Philly residents now advised tap water is safe through Monday night following chemical spill, officials say

After advising residents that they may want to switch to bottled water Sunday afternoon following a chemical spill into a Delaware River tributary — setting off a buying spree that emptied store shelves across the city — Philadelphia officials said the city’s tap water would be safe to drink at least through Monday night.

The advisory, which officials issued Sunday morning “out of an abundance of caution” in response to the release of chemicals from a processing plant in Bucks County, was updated later Sunday after officials said they found no contamination in water taken in earlier in the day at the city’s Baxter Water Treatment plant.

» READ MORE: Live updates: Latest on Philadelphia water following Delaware River spill

That gives the city enough safe drinking water to last through at least 11:59 p.m. Monday, officials said. But the plant will be taking in new water overnight, which will again have to be tested to determine its safety.

“There’s no need at this time for people to be rushing out and buying bottled water,” Mike Carroll, deputy managing director for the city’s Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Sustainability, said at a news conference Sunday evening. He suggested people fill bottles with tap water Sunday and during the day Monday while awaiting updates on future water usage.

The city’s initial advisory, however, sent many people scrambling to stock up on water Sunday, after a morning news conference in which Carroll and other officials advised residents they might want to switch to bottled water at 2 p.m. to avoid any possible contamination following Friday’s chemical spill at the Trinseo plant in Bristol.

“We cannot be 100% certain there will not be traces of these chemicals in the tap water throughout the entire afternoon,” Carroll said Sunday morning. Among the chemicals spilled was butyl acrylate, which was one of the chemicals released in the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment, Carroll said.

Panic-buying ensued. At Wegman’s in Cherry Hill on Sunday afternoon — where streams of customers left with carts loaded with water — Alison Allocco and her friend Abby Herrmann were out when they got the news about possible contamination.

“A friend told me not to go to ShopRite because they were out of water. We were so scared,” said Allocco, 25, of Queen Village. A man in the store advised her and Herrmann that they could get around the store’s limit of four water items per customer by splitting up, though when he started giving Allocco water from his cart, “I realized, ‘I don’t need eight cases of water,’” Allocco said.

Shannon Hogan arrived at the Target in Snyder Plaza in South Philadelphia only to find it “picked clean,” with mostly specialty waters, such as Smartwater, remaining.

She made an unsuccessful stop at a beer distributor before finding water at Lowe’s, where some people were buying full pallets.

”The consensus I heard from people — it was frustrating we were warned this late from the city,” said Hogan, who first learned of the advisory from Inquirer.com Sunday morning, and who bought extra water for elderly neighbors unaware of the news.

After the city’s news conference at 10:30 a.m., the city posted a notice an hour later telling residents to consider bottled water starting at 2 p.m., also including a map indicating that all neighborhoods west of the Schuylkill and just about all of Northwest Philadelphia were not impacted.

Residents then got emergency alerts from the city on their cell phones about 1 p.m., telling them the city “recommends using bottled water from 2 p.m.” until further notice.

Carroll said information available to the city had been evolving, and added that the process of getting updates “out the door, so to speak, can take a little bit of time.”

While the city had closed intakes at the Baxter plant following Friday night’s spill of more than 8,000 gallons of a latex finishing solution into Otter Creek in Bristol Borough, it reopened the plant Sunday morning to maintain minimal levels of water in the system, Carroll said.

Unsure of whether that new water might be contaminated, the city decided to take “the most conservative approach” in advising residents to consider bottled water starting at 2 p.m., Carroll said. By mid-afternoon, he said, the city had received updates that “made us feel a little more comfortable.”

There’s still a risk that water that enters when intake reopens overnight could be contaminated, though “based on all the testing we’re seeing, the situation is one where the potential for contamination is diminishing over time,” Carroll said. He said the Department of Environmental Protection and Philadelphia police did a flyover of the river and “saw no visual evidence of any plumes” from the latex in the river.

Carroll said the city would be providing updates, including more alerts to cell phones.

The spill came from the Trinseo Altuglas facility in Bristol. On Sunday evening, Trinseo said in a statement that the incident “appeared to be a result of an equipment failure.”

An estimated 8,100 gallons of a latex emulsion solution — “approximately 50% water and the remainder latex polymer,” according to the company — was spilled. The product “overflowed the on-site containment system and entered a storm drain, where it flowed to Otter Creek and then to the Delaware River.”

“We are conducting a thorough assessment of all of our systems and processes to identify and address potential vulnerabilities and will take the steps necessary to close any gaps,” Trinseo CEO Frank Bozich said.

Rich Negrin, acting secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, said in a statement that the agency was “working closely with our partners to monitor the spread of the contaminants and we will hold the responsible party accountable.”

The department said that “an unknown amount” of the latex product had entered the river, and that as of Sunday morning, “no additional product was leaving the facility and entering” the river. It also said that “contaminants have not been detected at drinking water intakes at this time,” and there were no signs of harm to fish or wildlife. A spokesperson didn’t respond to additional questions about the spill.

While Philadelphia appeared to be alone in issuing an advisory, New Jersey American Water on Sunday evening asked customers in Burlington, Camden and Gloucester Counties to limit water usage as a result of the spill — saying that while the spill had not impacted the treated drinking water going to its customers from the Delaware River Regional Water Treatment Plant, limiting water use would “help ensure the optimal operation” of the plant. It did not give an endpoint for the conservation notice.

In Bucks County, a spokesperson said officials had communicated with water providers there — Pennsylvania American Water, Aqua, and the Lower Bucks Joint Municipal Authority — and all “advised that there are currently no known adverse impacts to drinking water in Bucks County.”

“Residents in Bristol Borough, Bristol Township, and Bensalem Township who may have questions should contact their water provider,” said the spokesperson, Eric Nagy, adding that the county “will update residents as information becomes available.”

Besides butyl acrylate, Carroll said, ethyl acrylate and methyl methacrylate were also released in the spill. The city said boiling tap water would not remove the chemicals in question.

Carroll said the health risks associated with the chemicals were “very low.”

“There are no acute effects associated with the low-level exposures of these contaminants that we’re seeing,” said Carroll, who said residents could still bathe and wash dishes. “Our best information is that people who ingest water will not suffer any near-term symptoms or any acute medical conditions. And so we foresee no need to seek medical attention related to this event.”

Keeve Nachman, associate professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins University, said the chemicals released in the spill are known to cause irritation in the nose, throat, and lungs when inhaled in large concentrations. But there is less information about them when ingested through water, Nachman said.

”People need to drink water [that is contaminated] at fairly high levels for a long time before we anticipate any potential negative health effects,” he said.

Ted Schettler, a physician and science director at the environmental nonprofit Science and Environmental Health Network, said that it’s important to keep testing the water and inform the public if any chemical is found. Butyl acrylate, for example, can cause short-term skin rash and stomach problems so if it is present in the water it could be safer to avoid bathing, Schettler said.

”If they do find it at even a low level, they should tell people,” he said.

Staff writers Oona Goodin-Smith, Kristen A. Graham, Michael Klein and Frank Kummer contributed to this article.