Merck to pay $20M for polluting

Philadelphia drinking supply

December 2007

U.S. Water News Online

PHILADELPHIA -- A pharmaceutical company will pay more than $20 million for multiple Clean Water Act violations stemming from three chemical spills, one of which killed more than 1,000 fish and forced the city to temporarily shut off drinking water intakes.

Based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., Merck & Co. Inc. will pay $10 million for systems to prevent future hazardous discharges at the facility 15 miles outside Philadelphia, and $9 million for other large-scale environmental protection projects, federal authorities said.

Merck also will pay $750,000 to the federal government, $750,000 to the state and $75,000 to the state Fish and Boat Commission in penalties and civil damages for the three 2006 discharges in the Wissahickon Creek, which is the source of 40 percent of Philadelphia's drinking water.

"Perhaps more than anything else, this settlement says to every company that discharges dangerous chemicals as part of its operations that it is accountable to the environment and the community," U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Meehan said in a statement.

"No one should have to wonder, when they walk into the kitchen for a glass of water, if what they are about to drink is going to make them or their children sick."

The pharmaceutical and vaccine research and manufacturing facility in West Point, Montgomery County, released about 25 gallons of potassium thiocyanate into the Upper Gwynedd Township wastewater treatment system on June 13, 2006. The compound, which used for making industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals and pesticides, turned toxic when it reacted with the chlorination system.

The discharge killed about 1,000 fish in the Wissahickon Creek on June 14 and June 15, caused the Philadelphia Water Department to close its Schuylkill River drinking water intake for both days, and led the state Department of Environmental Protection to ban all recreational uses on the creek for nearly a month.

On Aug. 8 and Aug. 9, 2006, Merck released a high-protein solution used in the manufacture of vaccines into the sewage system that sent foam floating down stretches of the Wissahickon, Meehan said.

On Aug. 16, 2006, Merck discharged cleaning agents that caused another foam discharge into the creek, Meehan said.

Under a proposed consent decree, Merck will create a system to track waste handling, name a task force to assess current protocols, and increase testing and assessment. Merck also must implement long-term remedial policies.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Merck will restore part of the Wissahickon to improve water quality, create wetlands on a nearby 10-acre parcel, purchase technology that monitors fish activity to give the Philadelphia Water Department an early warning system, and make other improvements.

Included in the total is a $4.5 million contribution from Merck that will go toward the purchase of a 96-acre land parcel adjacent to the creek that will have restricted use and open space easements in perpetuity.

"Merck believes the settlement we reached is fair, and we are pleased that it includes important projects that will result in permanent benefits to our local environment," spokesman Ian McConnell said in a statement.

Donald S. Welsh, the EPA regional administrator, said, "These improvements and Merck's environmental accountability has implications extending beyond the boundaries of its facility."

Merck's operations in West Point are on a 400-acre site with 110 buildings and 8,500 employees.

AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water

Comment:

So here is one example of a company which got caught.  My sweetheart says they probably consider the fine and their new found 'environmental accountability' simply the cost of doing business.  Of course, here is a story which was reported on but didn't seem to get much, if any, national attention.  

Last week we watched a story on our local 11pm news regarding the City of Florence, SC (about an hour from us in Myrtle Beach).  Apparently high levels of nitrates were found in the ground water there affecting the drinking water.  Citizens were admonished to buy bottled water and not to drink the well water from their taps.  We went to look for the story the following day and...  you guessed it: Nothing. You would think that this story would be important enough that the entire region would be aware of it -- I mean, we saw it on a local Myrtle Beach TV station's news broadcast.  The following morning I went to the station's site and saw no mention of it.  No mention of poisoned drinking water in a city an hour away.  I called their news director, who checked with the web master who said they thought they had posted it, however, they assured me it would make it's way onto the site.  In checking later, it still was not there.  It never made it.  Probably got bumped for Paris and Brittany.

