrill and Ranking Member Norman: Ending the ongoing public health crisis created by lead service pipes requires identifying the pipes most likely to pose a risk […]
Jacob Abernethy and Jared Webb present Flint work at Bloomberg’s Data for Good Exchange
Prof. Jake Abernethy and Jared Webb presented at Bloomberg’s annual Data for Good Exchange in New York on September 15, 2019. They presented a case study for the effectiveness of machine learning for reducing lead service line replacement costs in Flint, Michigan. Watch the session recording: Read the paper: Getting the Lead Out: Data Science […]
WDET: Prof. Schwartz joins Detroit Today to talk about lessons other cities can learn from Flint
Eric Schwartz joined Stephen Henderson on WDET’s Detroit Today to talk about lessons Newark, Pittsburgh, and other cities can learn from the Flint Water Crisis and how to repair faulty water infrastructure before more communities face the same fate.
The Atlantic: How Machine Learning Found Flint’s Lead Pipes
A profile in The Atlantic describes how the algorithm developed by Eric Schwartz and Jacob Abernethy helped the city of Flint’s lead service line replacement program, led by B.G. (ret.) Michael McDaniel, find and efficiently replace the hazardous pipes. The article then details how the city’s replacement costs increased when the a private engineering firm […]
MLive: Webb talks about predictive model as Flint works to reach its goal
MLive’s Zahra Ahmad published an article with an update on the city’s progress toward its goal of removing all of its lead service lines. In the article, BlueConduit chief data scientist Jared Webb explains that a neighborhood with high amounts of predicted lead service lines has seen relatively few replacements. Service pipe work in Flint’s […]
NPR On Point: Prof. Schwartz talks about lessons from Flint for other cities
Eric Schwartz appeared on NPR’s On Point to talk about the lessons from his work in Flint can be applied to other cities.
MLive: Flint replaces more lead pipes using predictive model, researchers say
MLive’s Zahra Ahmad describes how the city’s rate of finding lead or galvanized service lines increased from 15 to 70 percent when it switched back to using the model developed by Eric Schwartz and Jake Abernethy. The rate of finding lead or galvanized service pipes in Flint has increased 15 to 70 percent while using […]
Gen. McDaniel talks leadership in Flint service line replacement
Retired National Guard Brigadier General Michael McDaniel spoke to the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security about his role in addressing the Flint water crisis. McDaniel emphasizes the importance of understanding risk when making public decisions, the importance of communication and building partnerships when staff and resources are thin, how communicating with […]
KDD 2018 Announces Best Paper & Other Awards
The 24th ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD) in August 2018 awarded Jacob Abernethy, Alex Chojnacki, Arya Farahi, Eric Schwartz, and Jared Webb the prize for best student paper in the Applied Data Sciences track for their work in ActiveRemediation: The Search for Lead Pipes in Flint, Michigan. KDD is one […]
University of Michigan: Using data science to manage the Flint Water Crisis
To assist in the Flint Water Crisis, University of Michigan’s Data Science team partnered with Flint and Google to design digital tools to help manage the ongoing water crisis.
The New Scientist: How AI is finding thousands of hazardous pipes
The New Scientist: Jacob Abernethy at Georgia Tech and his colleagues built an AI to predict which homes are likely to be connected to a lead pipe. They drew on work by a separate team that digitised old city plans and more than 140,000 handwritten records of building work in the city. The system catalogues […]
BlueConduit at OmniSci 2019
BlueConduit spoke at OmniSci 2019 and was included in the launch of OmniSci for Good. OmniSci for Good OmniSci, a leader in accelerated analytics, highlighted its collaboration with BlueConduit’s team as part of launching its OmniSci for Good, program as part of its Converge 2019 event. The goal of OmniSci for Good is to support […]
