Cyanide found in Tookany Creek after SPS Technologies fire in Jenkintown

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Testing by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection found cyanide in the Tookany Creek last week, following a massive fire at the SPS Technologies aerospace parts manufacturing facility in Jenkintown.

In surface water, most cyanide quickly evaporates as hydrogen cyanide, a highly poisonous gas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Testing showed levels of cyanide in Tookany Creek declining between last Tuesday and Wednesday, and did not detect any cyanide where the creek meets the Delaware River.

“There is no risk to drinking water,” a statement from the DEP read.

State environmental officials took samples of the Tookany Creek downstream from the SPS facility and at the Greenwood Avenue Bridge last Tuesday and Wednesday, days before the fire was officially extinguished. The levels of total cyanide and weak acid dissociable cyanide — a narrower group of cyanide compounds — found Wednesday were an order of magnitude lower than the levels found the day before, indicating a “sharp dropoff in any contaminants of concern,” the DEP said.

SPS is working to prevent any more water used to put out the fire from entering Tookany Creek by pumping it into holding tanks and treating it in an on-site wastewater treatment facility, the DEP said in a press release Tuesday.

Cyanide levels found in Tookany Creek near the SPS facility and at the Greenwood Avenue Bridge seem high compared to state standards for protecting aquatic life, said Kelly Good, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Villanova University who specializes in water systems. But those state aquatic life standards, as well as drinking water standards, are meant for a narrower, particularly toxic group of cyanide compounds known as “free cyanide” — not the broader groups of cyanide compounds that the DEP tested for.

“So it makes it hard to make a determination,” Good said.

Tookany Creek is not used for drinking water, and Philadelphia’s drinking water intake along the Delaware River is located upstream of the place where Frankford Creek, another name for the Tookany, meets the Delaware.

“The Delaware is tidal there, so it’s good they made that observation [at the confluence],” said Gerald Kauffman, director of the University of Delaware’s Water Resources Center. “The intake is safe.”

The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission has not yet been able to access the site to assess any impacts to aquatic life, such as fish kills, said spokesperson Mike Parker.

In the last decade, SPS Technologies has regularly handled potentially dangerous chemicals, including cyanide compounds, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory.

SPS Technologies’ parent company, PCC Fasteners, and the DEP have not responded to questions about what chemicals were stored on site at the time of the fire. Abington Police Chief Patrick Molloy said most chemicals were stored in a building that did not burn.

The DEP, the EPA and local hazmat teams also monitored the air quality around the site, including for hydrogen cyanide, and say they found no contaminants of concern.