Aqua Pa. shows how quick decisions were made to protect water supply

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Aqua Pennsylvania leaders credit score fast, scientific-based decision-making for safeguarding one in all its water remedy vegetation that is roughly 2,000 toes from the place the chemical spill in Bristol floated into the Delaware River.

Aqua’s water remedy plant in Bristol serves about 30,000 clients in a number of locations, together with Bristol Borough and Bristol Township.

Todd Duerr, Aqua Pennsylvania’s vp of operations, mentioned the remedy workforce instantly made their solution to the plant after being notified of the chemical spill Friday evening.

“They went down towards the spill web site. They checked out what the water was. They noticed there have been some traces of a white substance,” Duerr mentioned. “We did not know what it was, so we determined to close the plant down.”

Duerr mentioned the plant had the benefit of being upstream of the spill.

“Because the water begins to maneuver downstream, we all know we had recent water upstream coming previous our consumption,” Duerr mentioned. “So, we knew there was no hazard.”

However a river’s water stage rises and falls all through the day.

As soon as the Delaware River begins to rise, water will get pushed again upstream, which considerably will increase the danger of the leaked chemical floating again in direction of the plant.

Aqua Pennsylvania devised a plan, the place they intently monitored the river ranges. As soon as the river began to rise, Aqua closed its river consumption and reopened it solely after the river’s stage began to drop. A falling river stage means water is again flowing downstream.

“Let’s watch the river. Let’s do some scientific testing at our laboratories, a number of different issues in our remedy system,” Duerr mentioned. “We did not flip the plant on till we have been assured we knew what the scenario was.”

Aqua Pennsylvania President Marc Lucca mentioned to date, their testing has proven no traces of the chemical of their water provide.

“We practice for all these issues. We observe all these occasions on a regular basis,” Lucca mentioned. “We’re right here 24/7, 365 to guard their ingesting water so that they by no means have to consider it.”

Aqua Pennsylvania mentioned the chemical is now far sufficient downstream that they solely must be in a heightened state of alert for an additional 1-2 days.