It does not take much to contaminate a well or an aquifer. We have seen this with other chemicals such as MtBE and benzene. In this article you can see that people had used bottled water for years, but the regulators only recently seemed to catch up.
It is amazing to me to see how much we all really do not know about how these chemicals really are affecting water supplies around the world.
Earlier this month, Delaware's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control notified owners of four properties near U.S. 13 and Wrangle Hill Road that they would be eligible for free United Water Delaware connections. The offer followed the unexplained appearance of a cancer-causing chemical, ethylene dichloride, in a well near the St. Georges Getty service station just north of the car dealership.
Officials had assured area residents for more than two decades that pollution from the site of the old Stauffer Chemical Co. toxic-waste landfills to the north was under control. That they were wrong underscores how little is known about how toxic chemicals make their way through complex geological formations into drinking-water supplies.
If you don't think a little of this stuff in your drinking water matters, then check out these statistics:
Stauffer and its successor, Formosa Plastics, both were named as responsible parties for the chemical contamination found in groundwater in the early 1980s near what is now Formosa's plant. The pollutants, which leached from unlined pits and storage lagoons, included vinyl chloride, ethylene dichloride and trichloroethylene, solvents or chemicals used in plastics manufacturing.
When found in drinking water even in trace amounts, ethylene dichloride is considered nearly three times more potent than benzene, a known carcinogen present in materials ranging from gasoline to cigarettes and automobile exhaust, according to calculations released by the nonprofit group Environmental Defense.
Vinyl chloride, a common plastic, can pose a cancer risk nearly five times higher than benzene when dissolved in water.
Delaware Online
