ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH
Small Town, Big Response: A Thanksgiving Emergency
Makes a Deep Impact on Lab, Community
by Martha Pings, writer
The call came on a Tuesday afternoon:
“We’re going to need your help with this
issue.”
It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving,
and a small town was completely without
water.
I called all of our environmental group together,” Gunsalus remembers.
“I told them a town in south Kansas wouldn’t have any water for Thanksgiving
weekend. We needed to test the river and also do a full screen of the new
water source. Were they in?”
For N. Myron Gunsalus Jr., director of
Kansas Health and Environmental
Laboratories, the cascade of events that
followed brought a clear sense of purpose
and connection to the lab’s work.
Neodesha, Kansas is a small town of
about 2,500. Hours from both Topeka and
Tulsa, it is nestled near the convergence
of the Verdigris and Fall Rivers. The town
motto, “Two rivers, no limits,” makes it
clear: there is a lot of pride in this natural
resource. The Verdigris River serves as a
drinking water source for Neodesha as
well as several communities downstream,
including Independence and Coffeyville
in Kansas, and Delaware, Lenapah and
Nowata in Oklahoma.
Earlier that Tuesday, November 22, 2016,
a Neodesha chemical plant sustained an
explosion. Flame and smoke billowed,
visible for miles. As firefighters worked to
put out the blaze, fire suppressants and
other chemicals collected in ditches and
made their way to the rivers.
nap. The next few days were a flurry of
activity: receive the samples at the airport,
incubate, extract, analyze, repeat.
“We glutted the bottle supply to make
sure staff had all the containers they’d
need. Everything would change so
quickly,” Gunsalus says.
Suddenly the town was without a reliable
water source. Residents were warned
not to use the water for any purpose—a
complete shut-off. The community
identified a retention pond that had been
piped but not tested for use as drinking
water.
“I called all of our environmental group
together,” Gunsalus remembers. “I told
them a town in south Kansas wouldn’t
have any water for Thanksgiving
weekend. We needed to test the river and
also do a full screen of the new water
source. Were they in?”
Some staff took the first overnight shift,
returning to work later that day after a
PublicHealthLabs
@APHL
The Neodesha Fire Department responds to the plant explosion. Photo: Neodesha Fire Department
Microbial contaminants were of concern
in the new water source. Acetone,
dietheylene glycol monobutyl ether,
ethylene glycol, methanol, PCE and
toluene were of concern in the rivers.
In the midst of all this, one testing
instrument failed on Thanksgiving day.
Since the vendor was unavailable, the lab
and regulatory team worked Thanksgiving
day to resolve the issue and approve the
water source.
Neodesha and other towns drawing
water from the Verdigris and Fall Rivers
graduated from the initial “no water
use” to “boil advisory” by Friday. The boil
advisory was then lifted within a week of
the explosion.
APHL.org
“This event made our testing very
tangible,” Gunsalus says. “I’ve been in
this work for 28 years and have never
seen a team respond with such a sense of
purpose as this team did. They stepped up
and were awesome.”
A lesson learned? “Communicate,”
Gunsalus says. “It’s important to keep
up on FEMA’s command system. On the
health side of the lab, many think of
Incident Command System, but on the
environmental side it’s not so common.”
In the end, Gunsalus says it’s about
restoring peace to a community. “We do
tests all year ‘round. We know it affects
people, but it’s not always tangible to us.
We’re not always able to connect that
sample of water to somebody. But here it
was very clear. The team stepped up and
said, ‘You know, I’ll do that. I really feel
good about helping these citizens. We’re
stepping up, not just working hard.’” n
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