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Philadelphia residents and businesses are eligible to receive at least $25 from a $2.7 million class-action settlement over last year’s Delaware River chemical spill that led to bottled water advisories.

In March 2023, an estimated 8,000 gallons of a water-based latex finishing solution from the Trinseo Altuglas chemical facility in Bristol, Bucks County, leaked into the river.

The incident, which occurred upstream of the city’s Baxter Drinking Water Treatment Plant, did not impact drinking water.

However, the City of Philadelphia was criticized for its confusing public messaging. After the city issued numerous bottled water advisories, panic buying ensued, leaving some supermarket shelves empty.

The settlement alleges residents suffered financial losses from the purchases and driving to and from grocery stores. Businesses were forced to turn off their tap water and scramble to find other supplies, according to the lawsuit.

“This settlement really relates to economic injuries centered around those recommendations by the city, and that were in the media, to purchase bottled water,” said Michael Twersky of Berger Montague, one of the attorneys who filed the class action lawsuit on behalf of residents.

“This isn’t a situation where something like drinking water was affected … Mostly what people suffered was the need to purchase bottled water, maybe a filter, the economic harms of driving a car, maybe some restaurants suffered a little bit, but we’re not talking about the type of high damages you might see in other cases.”

100 Years Ago, 1924: Complaints about a crowd of boys who have been destroying property at Smedley Field, Seventh and Lloyd streets, has led Chief Vance to instruct officers to make an investigation and arrest any and all youths found damaging the fence surrounding the ball park or equipment within the enclosure. As a result of the destructive practices of boys during the winter months, the officials of the Chester baseball club were compelled to expend several hundred dollars for repairs to the fence, stands and dressing rooms preceding the opening of the baseball season.

75 Years Ago, 1949: City Council today flashed the go-ahead signal on a proposal to construct a new headquarters for Chester Police Department by empowering Vincent F. Sanbe, director of parks and public property, to employ two well-known realtors to appraise a prospective site. Sanbe declined to identify the location, but he disclosed that it was vacant ground on which a new structure would be raised. He said James P. Hopkins and William P. Lear will study the site to determine its value before negotiations are started.

50 Years Ago, 1974: Guard dogs managed by trained handlers could be patrolling the perimeter of Delaware County Prison on an around-the-clock basis by the end of summer. So could two-man teams of correctional officers armed with high-powered rifles on motor patrol. The proposals are two of several recommendations made by new Prison Superintendent Edward C. Leiby and tentatively approved by the prison board.

25 Years Ago, 1999: Media borough operations are about to become that much simpler with authorization of the agreement to sell the sewer company. Little Washington Waste Water Company, a subsidiary of Philadelphia Suburban Water, has offered a total package worth in excess of $4 million in cash, bond payments and lease of borough land at the treatment plant. Rather than being an asset, the operations were becoming a concern due increasing federal regulations, capital needs and environmental issues.

10 Years Ago, 2014: Receiving the support of state Rep. Margo Davidson, D-164, of Upper Darby, Matt Silva announced his candidacy Saturday for Upper Darby Democratic chair against incumbent Ed Bradley. His announcement comes four days after Davidson won a close primary against Lansdowne attorney Billy Smith by 11 percentage points. The day after the election, the state representative said the county Democratic chair David Landau has not done anything to unify the party. She had contrasting words about Silva on Saturday. “I believe very strongly that Matt is going to be a transformative leader here in Upper Darby,” she said.

— COLIN AINSWORTH

Delaware could become the 18th state to direct Medicaid to pay for abortion services and the 5th state to require state-regulated private health plans to do the same.

In April, House Majority Leader Melissa Minor Brown’s (D-New Castle) legislation requiring Medicaid to cover termination of pregnancies cleared the House Appropriations Committee.

She has since substituted that bill with a new version requiring all health benefit plans delivered or issued for Medicaid, private health insurance plans and state employee insurance plans to cover abortion in Delaware.

The bill requires that patients seeking pregnancy termination are not subject to any deductible, copayment or coinsurance up to the $750 coverage maximum.

The bill outlines an exception for religious employers if the coverage requirement “conflicts with the religious organization’s bona fide religious beliefs and practices,” but exclusions are not applicable for termination of pregnancies that are necessary to preserve the life or health of a covered individual.

House Minority Whip Lyndon Yearick (R-Magnolia) joined several of his colleagues in arguing the state does not mandate insurance providers to cover or provide the same cost-share exemptions to other elected health services.

“The requirement to mandate that every entity must provide this elective service and no questions asked unless they’re a faith based institution — I’m disappointed in that. I’m sure there’s very few elective services that we require other companies through their healthcare to provide,” Yearick said.

“I think that it is unfair to force taxpayers who are opposed to this procedure to have to pay for that procedure,” State Rep. Charles Postles (R-Milford) added.

Republicans went on to argue this requirement would only add to the state’s ballooning healthcare spending, noting the bill carries roughly a $500,000 annual fiscal note.

But Minor Brown said there will be back-end cost saving measures, saying women denied abortion services often lacked the means to cover basic living expenses years following the denial and saw lowered credit scores, increased debt and negative public financial records.

“When you deny a person access to essential healthcare — look at the impact after that. So the woman who’s utilizing Medicaid, and now you’re not allowing her that right to choose because you don’t want to pay for it. But you’d rather her stay on Medicaid, continue utilizing state resources and maybe even with the extra person or two, which — to me — costs more. So just make it make sense,” Minor Brown said.

State Rep. Valerie Jones Giltner (R-Georgetown) argued the state doesn’t have the resources to provide this type of coverage, especially by eliminating any cost-share mechanisms.

“We make tough decisions as legislators as far as making sure that Medicaid is available to many throughout the state. And we’re not blocking access to an abortion — that’s already widely available. We’re not even blocking partial payment of it,” Jones Giltner said. “What we’re saying is that to say that there should be no deductible, no copayment, no anything for anybody that gets an abortion, even if they have private insurance — a private payer — is not sound judgement.”

Minor Brown stuck firm in saying providing for preventative measures would ultimately save the state more money.

“We don’t have the money to pay for the after effects when we don’t provide care to people and access to healthcare to people. It’s more expensive on the other end,” Minor Brown responded.

The bill passed with only two Republican representatives defecting and now heads to the Senate for consideration.