The Merck story, above, was covered by U.S. Water News which is a trade magazine for water treatment professionals.  Maybe it made CNN or CBS but I don't recall hearing about it.  You can bet if Paris or Brittany got sick from drinking it, though, you would hear plenty about it... and for weeks on end.  Nancy Grace would make it her new mission in life and squeeze that story for all it was worth.  But it didn't happen to Paris or Brittany, it only affected the lives of common fools like you and me, so what is the big deal?

It simply wasn't important.

What is important is that by the time you hear about your water being contaminated... by the time someone decides what to do about it and who is responsible... by the time it actually gets cleaned up (if that is even possible)...  A LOT of water gets guzzled in the meantime.

"Oh well," right?

Many of you are already filtering your water and I hope you are staying on top of your filter replacement schedule. Most don't.  Most people think those filters will last forever.  They don't.  Nor are they as effective as cleaning your water 2 weeks down the road as they are on day one -- or did you think that they remove 99% of all that sludge right up to the day they 'go bad'??  They don't remove everything, either.  What their filters don't remove, they convince us is good for us; the Brita manufacturer, for example, says their little filters do not remove 'beneficial fluoride.'  I saw that a year ago on their packaging and we still laugh about it.

IT FAILS TO REMOVE FLUORIDE, THEREFORE, FLUORIDE BECOMES BENEFICIAL!

My, but what kind of fools do they take us for?  I guess that if the shoe fits then the proof is in their bottom line, eh?

Years and years ago I was hired by a company to sell expensive in-home water treatment equipment.  I knew nothing about water when I came aboard but as a salesman going into the home, they cram you with so much knowledge about water and all the different kinds of treatment that your head would spin.  I liked it, though.  I wasn't much of a salesman because if the home owner couldn't cough up the necessary $5,000 for the products or couldn't qualify for a loan, I would usually tell them to just go to Sears or someplace and get something cheaper.  At least DO something about it!  We carried little test kits for hardness, pH, Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), etc. and some of that water was just plain nasty, especially where some company was dumping 20 years prior and the aquifer was still contaminated -- yet people were still drinking the ground water... They didn't KNOW any better!  No one told them about the lousy drinking water when they bought their homes there!

Boy, did we catch hell from the local government over that... we were told to 'Quit scaring people!  The water is fine!!!'  Sure.  That's why -- twenty years later -- those wells are shut down, right??  Because they were safe?

Anyway, one thing I did learn was that distilling water was the very most beneficial way of 'cleaning' water.  Rather than filtering water and trying to trap contaminants from the water, the water is vaporized to its pure state, cooled and returned to its liquid state, leaving the impurities behind.  From liquid to gas and back to liquid.  Mother nature does the same thing with her water.  Eventually, I sprung for a distiller and began to 'clean' my drinking water using that process and I have been drinking that water ever since.  Yes, I know the arguments about removing 'beneficial' minerals from the water.  Nobody could, however, tell me just which 'beneficial' minerals I was removing and if those minerals were even in any form in which my body could assimilate them.  Besides, when I drink my own distilled water I add my own minerals and know EXACTLY what I am getting.  Sounds better than rolling the dice with tap water, eh?  

Then there are those who say that distilled water is dead water.  Dead Water?  Usually these guys are selling some form of charcoal filter which cannot come close to competing with delivering the quality of pure water which distillation does.

Well, you know the story of the guy who, "...liked the product so much I bought the company."  Well, I didn't buy the company but I liked my distiller so much I decided to sell them -- just as I do all my products.  Get one -- you'll like yours too!

Below is a photo I took this afternoon of a few days' worth of residual crud left over from the distillation process.  Those white things floating in the pretty amber colored sludge lit up by the sun are residue particles (possibly minerals) which had sunk to the bottom of the jar.  I swirled it around for effect just before I took the photo.  Actually this water doesn't look too bad compared with the water I was cleaning when I lived in Upstate, New York.  Still, would you drink this?  This is municipal water and comes from the 'treatment' plant in my town.  YUM!  Everybody in town is drinking this stuff.