The Loss of Indoor Air After a Train Derailed near the Pennsylvania State Line: Constraints from the East Palestine, Ohio, EPA, and Local Waterways

The evacuated residents of East Palestine, Ohio can return to their homes after crews burned toxic chemicals when a train derailed near the Pennsylvania state line.

People in the area of East Palestine were told to stay indoors as a precautionary measure. The air samples from neighboring counties did not show worrisome levels of contaminates.

The EPA reported that it had screened indoor air in 386 homes as of Tuesday, with 100 remaining. The air of the local schools and a library was screened by the agency. It has tested the local waterways a number of times since the contamination was released into them.

There have been no reported injuries or67531 from Monday’s release of chemicals, but some people have complained about smelling chlorine and smoke in the air and having headaches.

Many nearby residents were ordered to leave because of health concerns related to the release of the chemicals from the derailed train.

The National Guard commander in Ohio said members would take readings in homes and businesses to make sure the air was safe when the order to evacuate was lifted.

Indoor air screening program of the East Palestine train wreck, which left five cars derailed in the early stages of the fire, with no known exposure to vinyl chloride

There was no one injured when 50 cars derailed in a fiery mess on the outskirts of East Palestine. As fear of a potential blast grew, the area was evacuated and the five rail cars carrying vinyl Chloride were set afire, causing black smoke to billow into the sky.

We will be judged by our actions. We are cleaning up the site in an environmentally responsible way, reimbursing residents affected by the derailment, and working with members of the community to identify what is needed to help East Palestine recover and thrive,” Norfolk Southern President and CEO Alan Shaw said in a release.

The most toxic chemical involved in the train wreck, Vinyl chloride, has been linked to cancer, and can also affect the brain, according to Maria Doa of the Environmental Defense Fund.

There have been a number of reports since the order to leave was lifted on Wednesday, including people having a burning sensation in their eyes and animals falling ill.

The EPA, with the Ohio National Guard and a Norfolk Southern contractor, also has collected air samples – checking for vinyl chloride, hydrogen chloride, carbon monoxide, phosgene and other compounds – in the East Palestine community, it had said. There are at least a dozen instruments that stated their screening level had not been exceeded in the air monitoring results posted on Tuesday by the EPA.

The agency stated that there wasn’t a detection of vinylchloride and hydrogen chloride in the homes that have been screened as of Monday. There are 181 homes left to be evaluated in the voluntary indoor air screening program.

Vinyl chloride is a carcinogen that becomes a gas at room temperature, and it was loaded on five cars. It it commonly used to make polyvinyl chloride or PVC, which is a kind of plastic used for pipes, wire and cable coatings and car parts.

Vinylchloride can break down from the sun within a few days and change into other chemicals. When it is spilled in soil or surface water, the chemical evaporates into the air quickly, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

Phosgene and hydrogen chloride are two of the other hazardous chemicals the EPA has been watching. Exposure to phosgene can cause eye irritation, dry burning throat and vomiting; while hydrogen chloride can irritate the skin, nose, eyes and throat, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An At-Home Air Screening Project to Investigate an Overheat Failure of a Tank Car before a Train Collision

“Now that we are entering into a longer term phase of this, people are going to be concerned about the long-term chronic exposure that comes at lower levels,” said Karen Dannemiller, a professor at The Ohio State University who studies indoor air quality.

She added that indoor spaces can be an important point of exposure, which is why she urges East Palestine residents to take part in EPA’s at-home air screening.

Dannemiller encourages residents to clean surfaces, especially in areas that collect dust, and wash items that absorb smells. She advises vacuuming in short spurts to keep pollutants out of the air.

One video shows “what appears to be a wheel bearing in the final stage of overheat failure moments before the derailment,” the National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement Tuesday.

The wheelset will undergo a metallurgical examination as part of the overall investigation. Investigators will return to complete an examination of the tank cars once they are fully decontaminated, the NTSB said.

The video from two local businesses reported to show glowing or flames from a train prior to the crash are among the videos that are being reviewed by the NationalTransportation Safety Board.

Authorities were concerned about the chance of a deadly explosion and that’s what caused the debris to burn. But crews managed controlled detonations to release the chemical, which can kill quickly at high levels and increase cancer risk. The hazardous substance spilled into a trench, where it was burned away.

Water Treatment Strategies for Railroad Vehicles to Improve Water Quality and Safety: Update of a Waterway Near a New Ohio Line Derailment

If that’s correct, he said, “Congress needs to take a look at how these things are handled. When trains carrying hazardous material travel through Ohio, we should be aware of it.

In an update Tuesday, investigators said no vinyl chloride has been detected in any of the down-gradient waterways near the train derailment, and environmental teams are aerating waterways near the site.

