East Palestine is over 100 miles east of us with a drainage system in the Ohio River Basin. According to Ohio EPA’s website, their water should not make it into our system. East Palestine area water flows through Sulfer Run, Leslie Run, North Fork Little Beaver Creed, Beaver Creek, and finally discharges into the Ohio River. This, as well as water sample results, can be found in the following link.
https://epa.ohio.gov/monitor-pollution/pollution-issues/east-palestine
To verify flow direction, we used the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ watershed drainage basin map which is linked below. East Palestine can be found slightly north of the markings for Beaver County, PA. This map also shows their drainage goes to the Ohio River before flowing south and west to the Mississippi River. Mansfield does not get water from the Ohio River.
https://ohiodnr.gov/discover-and-learn/safety-conservation/about-odnr/water-resources/water-inventory-planning/ohio-watersheds-drainage-basin+maps
When analyzing NOAA reporting for airborne matter, it looks as though airborne particles followed wind currents eastward away from Mansfield.
Water plants are required to test for volatile organic chemicals. In addition to this, Mansfield monitors our water hourly for chemistry changes. We trend pH as a way to catch changes early enough to make meaningful treatment adjustments and optimizations. Most of our water comes from wells with local aquifers. In the event of surface water contamination, we would switch to all ground water. To this point, we have had no detections nor abnormal water chemistry.
Mansfield is equipped to remove the volatile organic chemicals that have been publicized.
We have open dialogue with dozens of water treatment facilities as well as several environmentally focused engineers who are all taking a proactive approach and monitoring this situation closely. As always, we take information and guidance from the EPA.