Breaking News: Delaware River Spill

Should I switch to using bottled water, like other water customers were advised to do?

• At this time, there is no need for Aqua PA customers to drink bottled water. We have not detected any of the spill chemicals in our drinking water. That’s because our operations team moved quickly to prevent the chemicals from ever entering our source water.
• There are a number of important differences with our drinking water sources and distribution system.
  • First, our river water supply is above the spill site.
  • Second, we have multiple local sources of water for our Bristol service area.
    • That means there’s less chance we’ll run out of water during the times we are not taking water from the Delaware River.

UPDATE: We are also re-opening our water intake during times of high tide, when there isn’t a danger of contamination. 

• Not if you are an Aqua customer. Our Aqua team took immediate action to ensure its safety. Your safety is always our first priority.
• As soon as we learned of the chemical spill, our operations team shut down the intake to our water system to prevent any potential chemical exposure.
• UPDATE: We are also re-opening our water intake during times of low tide, when there isn’t a danger of contamination. 
• We are not seeing any of the chemicals from the spill in our drinking water.

We shut down the intake to protect customers in our Bristol service territory that covers

• Bristol Borough
• Bristol Township
• Croydon
• Lower Bensalem

• The chemical company (Trinseo) told us that the chemicals are used in latex products and include butyl acrylate, ethyl acrylate and methyl methacrylate
• None of these chemicals reached our drinking water at our Bristol system, because our operations team acted quickly and closed the intake to our water system to prevent any hazardous river water from getting into our source water
• UPDATE: We are re-opening our water intake during times of low tide, when there isn’t a danger of contamination. We continue to not detect any chemicals from the spill in our drinking water.
• Your safety is our top priority, and we’ll be sure to keep you updated

Aqua’s Important Clarification Following Philadelphia Water Department’s March 28 Evening News Conference

Aqua performed testing for governmental agencies and those addressing the issue in our community.

Aqua has not detected any chemicals related to the Delaware River spill in our drinking water from the very beginning. The chemicals never reached our drinking water because we took immediate action to protect our customers by shutting down our Bristol Water Treatment Plant and continuing to take protective measures.

Aqua also worked to support the greater region by lending our laboratory expertise to governmental agencies and those who were responding to this issue in our community.  It was through that testing Aqua detected the chemicals in raw water samples.

From March 25 through today, Aqua drinking water remains clean, safe and reliable.

Aqua acted immediately to protect our customers as soon as we learned about the chemical spill in the Delaware River. And we remain confident in the ability of our Bristol, PA treatment plant to continue providing clean, safe reliable water. There are a number of reasons why:

1. Aqua’s Southeast PA system is highly interconnected with multiple non-Delaware River sources of water supply. We have the ability to move water to areas when, where and as needed.
2. We have a Control Center that can see system operational metrics, enabling us to react in real-time to changing conditions.
3. Our Bristol Plant is upstream of the confluence of the spill, which gives us added flexibility.  While we continue to test the river water through our lab with highly specialized analysis equipment, we also perform other operational tests as we've begun turning on the plant when the tide moves downstream.  And we monitor the tide and shut down the plant when it begins to move upstream. 
4. We have no evidence of water quality concerns around our intake.
5. We are in regular contact with all governmental agencies involved in the incident and receive timely information should anything change that could potentially change our operating plan.

Delivering clean, safe, reliable water to our customers remains our primary focus. Our water quality has remained unaffected since the spill occurred around 12:00 am ET on Saturday, March 25. We are confident that the source water to our customers continues to be safe and meets Aqua PA’s stringent quality standards.

Aqua Acted Immediately to Protect our Drinking Water from Spill on Delaware River Tributary in Bristol

We continue to monitor the situation while also working closely with state and federal agencies.

The safety of our customers and employees is Aqua’s top priority. Our operations team immediately shut down the intake to our Bristol water system as soon as we learned of the chemical spill, preventing customer exposure to hazardous materials. As a result of their fast action, we are not seeing any of the chemicals from the spill in our drinking water.

We continue to monitor the situation while also working closely with state and federal agencies. We will reopen our intake only when we are confident that the source water is safe for our customers and meets our stringent quality standards.