A small town in New Mexico discovers that a chemical plant outside of town recently learned that one of their underground pipelines had broken without their knowledge and had been leaking a toxic organic compound for over a month

Question

The spill occurred 5m below the surface in a sandstone above a thin shale bed in the local bedrock. The beds are flat lying and this shale crops out 200m from the chemical plant. The town gets is water from deep wells, about 300m deep. What should the town worry about from this spill?
A) There is no threat to the city water, but there is a likely health threat when the chemical moves to the surface outcrops of the layers the spill occurred in.
B) There is no immediate worry, but in the long term their city water will almost certainly be contaminated.
C) There is a threat by the company to move because they do not want to clean up the damage.
D) There is an immediate threat of contamination of the city water supply.

Answer 1

A