Philly water safe to drink until at least Wednesday night after chemical spill, officials say

Philadelphia’s tap water is safe to drink through at least 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, the city announced Tuesday morning.

Officials said they are continuing to monitor the impact of a chemical spill from a Bucks County plant into a tributary of the Delaware River.

So far, no contaminants have been found in Philadelphia’s water system, and the city says residents can drink tap water and fill bottle pitchers with no risk.

“All the tests so far have been negative,” said Randy Hayman, the commissioner and CEO of the Philadelphia Water Department.

The city said it will hold a public briefing Tuesday night, after the latest sampling results are in.

» READ MORE: Philly water: Live updates for Tuesday, March 28

— Rob Tornoe

As news broke over the weekend that a chemical spill threatened to contaminate the Delaware River, residents scrambled for bottled water and for answers from city leaders.

But Mayor Jim Kenney was nowhere to be found for almost three days after dangerous chemicals flowed into Otter Creek just upstream of the city.

The city’s messaging was at times ambiguous, public relations experts said, and one thing that could have helped residents better understand the situation is a familiar face speaking directly about the issue.

”A leader’s absence speaks volumes and can sometime ratchet up concerns,” said Anne Buchanan, a crisis management consultant who has worked with water companies in the past.

Kenney made his first public appearance Monday evening in a virtual news conference, saying he waited to communicate directly with the public until he had solid information to share based on water testing. He did not participate in a Sunday briefing by officials from his administration hours after an alert from the city led to a run on bottled water in stores across Philadelphia.

» READ MORE: Mayor Jim Kenney has been mostly absent from Philly’s public response to the Delaware River chemical spill

— Sean Collins Walsh

The candidates running for Philadelphia mayor saw a new opportunity this week to criticize Mayor Jim Kenney’s ability to handle tough situations — and suggested they could do better.

A handful of the 11 Democrats running in the May 16 primary election to succeed Kenney said the communication coming out of City Hall Sunday amid a chemical spill that could have threatened the city’s water supply was haphazard, leading to confusion among residents who raced to purchase bottles of water.

”This weekend displayed the dangerous lack of leadership in our city,” former City Councilmember Derek Green said in a statement Monday. “What ensued was chaos: a public panic that saw families rush to grocery stores and empty the shelves. This was a direct consequence of a failure in crisis management.”

Kenney did not speak publicly about the situation until a virtual news conference late Monday afternoon, more than 24 hours after residents were first told their tap water may be unsafe.

» READ MORE: Philly mayoral candidates say the city botched its response to the chemical spill. Here’s what they’re saying.

— Anna Orso

Responding to criticism about perceived mixed messages over the weekend, Mayor Jim Kenney said city officials are relying on experts to guide decisions and that it was better to be overly cautious than unprepared.

“We’re working as hard as we can to get this situation resolved,” Kenney said at the city’s Monday evening briefing, adding that he was in the city all weekend working on the problem.

“It’s a difficult thing to balance,” Kenney said.

He recalled that the city spent millions of dollars to create a makeshift hospital at Liacouras Center during the beginning weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, but none of the beds were used.

Kenney said it was better to have those beds in case hospitals became overwhelmed than not to have any spare beds at all.

— Robert Moran

It is very possible that no contaminated water will have entered and passed through the Baxter Treatment Plant by the time the threat of contaminated water moves beyond Philadelphia and dissipates into the ocean, Mike Carroll, deputy managing director for the city, said during a public briefing Monday evening.

“It’s very likely” that no contaminated water will enter the system, Carroll said.

The testing looks for specific contamination down to single parts per billion, and even with that level of scrutiny, no contamination has been found, Carroll said.

— Robert Moran

“I want to reiterate: your water is safe to drink,” said Mike Carroll, deputy managing director for the city, during a public briefing Monday evening.

Since an early warning system was triggered following the spill late Friday night, there have been around 40 tests of water from the Delaware River, the untreated raw water basin at the Baxter Treatment Plant, and the treatment plant itself, Carroll said. The latest test was conducted around 4 p.m. Monday.

“We have detected no contamination,” Carrol said.

— Robert Moran

Philadelphia has extended the deadline to Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. for people to safely drink the city’s tap water and could extend the deadline further based on continued testing, said Mike Carroll, deputy managing director for the city, during a public briefing Monday evening.

The overall period of concern — with the possibility of chemical contamination as water flows down the Delaware River — should end by Thursday, and possibly Wednesday night, based on testing, Carroll said.

