The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and Department of State Health Services (DSHS) completed review of sample results following reports of possibly related symptoms from prohibited water use by people living in Corpus Christi to assess current water quality.

None of the ten drinking water samples collected from specific locations within the City of Corpus Christi water supply system tested positive for the presence of Indulin AA-86 in drinking water at method detection levels of 0.05 mg/l for LCMS and 0.25-0.27 mg/l for GCMS. Twelve reports of possibly related symptoms from prohibited water use by people living in Corpus Christi have been unconfirmed.

The EPA and TCEQ toxicologists established a health-based action level of 2.6 mg/l in drinking water.

The Texas Department of State Health Services recommends that citizens with health questions should contact their local healthcare professional.

Citizens concerned about their drinking water quality should contact the City of Corpus Christi at 361-826-2489 or TCEQ at 888-777-3186. Citizens with health or exposure questions should contact the Poison Control Center at 800-222-1222.

The EPA and TCEQ will remain in a status of situational awareness and collect samples from the Corpus Christi drinking water systems and confirmation testing at EPA’s laboratory in Houston over the next few days.

TCEQ/EPA will make analytical data available on the Corpus Christi website at https://www.tceq.texas.gov/response/corpus-christi-emergency-response. Specific testing locations are not being released in adherence of privacy protection requirements.

Analytical results are to be considered preliminary findings until a full quality control review can be completed and the final report is generated by EPA’s laboratory. Analytical methods used for these tests are new and developed specifically for drinking water samples collected from Corpus Christi.  The analytical methods have not been validated and the EPA Houston Laboratory is not certified to test for this chemical.  Quantitation was made using pure Indulin AA-86 [fatty amine derivative] product that was collected in the field and provided to the Houston Laboratory by the State of Texas.  The salt form of Indulin AA-86 was needed to match the operations at the facility and was created using hydrochloric acid with a ratio of product to salt of 1.0:1.1, per information provided by Ingevity, the manufacturer.  Laboratory creation of the salt form of Indulin AA-86 results in uncertainty of the reference material and results are to be considered estimates.  Standard quality control procedures were followed.