City of Ashland, Ky. says water is still ‘safe to drink’ after Ohio train derailment

ASHLAND, Ky. (WTVQ) — The City of Ashland, Kentucky says its water is still safe to drink after a train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio last week.

Boyd County, where Ashland is located, sits partially on the Kentucky-Ohio border. The city released a statement Tuesday.

“Based on current data, the spill on the Ohio River in northeast Ohio does not pose a risk to the quality of our drinking water. Your water is safe to drink,” the statement read.

Other neighboring state West Virginia has taken “extra” precautions, despite Gov. Jim Justice emphasizing that “everything is fine here” due to the immediate action from agencies like the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and the National Guard, including installing a secondary intake on the Guyandotte River in the event that they need to switch to an alternate water source, the AP reported.

“Hundreds” of tests daily are conducted to monitor both raw and treated water, the City of Ashland added to its statement, saying that the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission has a detection system on the entire 981 miles of the Ohio River to analyze chemicals that may spill into the river, with Ashland being along one of those locations.

“Over the past several days scientists with Regional Agencies & water plants have worked to calculate the travel time of the spill plume by studying its size and location,” the statement read, “If necessary, Ashland has the operational capacity to bypass the intake for up to 3 days at current consumption levels and still provide quality water for our customers.”

Among the substances released into the Ohio River were ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate and isobutylene, a list shows. Contact with ethylhexyl acrylate, a carcinogen, can cause burning and irritation of the skin and eyes, and inhalation can irritate the nose and throat, causing shortness of breath and coughing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“If the situation or risk to our water treatment changes, we will notify the public immediately,” the city said.

Click here to read the full statement.