After that period, the possibility of contamination will have passed, Carroll said.

— Robert Moran

As everyone waits for updates from the city on Philly’s water contamination, one group of people has so far been left behind — non-English speakers. So far, the city has provided insufficient notices and no updates in languages besides English. That means community members have been sharing information among themselves, often through group chats, and sometimes that information can get bungled.

“There’s a lot of people circulating information. Some are circulating the right information, some actually really did not relay the [full] message,” said Ping Lee, a program manager with the Chinatown Community Development Corporation. Lee said that she heard some Chinese speakers, for instance, learned that the water had been contaminated, but did not understand that the city’s water is considered safe through Monday night. “It did create some panic,” she said.

“It’s disappointing, and hopefully something that can be remedied,” said Will Gonzalez, the executive director of Ceiba, a coalition of Latino community organizations, about the city’s lack of multi-language updates. Gonzalez said that while he and other dual-language speakers are doing their best to help their communities stay up-to-date, the city ought to be taking the lead on translation.

“One thing is to hear it directly and the other [is] to hear it through tertiary sources,” he said. “It should be official, in this age of misinformation and disinformation.”

— Nate File

Heather Murphy, a water quality expert at Temple University’s College of Public Health, questioned the timing and urgency of the alerts the city sent Sunday.

“The emergency alert that came out, that seemed to come out on everybody’s phone before there was much information, and I think it created a bit of a panic,” Murphy said.

It can take days for water from the river to reach Philadelphians’ taps, she said, and the risk of serious health consequences from an accident like this is very low.

“Exposure to any sort of chemical or metal in water, it’s going to be a long-term exposure,” she said. “You would have to drink for months or years before you show any health effects.”

— Jason Laughlin

You can’t see or filter out the chemicals that could contaminate the drinking water of more than half of Philadelphia’s residents following a chemical spill in Bucks County.

City officials set off a rush on bottled water on Sunday when they initially urged residents to switch to bottled water, then later said the city’s drinking water was safe.

The chemicals that spilled can be harmful with prolonged exposure to significant concentrations, but have not been found in city drinking water.

» READ MORE: Can a Brita filter or boiling water help following Delaware River chemical spill?

— Sarah Gantz and Abraham Gutman

Chris Crockett, chief environmental, safety and sustainability officer for Aqua Pennsylvania, said none of the water systems it operates surrounding Philadelphia has detected the acrylate compounds released in the spill.

Crockett said the company’s EPA-accredited lab in Bryn Mawr is able to detect down to one part per billion, but hasn’t found anything.

However, he said that Aqua, as well as other water systems in the region, were prepared to test for butyl acrylate because it was one of the chemicals of concern in the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment in February.

Crockett said water officials throughout the region were notified quickly of the Friday spill through the Delaware Valley Early Warning System, which he helped start when he formerly worked for the Philadelphia Water Department. The unique system acts as a regional clearinghouse for spill information.

Local officials had already worked on guidance for testing butyl acrylate into the system. The EPA has issued no guidance for maximum contaminant levels for the compound. But the CDC offered guidance of a maximum of 500 parts per billion.

He said the system’s computer modeling predicted the path of the spill and how long the chemical compound would take to work its way down the river. Because the Delaware River is tidal in the Philadelphia area, the water sloshes back and forth as it slowly makes its way downstream.

As a result, it could take several days from the time of the spill to where it passes by Philadelphia. At that point, Crockett said, it would also likely be so diluted as to be undetectable.

“I know the public is worried about this,” Crockett said. “But the systems that we have put in place on the Delaware River actually worked exactly like they were supposed to.”

— Frank Kummer

City residents are left with questions after a chemical spill potentially contaminated a portion of Philadelphia’s water supply over the weekend. Tap water is safe to drink in the city through at least 11:59 p.m. Monday, but officials are developing a water-distribution plan in case the quality of the city’s drinking water is impacted by the chemical spill in the Delaware River.

On Friday, a little more than 8,000 gallons of acrylic latex polymer was spilled into Otter Creek in Bristol Township, Bucks County, which then flowed into the Delaware River. The chemical processing plant responsible for the spill, Trinseo, cites equipment failure as the reason for the spill. While the chemical itself isn’t extremely dangerous after it’s been diluted in millions of gallons of river water, direct exposure to large amounts of acrylic latex can be toxic, according to public health experts.