Some chemicals were spilled into local waterways but it was all contained, according to the EPA. An initial plume of chemicals that was spilled into the waterway had made it to the Ohio River, but officials said they exist in very low concentration, and they are working with water facilities on enhanced filtration so they are not passed onto water customers.

“Fire combustion chemicals” flowed to the Ohio River, “but the Ohio River is very large, and it’s a water body that’s able to dilute the pollutants pretty quickly,” Kavalec said. The chemicals are a “contaminant plume” the Ohio EPA and other agencies have tracked in real time and is believed to be moving about a mile an hour, she said.

The chemicals are a “contaminant plume” that the Ohio EPA and other agencies have been tracking in real time. It’s believed to be moving about a mile an hour, Kavalec said.

The tracking will allow for the possibility of closing drinking water intakes to allow the majority of chemicals to pass. Kavalec stated that they are pretty confident that low levels of contaminants aren’t getting passed onto customers, and that the strategy along with drinking water treatment helps ensure the safety of the drinking water supplies.

Vanderhoff repeatedly told residents in East Palestine to use bottled water until testing on their water source is completed. He said it’s especially important to use bottled water for people who are pregnant, breastfeeding or making infant formula.

Chemical spill in Ohio is devastating, and the railroads are safer than air. And what do we know? How many lives have been destroyed by chemical spills?

The local aquatic life was destroyed when the chemical spill took place, with 3,500 fish dying from the water pollution.

The estimation of the dead fish came after initial testing and sampling by the state agency, Mertz said. There does not appear to have been an increase in the number of fish killed since the first couple of days following the derailment.

Some of the pits of dirt that have been dug up measure about 700 feet long and 8 feet deep, Kurt Kollar, the on-scene coordinator for the Ohio EPA’s Office of Emergency Response, said.

When asked about anecdotal reports of people getting headaches and sore throats, and of animals, such as cats and chickens, dying near the train derailment, Ohio Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff said that air quality does not appear to be the source.

necdotes are challenges because they are anecdotes. “Everything that we’ve gathered thus far is really pointing toward very low measurements, if at all.”

America’s railroads move a lot of chemicals. Freight trains moved 2.2 million carloads of chemicals in 2021, according to the Association of American Railroads.

Warren Flatau, a Federal Rail Administration spokesman, told CNN that transportation is capable of moving bulk quantities. The alternative is to truck move the commodities over the highways, which is not looked upon favorably.

Even though the federal statistics show that rail is a safer method to carry hazardous materials, spills and leaks still happen.

The real issues are the risk of explosion and train derailing, says a researcher at Northeastern University. “If natural gas were to have a derailment like the vinyl chloride, it would be devastating.”

Air, Soil and Water Tests after the Decay of the Ohio Rail Cars Detector on Oct. 11, 2005 at 158 GeV/c

Ohio Environmental Protection Agency officials have been conducting air, soil and water tests since the controlled explosion of the chemicals inside the rail cars.

While most of the Tuesday news conference focused on volatile organic compounds, there were other types of chemicals released in the spill that didn’t diffuse as easily.

“Because of their size, they don’t go in the air as easily,” Whelton said. “They like to stick to soils and other materials. The question is, how contaminated is the creek and what will they do to remediate that?”

Reports of animals dying have not yet been confirmed by officials. Mary Mertz, the director of Ohio’s Department of Natural Resources, said Tuesday that there’s no evidence that non-aquatic species have been affected by the spill.

Crews have excavated and removed nearly 500 cubic yards of “vinyl chloride-impacted material” including soil, according to Kurt Kollar, the on-scene coordinator for the Ohio EPA’s Office of Emergency Response. The EPA is also blocking off ditches around the contaminated dirt so that it doesn’t contaminate more water.

As for drinking water, Kavalec said water treatment facilities should be able to remove the remaining low levels of volatile organic compounds in the water, and that the water will eventually be safe to drink.

When exposed to sunlight, air and water, PFAS do not break down naturally. The chemicals have also been linked to higher levels of some cancers.

The two-year Israeli train wreck victim Velez had lost his home and was unable to attend an open house with the Norfolk Southern Railroad Company

An overpowering stench of chlorine filled the air this week, quickly burning a man’s throat and eyes, after he and his wife had been raising two children.

Norfolk Southern said it was not going to Wednesday’s open house gathering due to a growing physical threat to its employees and members of the community.

“We have become increasingly concerned about the growing physical threat to our employees and members of the community around this event stemming from the increasing likelihood of the participation of outside parties,” the company said in a release.

Company officials had planned to speak to the community Wednesday night about the steps they are taking to clean up the accident site and the latest results from air and water testing.

The community meeting was supposed to take place on Wednesday evening, but residents were invited to speak with the attorneys prior to the meeting.

