VIENNA - Standing in her Vienna restaurant during the lunch-time rush Friday, Cindi Emrick had mostly questions and frustration about an advisory not to drink or cook with the city's tap water. Nothing about the water had changed overnight in the city near where DuPont Co. had, for years, been making the chemical C8, so why, she wondered, was the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency changing the allowable limits so drastically now.
"Why are we panicking? It's the same water we drank yesterday," she said.
Emrick co-owns Mr. Hot Diggity Dog, which has been open on Grand Central Avenue for 16 years and in the city for a total of 20.
On Thursday, the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health put in place an advisory for the city's water users not to drink or cook with the water. The advisory followed new EPA guidelines that say drinking water with 70 parts of C8 per trillion or less is "not expected to result in adverse health effects over a lifetime of exposure."
The chemical, which has contaminated the water in Wood County communities for years, has been linked to cancer, thyroid disease and dangerously high blood pressure in pregnant women.
The restaurant brought in bottled water for customers and alternative water for cooking, she said. Signs posted on the door and its drink machine warned patrons that it uses city water in the soda machine. For the most part, customers didn't seem to care at all about the EPA's new warning, she said.
"Every customer that's come in has got soda," Emrick said. "They're not even affected by the announcement."
The city brought in borrowed tankers full of water from the city of Parkersburg, which also was affected by the new guidelines. Water there tested above the allowable limits, too, but officials there were able to switch to wells that tested at lower levels of the chemical.
Greg Sims has lived in Vienna since 1974, but after Thursday night, he won't drink the water anymore until the C8 levels are lower, he said. He brought five cases to fill up with water at one of the city's three water stations. Sims, who cares for his mother and brother, said he is concerned about his family's health.
"I don't know who's responsible, but I just want the problem solved," he said. "We need water."
Mayor Randy Rapp said it could be six weeks to two months before Vienna has in place carbon filters that will eliminate C8 in the water. In the meantime, Rapp estimated, it will take about 70,000 gallons of water a day to service the city's 11,000 residents and the town of Boaz's 3,000 residents, who also use the city's water.
During an emergency City Council meeting Friday afternoon, city officials grappled with what to do next. The city is planning to have workers man water stations for 12 hours a day until the water tests at allowable levels of C8. That will mean high overtime costs, the mayor said. The filters themselves will cost between $2 million and $4 million for each of the city's three well fields, a city official told council members.
Officials plan to buy bottled water, some of which will be delivered to the elderly and disabled people. But even as the city plans to deal with the emergency, Rapp said he's still drinking the water.
"I've lived here my whole life," he said. "It's one of those things where it didn't happen overnight."
Reach Lori Kersey at lori.kersey@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1240 or follow @LoriKerseyWV on Twitter.