After testing Philly’s water supply on Sunday and finding no contamination, various government agencies, including Philadelphia Water Department (PWD), PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), cleared Philadelphia to use city tap water at least until Monday at midnight — when the potentially contaminated water should’ve had enough time to work its way through the treatment process.

However, that didn’t stop residents from buying out many local stores’ supply of water bottles after the city earlier advised people in affected service areas on Sunday to switch to bottled water “out of an abundance of caution.”

While Philly water is currently safe to drink, city residents have been asking a lot of questions. The Inquirer found some answers.

» READ MORE: Can you give your pet seltzer? Is it safe to bathe? Answering your questions about possible water contamination in Philadelphia

— Henry Savage

Chemical company Trinseo expects to soon resume partial production at its plant in Bristol, where 8,000 gallons of a latex finishing product leaked into Otter Creek near the Delaware River Friday night, potentially contaminating Philadelphia’s drinking water.

The company stopped production at the Bucks County facility where the spill occurred following an equipment failure on Friday, Reuters reported. Trinseo said it expects to “resume partial production within the next several days, and to resume full production shortly thereafter” in a statement Monday.

”Trinseo is working to minimize any potential customer impacts,” the company said.

The chemical complex where the leak happened is owned by Trinseo and produces acrylic products including Altuglas, a material similar to Plexiglas. The spill on Friday included the release of hazardous chemicals used to make the material, including methyl methacrylate, butyl acrylate, and ethyl acrylate.

The chemicals made their way into Otter Creek through a storm drain and traveled to the Delaware River. Philadelphia’s Baxter Water Treatment Plant takes in water from the Delaware and serves roughly 58% of the city.

City officials have said that tap water in Philadelphia is safe to drink through at least 11:59 p.m. Monday. But the Baxter plant took in new water overnight, and it will have to be tested for safety.

— Nick Vadala

Here is the latest on what we know and don’t know about Philadelphia’s drinking water following a chemical spill into the Delaware River Friday night:

» READ MORE: Philadelphia water: What we know and don’t know after Delaware River latex spill

— Beatrice Forman and Rob Tornoe

Weaver’s Way Co-op sold out of bottled water and canned seltzer water Sunday afternoon, general manager Jon Roesser said, even though its Philadelphia stores, in Mount Airy and Chestnut Hill, are in areas that the city said were not affected by the spill.

Weaver’s Way pulled backstock of water to supply those two stores Monday afternoon and implemented a purchasing limit of one case per customer. Roesser also secured two pallets of gallons of water to be delivered Tuesday, and each customer will be limited to one gallon.

“Until we get more info from the city on the duration of this thing we’re going to be scrambling like this for a bit,” Roesser said.

At Mulberry Market in Old City, cases of water sold out in Sunday’s rush. Only individual water bottles remained Monday afternoon, and owner Woo Chung had limited purchases to four per person, something he said in retrospect they should’ve done with cases on Sunday.

He doesn’t know when he will next get a water shipment, he said, but it likely won’t be until Thursday or Friday. So far Monday, customers seem grateful he has any water, he said.

— Lizzy McLellan Ravitch and Erin McCarthy

The city’s response has gotten some things right, said Stephanie Wein, clean water advocate for PennEnvironment, a statewide environmental advocacy organization, while also failing to provide information Philadelphians should have.

On the positive side, she credited the Water Department with being proactive in the wake of the spill by testing water and informing the public of the risk level from the contaminants.

“They’re getting ahead of it, the precautionary principle is being applied when we don’t know how much of a threat this is posing,” Wein said. “It feels like the water department and its engineers are on top of this and are being pretty transparent.”

Wein emphasized the chemicals involved in the spill aren’t good for people to ingest, but there are other industrial sites along the Delaware River that use materials that are far more hazardous.

There are key questions the city has avoided addressing, Wein said. It remains unclear how long Philadelphians should avoid drinking tap water after midnight tonight, whether the contamination could be present for just a day, or a week, or longer.

“The city could be clearer on how people should be responding today and if there’s something to prepare for later in the week,” she said.

She also noted that only some parts of the city receive water sourced from the Delaware River. The administration sent weekend alerts advising people to prepare to stop using water citywide, prompting a run on expensive bottled water that could have created financial hardship for some residents whose tap water is going to be unaffected by the spill.

“Expensive bottles of water, if you can even find any, is not a great solution for a lot of Philadelphians,” Wein said.

