The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and City of Longview officials are confident that the city’s drinking water is safe after the implosion at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Company, but now say they’re worried about the caustic substance white liquor making into industrial ditches near the plant and spreading into the dyke network that spreads throughout Longview.
Brooks Stanfield, the on-scene coordinator with the EPA, says they have detected higher pH levels than what the water should be at, indicating the chemical is spreading through the ditches.
“It literally runs through people’s backyards.” Stanfield said during Thursday’s press conference, “Obviously something where there is a risk for people to come in contact with that liquid if we don’t prevent them from doing so.”
Warning signs have been posted around the ditches and dikes, and the city said they have notified people near the dikes “as much as we can” according to the Longview’s Public Works Director and Assistant City Manager Chris Collins.
“Keep away from the water, don’t let your pet swim in it until we give the go-ahead, which we hope to do soon,” Collins said.
Collins and Stanfield say they are pumping water into the network from the Cowlitz River and also using fire hydrants to both dilute the chemical in the water and flush it out to the west toward the Columbia River. Standfield says they are monitoring water levels for discharge into the Columbia to ensure it meets neutral water standards.
“Containment is the best strategy first, and we’re doing that [at the plant], but now we know that we already have white liquor in the ditches, so what are our options there? And they’re really flushing diluting, and if we need to, if we start to see sustained pH levels above the levels we want, we can do some neutralization.” Stanfield said.
By flushing the water to the west, Collins hopes it keeps any contaminated water away from the well head that draws water from an aquifer 200 feet underground for the city’s drinking water.
“Our well is very protected from any sort of surface environmental concerns,” Collins said.
In addition to permanent air monitors, the EPA brought in air monitors of their own. Stanfield says they have detected none of the airborne particles they would have been concerned about, like Hydrogen Sulfide.
“Not only have we not seen any exceedances of health criteria, we have not actually had a detection of hydrogen sulfite or any of the other air contaminants we might have. So that’s really good news.” Stanfield.