San Angelo TX Has No Drinking Water: Benzene @ 35X Legal Limit, Plus Acetone, Naphthalene
What does Freedumb taste like? Mothballs!!
Residents of San Angelo, a West Texas city in the Concho Valley, have gone days without safe drinking water after city officials discovered industrial chemicals contaminated the water system. The crisis — which stretches into at least its fifth day Friday — in the city of 101,000 people has left residents frustrated and scared after the city told them Monday night to cease all uses of water other than flushing their toilets. They were also told that first boiling the water before use would not make it usable and, instead, only more dangerous.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality found the water, which smelled like chemicals or mothballs, is contaminated with benzene, acetone, naphthalene and other chemicals consistent with industrial production. The winter storm sweeping the state has complicated the struggle to restore safe water to the community and thwarted efforts to get water to those who need it. Hazardous road conditions have slowed water testing, as the tests need to travel more than three hours from San Angelo to a lab in Austin, and the conditions also delayed opening water distribution sites. At least one local group had to cease meal and water deliveries to the elderly on Thursday.
EDIT
Boiling the water would only make contamination worse, releasing the chemicals into the air. Without more information available about the extent of the contamination, the only action that was absolutely safe was to stop using it. Benzene is known to cause cancer. Acetone can be used industrially as a solvent, and naphthalene can be produced from coal tar or oil for use in plastics, pharmaceuticals and other products, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. “I’m wondering what health effect this is going to have on me,” Treadway said.
The EPA limit for benzene in water is 5 milligrams per liter. The state’s first tests in the northeast areas of San Angelo on Monday found benzene concentrations ranging between 17 milligrams per liter to as high as 177 milligrams per liter — 35 times the legal limit. Earl Lott, deputy director of the office of water for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said there is no EPA standard for the other contaminants.
EDIT
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/12/san-angelo-water-contamination/
= new reply since forum marked as read
... the USEPA MCL for Benzene in drinking water is 0.005 mg/L (milligrams/liter) or 5 ug/L (micrograms per liter).
https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/national-primary-drinking-water-regulations
But if they really reported 117 mg/L, that would be 35,000x the MCL. 
mg/L ~ ppm
ug/L ~ ppb