— Jason Laughlin

A chemical plant in Bristol, Pa., that authorities said caused a toxic spill imperiling Philadelphia’s drinking water has a history of contamination incidents — including one as recently as 2021.

The chemical complex is owned by chemical company Trinseo, which produces acrylic products like Altuglas, which is similar to Plexiglass. The Friday night spill, officials said, contained methyl methacrylate, butyl acrylate, and ethyl acrylate, used to produce the glass-like materials but all regarded as hazardous materials.

The sprawling chemical plant had long been operated by Philadelphia chemical giant Rohm and Haas, which was later acquired by Dow Chemical Company. After a series of mergers and acquisitions, the plant has been operated for much of the past two decades by European chemical conglomerate Arkema.

In 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency investigated what the agency described as the Arkema plant’s “release” of 1,760 pounds of methyl methacrylate during a transfer to a storage tank. An EPA report states the incident later led to “the excavation and disposal of the contaminated soil.”

The EPA documented another release of butyl acrylate and ethyl acrylate that led to a remediation effort between 2012 and 2013. In 2014, United States Coast Guard National Response Center records indicate that the plants spilled 300 gallons of ethyl acrylate, triggering a facility evacuation and putting in place a shelter-in-place order for a local school. Soil and asphalt contaminated by the chemicals were later removed from the site.

In 2020, the EPA issued a corrective action plan for a 60-acre area encompassing the former Rohm and Haas facility and its surroundings, land used for chemical processing for over a century. The agency found that the groundwater there was “contaminated with a variety of organic and inorganic chemicals.”

In early 2021, the Coast Guard again identified an Arkema pipeline at the facility as the source of another leak involving an unknown quantity of methyl methacrylate.

Later in 2021, Trinseo, a company formed from former Dow Chemical subsidiaries based in Wayne, Pa., acquired Arkema’s acrylics division, which has continued producing an acrylic resin product called Altuglass at the Bristol site.

Chemical manufacturer Trinseo acquired the Bristol plant in 2021. Since then, EPA records do not list any violations from the acrylics section of the facility.

Spokespeople for Arkema and Trinseo did not respond to requests for comment.

— Ryan Briggs

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection said it has been monitoring the impact of the spill since the weekend and is working with the U.S. Coast Guard and various agencies in the state and Pennsylvania.

So far, sampling has not detected levels of latex finishing chemicals that were released from the Bristol plant. Testing has taken place at various drinking water intakes and other entry points.

The Coast Guard has noted that no impacts on wildlife have been reported.

The DEP is also in contact with New Jersey American Water, which supplies Camden City from its Delaware River Regional Water Treatment Plant, and the Burlington City Water Department, which is across the river from the spill location. Neither have reported any impacts from the spill, and neither has issued drinking water advisories.

However, New Jersey American Water is asking customers to voluntarily reduce “their unnecessary water usage” to help maintain supply. The company supplies water for customers in Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester counties.

The Coast Guard has focused its cleanup on removing the chemical compounds from a storm drain system on Mill Creek. As of yesterday, it had collected 60,000 gallons of contaminated water.

— Frank Kummer

Philadelphia officials are developing a water-distribution plan in case the quality of the city’s drinking water is impacted by the chemical spill in the Delaware River.

Officials said in a statement Monday afternoon tap water from the Baxter treatment plant remains safe to drink and use through 11:59 p.m. The city says no contaminants related to the spill have been found in Philadelphia’s water system.

“We understand the legitimate concern that is felt by the public as the release of chemicals into our waterways can pose a major threat to our health and safety,” Mayor Jim Kenney said in the statement. “I encourage residents who want to make sure they have water available to fill bottles or pitchers of tap water and am confident that there is no risk at this time.”

The city plans to hold a press briefing on the water situation at 5 p.m. Monday.

— Rob Tornoe

Wawa stores are seeking increased demand for bottled water and are making extra efforts to remain in stock, spokesperson Lori Bruce said. The stores have implemented a maximum quantity of gallons and cases per customer.

“We expect additional supply to all Philly stores today or tomorrow, and will continue to monitor the situation and make additional adjustments as needed,” Bruce said.

— Lizzy McLellan Ravitch

The Philadelphia Water Department provides drinking water for 1.7 million residents of the city as well as Lower Bucks County. And where you live in the city determines which of its two rivers you drink from.

But where does all that water come from and how do you know it’s safe?

