I'm no expert, but I assume it takes long enough to where they are just going to have to replace all the lead pipes and fittings.

That talking point you mention could be true, or it could be a way for the state level government to dish it back to the local government. Who knows. To me it seems like the municipality screwed this up more than the state, but like I said it's virtually impossible to find an unbiased news source with the whole story; they both no doubt have a role. Even this very story is politically driven, it could be misleading in its urgency to drive clicks/narrative. Happens all the time with various things in the news (like the claim of x drug use among teens, etc.)

Hopefully there is a non-partisan investigation from the Federal level on the Flint fiasco.