After Water Contamination Crisis, Sighs of Relief in Corpus Christi
Corpus Christi, Texas Shutterstock
But there are a lot of questions about last week’s incident, involving an asphalt emulsifying agent, Indulin AA-86.
Authorities in Corpus Christi, Texas, gave residents in the Gulf Coast city an all-clear on Sunday following a chemical leak that prompted warnings last week to avoid using municipal drinking water.
An asphalt emulsifying agent leaking from an industrial site created a “backflow incident from a chemical tank impacting the public water system,” though in the immediate response on Wednesday, when the city issued its first drinking water advisory, the risks and extent of the situation were not clear.
As the city was flushing the water system and cleared certain sections of the city, it also mobilized water-distribution sites, but began shutting those down on Sunday after warnings were lifted.
An advisory from Corpus Christi City Hall released Sunday recommended that residents flush each tap in their house for two or three minutes and made an appeal to citizens to spread word “especially those who may not have received this notice directly (for example, people in apartments, nursing homes, schools, and businesses). You can do this by posting this notice in a public place or distributing copies by hand or mail.”
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reported Saturday:
The city first reported Wednesday that the chemical, Indulin AA-86, leaked from a mixing tank in the industrial district and that a maximum of 24 gallons may have mixed with the water supply.
The Caller-Times reported a day later that the city also received dirty water calls on Dec. 1, Dec. 7 and Dec. 12 from the backflow contamination location. A sheen in the water turned out to be a mix of hydrochloric acid and Indulin, an asphalt emulsifying agent.
Valero, who leased the property to a company where the leak occurred, issued a statement Saturday saying its first reports of water quality concerns from an administrative building it owns came Nov. 23, but the water cleared up after being flushed.
"For a couple of weeks, there may have been a chemical that nobody knew," Mayor Dan McQueen said Saturday during a daily briefing. "We don't know if they ever breached our water system or not."
In a statement released Sunday, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality reported that none of the 28 samples taken from the Corpus Christi municipal water system tested positive for Indulin AA-86, and the agency isn’t concerned about the “long term persistence of the substance in aquatic systems” or “bioaccumulation up the food chain.”
But state and federal authorities will be monitoring the situation, according to the statement:
The TCEQ and [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] will remain in a status of situational awareness and collect samples from the Corpus Christi drinking water systems and confirmation testing at EPA’s laboratory in Houston over the next few days. Both TCEQ and EPA have deployed additional resources to monitor Corpus Christi’s drinking water system. Seven reports of possibly related symptoms from prohibited water use by people living in Corpus Christi have been unconfirmed. The Texas Department of State Health Services recommends that citizens with health questions should contact their local healthcare professional.
The incident has already prompted a handful of lawsuits.
Michael Gras is Executive Editor of Government Executive's Route Fifty and is based in Seattle.
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