The city has three main drinking water plants that treat 230 million gallons of water daily. The Baxter treatment plant in Torresdale takes in water from the Delaware River and serves about 58% of the city. The Queen Lane and Belmont plants take in water from the Schuylkill.

The plants use an elaborate process that screens out solids, doses it with chlorine, and filters through layers of sand, gravel, and carbon. The water is dosed again with chlorine to preserve it on a journey through miles of pipe to individual homes and businesses.

The Water Department must comply with National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for more than 90 contaminants. It also has to follow secondary standards for 15 contaminants that aren’t enforced but that have suggested levels. There is also a separate Lead and Copper Rule.

It tests for PFAS, although it does not currently have the ability to remove that class of chemicals. However, it will almost certainly have to in the coming years under a new rule proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that sets a maximum level of the compounds to near zero.

The spill from a chemical plant in Bristol, Bucks County, into the Delaware River Friday night highlighted the city’s vulnerability when it comes to water: It is at the mercy of river water and cannot draw from underground aquifers such as other water departments.

However, the Baxter plant does have a large intake area that serves as a reservoir. So it can shut off its intake and continue providing water through 3,000 miles of pipe for 1.6 million people and businesses until an immediate threat passes.

» READ MORE: Where Philly’s drinking water comes from

— Frank Kummer

The Bristol site is part of a cluster of industrial manufacturing companies along the Delaware River that has hosted chemical giants since the early 20th century, including the likes of Rohm and Haas, Dow Chemical Company, and the European-based Arkema Group.

Rohm and Haas produced the acrylic glass product marketed as Plexiglass at the site as far back as the 1940s. The company was acquired by Dow, which later partnered with Elf Atochem S.A., to manufacture Plexiglass in 1992. In 1998, Elf Atochem became the sole owner of this acrylics business and later spun off Arkema in 2004.

Separately, Dow spun off several subsidiaries in 2009, which were eventually purchased by investment company Bain Capital and rebranded as Trinseo in 2012. Bain sold all of its Trinseo stock in 2016.

In 2021, Trinseo acquired Arkema’s acrylics division, which had continued producing acrylic and resin products, like Plexiglass and Altuglass at the Bristol site.

Today, the roughly $3 billion company is headquartered in Wayne, Pa., and manufactures plastic products and latex products on three continents. The Bristol plant continues to primarily manufacture the Altuglas product line, which is used in automotive, construction, medical products, and other consumer goods.

— Ryan Briggs

Sayed Ahmad, whose family owns Cousin’s Fresh Market, spent Monday morning on the phone with several water bottle suppliers, trying to figure out who could get him the most water in the least amount of time.

One supplier said he could get him trucks of water Thursday.

“I said ‘I cant wait ‘til Thursday,’” Ahmad said.

Water bottles at all four of his family’s markets sold out within two hours of the city’s alert being issued Sunday afternoon.

The sellout happened despite his three-case-per-customer limit, and despite the fact that the stores are located in West and Southwest Philadelphia, areas the city has said are not impacted by the chemical spill, and Chester, Delaware County, which is also not affected.

Even after the city sent another alert later Sunday advising residents that the water was safe to drink through at least 11:59 p.m. Monday, people continued their desperate search for bottles.

“They were not buying ‘It is safe right now,’” Ahmad said. “They were panicking. They were confused.”

After his stores closed at 6 p.m. Sunday, calls to the business were redirected to his cell phone. Just from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m., he got “probably 200 calls, [saying] ‘Do you have water? Do you have water?’”

“The phone has not stopped ringing from the morning until now,” Ahmad said around noon Monday.

He anticipates getting some water in Tuesday and even more Wednesday and Thursday.

If the city updates residents on Monday saying the water is safe to drink after 11:59 p.m., Ahmad said he doesn’t see the issue evaporating.

“I think people will still look for water,” he said.

— Erin McCarthy

Twenty minutes after getting the alert on her phone Sunday about contaminants in Philadelphia’s water supply, Laura Lacy of Attic Brewing in Germantown drove to the nearby Restaurant Depot to stock up on bottled water.

“It was a little bit crazy,” Lacy said on Monday morning. “We got water onto our cart, but they completely sold out of water within 45 minutes of that text message going out.

“I think whatever information comes out later tonight from the city is going to impact a lot of people,” she said, adding that she had seen various friends in the hospitality industry post that their restaurants and bars were closing out of concerns over water quality.

