Why is this article here? The event is many years old and the issue has been settled. The water company has agreed to pay about 150 million dollars in damages. They made the mistake of assuming that their better than average treatment system that included GAC and permanganate would remove the contaminants. They were wrong because they were engineers who did not understand organic chemistry and teh well known lack of affinity for GAC by alcohols. Extraction studies on the GAC found zero residues of the chemical, i.e., it was not binding, as was easily predictable from the structure. They should have intermittently closed the intake from the river to let the chemical plume pass. Fortunately, the chemical was not very toxic but it had a very detectable odor, that might have been increased by the permanganate by oxidation to an aldehyde. There were some short term irritations, but no significant illnesses based upon several follow up epidemiological studies. Freedom industries is gone. Also, what does it have to do with Trump? By the way, there really was not an Obama environmental legacy. The EPA was reduced by about 3000 people during the Obama administration.
Published by Joseph Cotruvo, President at Joseph Cotruvo & Associates, Water , Environment and Public Health
Why is this article here? The event is many years old and the issue has been settled. The water company has agreed to pay about 150 million dollars in damages. They made the mistake of assuming that their better than average treatment system that included GAC and permanganate would remove the contaminants. They were wrong because they were engineers who did not understand organic chemistry and teh well known lack of affinity for GAC by alcohols. Extraction studies on the GAC found zero residues of the chemical, i.e., it was not binding, as was easily predictable from the structure. They should have intermittently closed the intake from the river to let the chemical plume pass. Fortunately, the chemical was not very toxic but it had a very detectable odor, that might have been increased by the permanganate by oxidation to an aldehyde. There were some short term irritations, but no significant illnesses based upon several follow up epidemiological studies. Freedom industries is gone.
Also, what does it have to do with Trump? By the way, there really was not an Obama environmental legacy. The EPA was reduced by about 3000 people during the Obama administration.