Two questions still haunt Fayette

residents who have dealt with sweet-smelling water due to an overflow

of deicing chemicals at Hartsfield Airport Jan. 3:

Is the water safe now?

If it is safe now, was the

water contaminated shortly after the spill, and did that contamination

cause local health problems?

"I can tell you the water

supply to your house is completely safe," Peachtree City Mayor Steve

Brown told a group of residents during a hearing Friday to answer residents'

questions about the Jan. 3 spill.

An unknown quantity of deicing

fluid composed of ethylene and propylene glycol mixed with hot water escaped

the airport's containment system during the early January snowstorm and

entered the facility's storm sewers, flowing directly into the Flint River.

Ten days after the spill, Fayette

residents began to complain that their water smelled and tasted "sickeningly

sweet." Most of the tests conducted following the spill, the earliest

of them conducted on samples collected Jan. 16, did not show any detectable

levels of the chemicals, and state and local officials insist that at

no time was the water dangerous to humans.

Propylene glycol, which is

used in some food additives, is considered generally safe. Ethylene glycol,

though, can cause death if large enough amounts are ingested, according

to experts. Short of death, the most common problem associated with the

chemical is kidney problems. As the chemical breaks down in the body,

it forms crystals that affect kidney function.

But that requires that one

ingest large amounts of the chemical.

So how much glycol have Fayette

residents ingested?

Tests run by the state EPD

showed no detectable levels of ethylene glycol in samples taken from Fayette

homes, but one resident pointed out during Friday's meeting that while

the official "danger level" for the chemical is seven parts

per million in water, the state's tests are set at 10 ppm. It's difficult

to detect less than that, said Bert Langley of the EPD.

But although the city is not

responsible for the water supply, Peachtree City collected its own samples

and ran tests that could detect down to one ppm, said Mayor Brown. At

least one of those tests showed about three ppm, Brown said.

That level is not enough to

hurt anybody, experts insist.

But all of the tests were conducted

on samples collected Jan. 16 and later. What about right after the spill,

residents wanted to know.

Tammy Ellerbee said she became

ill after drinking the water, before switching to bottled water, and now

she is having kidney problems.

Another Peachtree City resident

lost her unborn child during the spill event and wonders if it could have

been a factor.

Anything is possible, said

Randy Manning, toxicologist for the EPD.

"But it actually takes

fairly large amounts [based on animal studies] to cause developmental

malfunctions," he said.

In one study, laboratory animals

were given the human equivalent of 70 grams of ethylene glycol daily for

three generations with no changes in reproduction, according to Manning.

If levels in Fayette water

did go high enough to cause kidney problems, he added, the problem should

be short-lived. In humans, the only severe health problems that have ever

come from glycol have been from accidental, usually job-related, ingestion

of very large amounts, or suicide attempts, Manning said.

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