Attic will be open as usual this week — there’s plenty of beer at the ready that was brewed before the Bucks County spill — but staff shut off its dishwashers, ice machine, and glass-washers on Sunday. On Monday, they would have been cleaning kegs, canning beer, and readying the brewhouse to make beer later in the week, but Lacy said they were holding off until the city communicated more information.

“One of the silver linings for us is that we are a small brewery, so not brewing for a week isn’t going to kill our business or affect us too much, but we have people that work so we need work for them to do,” she said. “If it ends up being longer than that, then we’ll definitely have to make some different decisions.”

Beer sales may have spiked on Sunday afternoon when city residents were warned against drinking the tap water. But water is one of the key ingredients in making beer, and water quality always remains a “big concern” at the city’s biggest brewery, Yards Brewing Co., says company president Tom Kehoe.

Kehoe said he is “confident” water released from the Baxter plant will be up to their quality standards, noting they always monitor incoming water and carbon filter it, along with other processes, prior to brewing.

“We do have a plan,” in case of a worst case scenario, he said, in which the brewery can turn to a treated bulk water tank on site and eventually the possibility of outsourcing tanked water. “Let’s hope it does not get to that point.”

— Jenn Ladd and Craig LaBan

When Klein’s Supermarket opened at 8 a.m. Monday, people were waiting at the door.

They knew the Fairmount store closed at 1 p.m. Sunday — around the same time city residents got their first alert about switching to bottled water due to a chemical spill — and likely still had cases and jugs in stock.

“A rush of people went straight to the water,” said manager Andrew Klein. By 9 a.m., he said, the market was sold out.

The scene in the aisles was reminiscent of only two other times in recent history — the Eagles’ Super Bowl parade in 2018 and the early days of the pandemic, “when people were scooping up anything that was on the shelves,” Klein said.

By midday Monday, people were still calling “every minute,” he said, asking if Klein’s had water.

The longtime family-owned grocer gets its water shipments on Wednesdays. This week, Klein said he put in an order for four times as much as he usually gets.

Until that shipment arrives Wednesday, he said, there isn’t much else he can do but wait with the rest of the city to hear if the tap water will be safe to drink after 11:59 p.m.

— Erin McCarthy

All Philadelphia Acme stores are stocked with water bottles as of Monday morning.

After Sunday’s run on water, the Malvern-based grocer sent emergency shipments from its Lancaster warehouse to local stores Sunday night and Monday morning, said spokesperson Dana Ward.

“Every store we have has water,” though the amount of supply and brand of water may vary by location, Ward said. “We dispatched a great deal of water between last night and this morning.”

She declined to specify just how much water was transported.

“We’re continuing to monitor,” Ward said, “and will continue to send water as needed.”

— Erin McCarthy

Monk’s Cafe is closed on Monday, but owner Tom Peters was in the office early in the morning, waiting on a callback about a whole-restaurant water filter to purify the bar’s tap water supply. His plumber is on standby for a same-day install, but the $5,000 filter probably won’t arrive in time for Tuesday’s service. So Peters had brought in three 5-gallon glass carboys filled with water from his home in New Jersey, and Monk’s cooks had set aside three big stockpots of water on Sunday night.

“So we have enough to get up and running in the morning to make our stocks for the week,” Peters said. He anticipates that guests will be leery of tap water for a some time, so he ordered 25 cases of glass bottled water.

“Being an ex-Boy Scout and Army veteran, I always try to be prepared,” he said. He started researching information about water filters as soon as the emergency alert hit his phone on Sunday afternoon. As of Monday morning, he still hadn’t heard any guidance from the city on how to proceed.

“It’s the lack of information that’s distressing most,” Peters said.

He plans to install both reverse-osmosis filters and a whole-building granulated activated carbon filter as an insurance policy against future incidents. “Plus, with the reverse osmosis the water is going to taste better,” he said.

— Jenn Ladd

Charles Haas, an environmental engineering professor with a specialty in water quality at Drexel University, said that the spill doesn’t seem to be pose a significant threat to drinking water. Haas said, however, that he is not involved in any testing and is basing his immediate assessment on information provided by Philadelphia officials.

“My level of concern is fairly low,” said Haas, who teaches a senior level undergraduate course on drinking water treatment.