Many people in East Palestine still feel uneasy two years after the train wreck. Some, like Velez, are spending small fortunes to try to keep their families safely away from the place they used to call home.

Velez wrote that his wife is a nurse and is not taking any chances exposing their family to anything that is in our town. “The risk and anxiety of trying to live in our own home again is not worth it.”

The Ratners, Peltier, and EPA: Implications for the Long-Term Future of East Palestine Trains and Stations

The state’s Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that the latest tests show water from five wells supplying the village’s drinking water are free from contaminants. But the EPA also is recommending testing for private water wells because they are closer to the surface.

The initial response phase involves some soil being moved around. The company is cleaning the site and taking the soil out of it.

Kurt Kohler of the Ohio EPA office of emergency response said on February 8 that the long-term Cleanup of these kinds of spills could take years, and that Ohio EPA would remain involved after the emergency response is over. The federal EPA, too, will “continue to do everything in our power to help protect the community,” Administrator Michael Regan said Tuesday.

In a document sent to the EPA and recently made public by the agency, a company contracted by Norfolk Southern for cleanup efforts did not list soil removal among completed activities.

Richard Peltier, an environmental health scientist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, said in an email to CNN that contaminated soil will continue to degrade, both up into the air and into the surrounding ground. New pollutants will enter the environment every time it rains.

CNN asked Norfolk Southern if it had filled in the soil and chemicals to reopen the rail line after it removed contaminated soil at the site.

The environmental officials are only beginning to assess the long-term risks, so Ben Ratner and his family worry about those risks.

But the Ratners – who played extras in a Netflix disaster film with eerie similarities to the derailment crisis – still are feeling “an ever-changing mix of emotions and feelings just right from the outset, just the amount of unknown that was there,” said Ben, who owns a cafe a few towns over and isn’t sure he still wants to open another in East Palestine.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/15/us/ohio-train-derailment-east-palestine-residents/index.html

Velez says he hasn’t complained to his family during the last week of work, but has begun to feel the pressure to move forward in his life

“It’s hard to make an investment in something like that or even feel good about paying our mortgage whenever there might not be any value to those things in the future,” he said. That is something difficult to come to grips with.

Norfolk Southern announced Tuesday that it is creating a $1 million fund to help the community of some 4,700 people while continuing remediation work, including removing spilled contaminants from the ground and streams and monitoring air quality.

But when Velez returned Monday for a short visit to the neighborhood where his family has lived since 2014 to check his home and his business, he developed a nagging headache that, he said, stayed with him through the night – and left him with a nagging fear.

headaches, eye irritation, nose irritation, et cetera are all caused by volatile organic compounds and they can be very common at the lower levels. “I think that we have to look at the measured facts – and the measured facts include the fact that the air sampling in that area really is not pointing toward an air source for this.”

As to odor, residents “in the area and tens of miles away may smell odors coming from the site,” Ohio EPA spokesperson James Lee told CNN on Wednesday. There is a low odor threshold with the substances involved. This means people may smell these contaminants at levels much lower than what is considered hazardous.”

The Ratner family is limiting its water use because of unknown affects, Ben Ratner said. Velez worried that giving his daughter a bath or turning on the water could be hazardous.

CarRentals vs. East Palestine: A Realist’s View of the Patient’s Unexpected Explanation for the West Side of the Pennsylvania State Line

He and his family have been staying at hotels for 30 minutes and trying to find a home again while CarRentals is out of business, but they don’t have enough money to purchase a home of their own.

He wrote that many of the residents were in the same situation and that there was no answer. “There is no viable solution other than to leave and pay a mortgage on a potentially worthless home.”

State officials told hundreds of worried people earlier in the day that the local air and water testing has shown that it’s safe to breathe and that they would continue with the testing.

But residents had many questions over health hazards and they demanded more transparency from the railroad operator, Norfolk Southern, which did not attend the gathering, citing safety concerns for its staff.

Wednesday’s meeting came amid continuing concerns about the huge plumes of smoke, persisting odors, questions over potential threats to pets and wild animals, any potential impact on drinking water and what was happening with cleanup.

Why aren’t they talking about it? Kathy talked about the railroad. “They’re not out here supporting, they’re not out here answering questions. For three days, we didn’t know what was on the train.

In and around East Palestine, near the Pennsylvania state line, residents wanted to know whether the railroad would be held responsible for what happened to families who evacuated.

According to a letter from Yost to the company, the pollution caused environmental damage and created a nuisance around East Palestine.

Alan Shaw, Norfolk Southern President and CEO, said that they will be judged by their actions. We are cleaning up the site, reimbursing residents affected by the accident and working with members of the community to identify what is needed to assist East Palestine recover and thrive.