Background

What Occurred?

On March 26th, an announcement was sent to all Philadelphia residents to not drink the tap water. This caused a panic in Philly, and quickly stores were selling out of bottled water. Eight thousand to twelve thousand tons of a water-based latex solution were spilled into a subsidiary of the Delaware river from a chemical facility in Bucks County. A few hours later, they were updated that the water was safe to drink temporary. A few days after that, the tap water was confirmed to be within safe levels and everything went back to “normal”.

Why is this significant?

After occurrences like the train derailing in East Palestine, Ohio, it is concerning to see another spill occur so soon after. Some of the chemicals in the spill included Ethyl acrylate, methyl methacrylate, and Butyl acrylate. Butyl acrylate was actually one of the chemicals that were present in the East Palestine spill as well, so obviously there are some concerns of the possible health implications of this spill. Luckily, since the Delaware is such a massive river, the spill was diluted to within safe levels. Still, what happens when something like this happens again? These aren’t one off occurrences; they are happening in our own states, towns, and cities, and we need to be aware of the dangers of having a chemical plant so close to vital waterways.

Opinion

Legislature

In Pennsylvania, 1989’s “Worker and Community Right-to-Know Act” declares that “employers within the Commonwealth and chemical suppliers doing business within the Commonwealth have a duty to make available to employees and to the general public the identity of chemicals used in the workplace, and to make information available as to the known or suspected health hazards posed by the use of or exposure to hazardous substances”. This means that Trinseo, the company responsible for the spill, must inform the public of the risks of this spill. Beyond this, I could not find many more policies about what they must do after something like this.

My Opinion

This news really hit close to home because my home is in Bucks County, and I live close to Bristol Township. I had friends and family living in Philly, and it was really scary to not know what was happening. I hope this is a lesson, not just to the Philadelphia water department, but to water departments nationwide about to handle a spill like this. I think they did a good job and they were really transparent about what was occurring, but at the same time, something of this magnitude should not happen. We should fund more protection to prevent such large infrastructure failures and doing more routine checks on factories that are close to vital waterways to prevent a repeat of this situation.