Haas said the butyl acrylate, ethyl acrylate, and methyl methacrylatese released as part of the 8,100-gallon spill have potential to be toxic when they are inhaled or contact skin. However, the exposure in drinking water would be quite low and not a major threat.

In addition, Haas said the chemical compounds would be significantly diluted amid the millions of gallons of water in the Delaware River.

He said Philadelphia is fortunate that it has a reservoir at its Baxter water treatment plant that draws from the river. That allows it to close off the intake while still having a large volume of water to pull from.

— Frank Kummer

Coffeeshop owners are planning their next steps during the uncertainty surrounding the city’s water purity.

Jeff Lincoln, who owns Passero’s, said he would turn off his espresso machines because they are directly fed from the shops’ water line.

“We will use jug water, manually added to our coffee brewers to stay open,” he said Monday morning. “We all hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Some businesses on Sunday had turned off their soda dispensers for the same reason.

— Michael Klein

Scott Coudriet, co-owner of Lloyd Whiskey Bar, decided to close his restaurant Sunday after Philadelphia officials initially suggested residents turn to bottled water following a chemical spill in the Delaware River.

“We’re cocktail heavy, so everything we put out requires the use of ice … We didn’t feel equipped to make any other choice than to close,” Coudriet said. “But if anything, today I’m still confused about the language that ‘You’re safe through 11:59 p.m’… I don’t know what happens at midnight.”

William Reed, co-owner of Standard Tap, Johnny Brenda’s, and the International Bar, decided to keep his restaurants open while monitoring health advice from the city.

“To be honest, it seemed like a replay of the early COVID precautions where there was a vacuum of leadership speaking plainly to businesses affected,” Reed said.

At EMei in Chinatown, owner Dan Tsao got 35 cases of water from a suburban Costco on Sunday to give to every customer. But if the water is deemed unsafe to use after midnight tonight, he plans to supply the restaurant’s kitchen, rice cookers, and tea service with 150 gallons of water a day brought in two trips from his home in Montgomery County.

“Accidents happen,” Tsao said. “After going through the torture and struggles during COVID-19, we are prepared. It is actually a much smaller challenge since it is isolated in Philly, and we can still get water elsewhere to bring in.”

— Craig LaBan

An estimated 8,100 gallons of a latex emulsion solution — “approximately 50% water and the remainder latex polymer,” spilled from the Trinseo Altuglas facility in Bristol on Friday, according to the company.

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.

Besides butyl acrylate, ethyl acrylate and methyl methacrylate were also released in the spill, according to the city. Officials said boiling tap water would not remove the chemicals in question, but stressed that drinking water was safe until at least 11:59 p.m. Monday.

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.

— Maddie Hanna and Abraham Gutman

Delaware’s tap water is safe to drink and has not been impacted by the chemical spill into the Delaware River, state officials said Monday morning.

“Delaware’s drinking water has not been impacted by the spill in Pennsylvania,” Rick Hong, the interim director of the state’s Division of Public Health, said in a statement. “Unlike neighboring states, water treatment facilities that service Delaware do not take in water directly from the Delaware River. There is no impact to Delawareans at this time.”

Hong said the state will continue to monitor the situation throughout the day.

— Rob Tornoe

Tap water in Philadelphia is safe to drink at least through Monday night following a chemical spill in the Delaware River, officials said on Sunday.

Officials said water taken into Philadelphia’s Baxter Water Treatment plant on Sunday was not contaminated, giving the city enough safe drinking water until at least 11:59 p.m. Monday night. But the plant took in new water overnight to maintain minimal levels, so officials will need to retest the water Monday to determine its safety.

“I want to assure everyone: no contaminants have been found in our tap water system,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney wrote on Twitter Sunday night. “At this time, Philly’s tap water remains safe to drink.”

Mike Carroll, deputy managing director for the city’s Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Sustainability, suggested Philadelphia residents fill bottles with tap water during the day Monday while waiting for updates.

“There’s no need at this time for people to be rushing out and buying bottled water,” Carroll told reporters Sunday.

The city is using the water department’s Tidal Spill Model Tool to track the movement of the contaminant plume. A map showing the areas that could potentially be impacted by the spill can be viewed here.

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

— Rob Tornoe

Philadelphia’s initial advisory Sunday to avoid tap water sent many people scrambling to stock up on water, 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.

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.

— Maddie Hanna and Abraham Gutman

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 end-point 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.”

— Maddie Hanna and Abraham Gutman

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.

— Maddie Hanna and Abraham Gutman