After a spill of a latex product occurred along a Delaware River tributary, officials in Bucks County and Philadelphia have said that there have been no adverse impacts to drinking water so far.
On Sunday, March 26, health officials from nearby Bucks County had found a leak of a water-based latex finishing solution into Otter Creek, a tributary to the Delaware River. The leak had begun at the Trinseo Altuglas chemical facility in Bristol between Friday, March 24 and Saturday, March 25. The leak had spilled between 8,100 and 12,000 gallons of the water-soluble acrylic polymer solution.
The spill included chemicals such as methyl methacrylate, butyl acrylate and ethyl acrylate.
Bucks County officials announced that water supplies in the area are continuing to monitor water treatment plants’ intakes along the river, and have so far found no adverse impacts to drinking water quality. Samples from the U.S. EPA and U.S. Coast Guard have also found no contamination near water intakes.
The Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) has said that tap water from the Baxter Drinking Water Treatment Plant, based on the Delaware River, has remained safe to drink. PWD said that it expects no contamination of water in the Delaware River the following Wednesday or Thursday this week, but it will continue testing to assure that no spilled contaminants have entered the water treatment plant.
The department has shared regular updates on monitoring results every few hours through both social media and official website updates.
American Water Pennsylvania, a utility providing drinking water services to counties near the spill, has said that water from its Delaware River Regional Water Treatment Plant has not been impacted by the spill.
A troubled past
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the Trinseo Altuglas chemical facility may have held a history of multiple chemical release incidents over the past decade, before Trinseo acquired the Bristol plant in mid-2021.
According to the Inquirer, government agencies had investigated the facility for: a release of 1,760 pounds of methyl methacrylate in 2010; releases of butyl acrylate and ethyl acrylate between 2012 and 2013; and a spill of 300 gallons of ethyl acrylate in 2014. Agencies also investigated the plant’s pervious operator, Arkema, for a leak of an unknown quantity of methyl methacrylate from a pipeline in 2021.
