Stable evacuated residents can return to the Ohio village where a train derailed Friday night at the Pennsylvania state line after it descended into a flame
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Evacuated residents can safely return to the Ohio village where crews burned toxic chemicals after a train derailed five days ago near the Pennsylvania state line, East Palestine Fire Chief Keith Drabick said Wednesday.
After air and water samples were taken, officials deemed the area to be safe five days after the wreck.
James Justice said air monitoring has shown normal levels. Hundreds of data points from that “show that the air quality in the town is safe,” he said.
There were no injuries or the controlled release of chemicals on Monday but some people complained about smelling chlorine and smoke in the air and having headaches.
Many nearby residents left shortly after the derailment, and others were ordered out before the controlled release of the chemicals because of concerns about serious health risks from it.
The commander of the Ohio National Guard previously said that members wearing protective gear would take readings inside homes, basements and businesses as officials aimed to ensure the air was safe before lifting the evacuation order.
About 50 cars, including 10 carrying hazardous materials, derailed in a fiery crash Friday night on the edge of East Palestine. Federal investigators say a mechanical issue with a rail car axle caused the derailment.
Environmental Protection Agency Observations of Environmental Concerns for East Palestine Homes Exposed to Vinyl Chloride, Butyl Accretate, and Isobutylene
Some business owners and East Palestine residents have filed lawsuits against Norfolk Southern, saying the company was negligent and demanding the company fund court-supervised medical screenings for serious illnesses that may be caused by exposure to those chemicals.
The list was written by Norfolk Southern and was released by the EPA on Sunday. In addition to vinyl chloride and butyl acrylate, it mentions ethylhexyl acrylate, which can cause headaches, nausea, and respiratory problems in people exposed to it; as well as isobutylene, which can make people dizzy and drowsy.
Though an evacuation order was lifted last week, some residents refuse to return amid fears the water, air, soil and surfaces in the village of 5,000 are still not safe.
The Environmental Protection Agency, which has been monitoring the air quality, said it has not detected “any levels of concern” in East Palestine as of Sunday.
He said that the home was tested and cleared for the harmful pollutant, Volatile organic compounds. The EPA has so far identified no chemical detections in the air of almost 300 homes, but more homes will be screened soon.
A number of health risks can result from inhaling or drinking vinyl chloride. People who breathe the chemical over a long period of time can suffer damage to their bodies.
When vinyl chloride is exposed in the environment, it breaks down from sunlight within a few days and changes into other chemicals such as formaldehyde. The Ohio Department of Health says that the chemical can be quickly released when it is spilled into the air.
The EPA has been keeping an eye on phosgene and hydrogen chloride, which are released by burning vinyl chloride. 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.
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Karen Dannemiller, a professor at The Ohio State University, said that people are going to be concerned about long-term exposure that comes at lower levels now that we are entering a longer term phase of this.
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 recommends residents to wipe down surfaces, especially areas that collect dust, and wash items that absorb smells, such as bed sheets and curtains. She says to keep the vacuuming brief to prevent pollutants from moving into the air.
An overwhelming stench of chlorine filled the air this week where Nathen Velez and his wife had been raising their two children, quickly burning his throat and eyes.
And on Wednesday, Norfolk Southern officials announced they would no longer take part in a community meeting scheduled that evening about the situation, citing threats to employees.
“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 hoped to join local leaders Wednesday evening to update the community on the steps they are taking to “safely clean up the accident site and to provide the latest results from ongoing water and air testing,” the release reads.
A community meeting was planned to take place on Wednesday night, but residents were invited to meet with their attorneys before the meeting to discuss the damage caused by the train wreck.
An Ohio State Senator’s Assistant Attorney General Explains “Extreme Damage” to East Palestine Residents after a Train Wreck in Ohio
People in East Palestine are still scared of 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 on Facebook that his wife is a nurse and not taking any chances with him and their two young children. It is not worth it to try to live in our own home again.
The Ohio governor’s office said Wednesday that water coming from the municipal system was safe to drink after test results showed no contaminants.
A recent public document shows that the potentially contaminated soil at the site has not yet been removed, a sign that it should be completed quickly so that toxic materials are not further dispersed into the environment.
Cleanup and monitoring of the site could take years, Kurt Kohler of the Ohio EPA’s Office of Emergency Response said February 8, vowing that after the emergency response, “Ohio EPA is going to remain involved through our other divisions that oversee the long-term cleanup of these kinds of spill.” The federal EPA will do everything it can to 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.
“Contaminated soil will continue (to) leech contaminants, both up into the air, and down into the surrounding ground,” Richard Peltier, an environmental health scientist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, told CNN in an email. There is a flood of new contaminants every time it rains.
CNN asked Norfolk Southern if it had filled in areas of contaminated soil to reopen the rail line, and if it had removed contaminated soil before opening the site.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/15/us/ohio-train-derailment-east-palestine-residents/index.html
Ben Ratner and his family worry about the environmental consequences of a terrorist attack on Palestinian cities, as measured by the Ohio Department of Environmental Protection
East Palestine resident Ben Ratner and his family worry about the longer-term risks that environmental officials are only beginning to assess, he told CNN this week.
Ben, who owns a cafe a few towns, said that the Ratners still feel the same amount of unknown as when they were filming the disaster film.
“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 hard to comprehend.
Norfolk Southern said it was establishing a million dollar fund to help the community of East Palestine.
But when he returned Monday for a short visit to look at his home and business, he developed a nagging headaches that lingered throughout the night, and left him with a nagging fear.
Air quality is not believed to be the reason for headaches and sore throats among people or the deaths of animals in the vicinity of the train wreck, according to the Ohio Health Director.
“In terms of some of the symptoms of headache, et cetera, unfortunately volatile organic compounds share, with a host of other things, the ability to cause very common symptoms at the lower levels – so headache, eye irritation, nose irritation, et cetera,” he said. “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.”
Explanations are challenging because they are anecdotes. “Everything that we’ve gathered thus far is really pointing toward very low measurements, if at all.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/15/us/ohio-train-derailment-east-palestine-residents/index.html
The Ratners, Ohio, home is not worthless unless you leave and pay a mortgage on a home that is potentially worthless
James Lee, an Ohio EPA spokesman told CNN on Wednesday that odors from the site can be smelled by people in the area and far away. “This is because some of the substances involved have a low odor threshold. This means people may smell these contaminants at levels much lower than what is considered hazardous.”
The water use of the Ratner family is limited because of unknown affects. Every time we give our daughter a bath or turn on the water, Velez is concerned.
“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 tracking allows for the potential closing of drinking water intakes to let most of the chemicals pass. This strategy, along with drinking water treatment, is effective at addressing these pollutants and helps ensure the safety of the drinking water supplies. Kavalec said they are pretty confident that low levels of pollutants that remain are not getting to customers.
Since they evacuated, he and his family have been renting out their house on the internet, but he said their finances are running out and a friend has set up a gofundme to help them.
“Unfortunately, many of us residents are stuck in the same situation and the sad truth is that there is no answer,” he wrote. Leave and pay a mortgage on a home that is potentially worthless is the only viable solution.