Philly Residents Issued Water Advisory After Delaware River Chemical Spill
by Sharelle Burt

March 27, 2023

Philly Residents Issued Water Advisory After Delaware River Chemical Spill

Philadelphia residents have been encouraged to stock up on tap water over bottled water after hazardous materials spilled into the Delaware River.

WHYY PBS reports officials from the Philadelphia Water Department told residents the water in the city would continue to be safe to drink through Monday at 11:59 p.m. Officials gave this order to Bucks County residents “out of an abundance of caution” after no contamination in water was found at the city’s Baxter Water Treatment plant.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the plant will take in new water overnight, which must be tested to determine its safety. To prevent worry similar to water outages in other states, Deputy Managing Director for the city’s Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Sustainability, Mike Carroll, says filling bottles up with tap water is fine for now. “There’s no need at this time for people to be rushing out and buying bottled water,” Carroll said. “If they want to store water, they should store water from their tap in a bottle or pitcher and they can stick it in their fridge or refrigerator and it will be fine for them to drink.”

However, it may be too late for that. With all the updates, the lines of communication may have been crossed. After a news conference announcing the city’s initial advisory, plenty of worried residents left the store shelves bare, as officials warned they might want to switch to bottled water around 2 p.m. Residents took to Twitter to showcase the chaos. “Whoa, real March 2020 vibes in my ’hood right now,” one user tweeted.

One of the chemicals spilled was butyl acrylate, the same chemical from the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment. “We cannot be 100% certain there will not be traces of these chemicals in the tap water throughout the entire afternoon,” Carroll said.


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