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Health Commissioner Julia Sheen on Monday reiterated that cisterns in nearby neighborhoods were not expected to be impacted from by-products of the fire that erupted at Hovensa Friday afternoon.
Sheen said the Department of Planning and Natural Resource (DPNR) and the local Environmental Health Protection (EPA) Division dispatched air monitoring teams to downwind communities, but that while odors were detected, no immediate health concerns were identified as of Sunday. Hovensa officials told government agency heads, including Sheen, VITEMA’s Acting Director Elton Lewis and DPNR’s Acting Commissioner Alicia Barnes that because there was a complete combustion on Friday, no sulfur was released into the air.
Thus, Health officials do no expect that cisterns were impacted, Sheen said Monday.
Sheen also clarified a Health advisory issued early last week following findings by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that no contaminants from a Hovensa gas leak, last December, were found in cisterns at the two neighborhoods affected.
The original advisory, dated December 10, 2011, and advising residents in Fredensborg and Clifton Hill not to drink cistern water, was issued as a precautionary measure in the event that products from the release fell into cisterns.
“However, the Department of Health has no knowledge of the maintenance and operation of individual cisterns, which could contain other contaminants that make the water less than potable quality,” Sheen said. “Therefore, we are advising the residents of the affected areas that it is OK to go back to using their cistern water as originally used prior to the DOH press release last December.”
The December press release was issued as a preventative measure due to the potential risk of contaminants from the release getting into the cisterns. Laboratory analyses obtained recently indicate that those contaminants were not found in the cisterns sampled and the precautionary advisory was lifted. |
