Philadelphia authorities recommend drinking bottled water after Delaware River spill

The Water Department of the U.S. city of Philadelphia has recommended that the vast majority of the city’s population consumption of bottled water as a result of a serious spill of more than 30,000 liters of latex into the Delaware River off Bucks County.

The leak of the polluting liquid occurred on Friday and may have already reached the Baxter water treatment plant. At the moment no traces of these chemicals have been detected in the tap water.However, the consumption of bottled water has been recommended as a precautionary measure after 14:00 hours on Sunday.

“There was a chemical spill in Bristol, Bucks County on Friday night that has resulted in contamination of the Delaware River,” the deputy director of the Delaware Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Sustainability has explained, Michael Carrollreports the PhillyVoice portal.

“The Philadelphia Water Department is aware thanks to the Delaware Valley Early Warning System and is assessing the situation understand the potential consequences to the public. We continue to monitor the situation and to carry out tests, although the first data do not reveal contamination,” he added.

The affected areas are South Philadelphia, Center, Northeast Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, River Quarter part of Germantown, Olney, East Oak Lane and West Oak Lane. People in the affected areas should avoid drinking and cooking with tap water.

“No contaminants have been found in our water system so far and we expect no riesgio until 2 p.m. today, but we can’t be 100 percent sure that there will be no trace amounts of these chemicals in the system’s water all afternoon, (so) we want the public to be informed so they will can decide whether to use bottled water to minimize risk,” Carroll explained.

In many supermarkets in the area already sold out bottled water.