By Brad Brooks and Lisa Baertlein
Published February 15, 2023
Feb 14 (Reuters) - Cleanup is moving quickly after a train carrying toxic materials derailed in Ohio 11 days ago, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said on Tuesday, while residents and observers questioned the health impacts of pollution that spilled into the Ohio River.
The Norfolk Southern Railroad-operated train derailed on Feb. 3, causing a fire that sent a cloud of smoke over the town of East Palestine, Ohio, and forcing thousands of residents to evacuate. After railroad crews drained and burned off a toxic chemical from five tanker cars, DeWine on Feb. 8 said that residents could return to their homes.
While DeWine said the pollution did not pose a serious threat to five million people who rely on the river for drinking water, he and several Ohio health and environmental officials cautioned at an afternoon press conference that residents using private wells near the derailment should only use bottled water.
Reporters pressed DeWine and other officials about some residents' complaints of headaches and concern that the government or the railroad were not telling them the entire truth about the pollution and potential harm.
One of the chemicals on the train was vinyl chloride, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says is highly flammable and carcinogenic, especially through inhalation. When burned, it decomposes into other toxic compounds including hydrogen chloride.
Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, director of the Ohio Department of Health, said the compounds spilled can cause headaches, eye and nose irritation even at levels considered safe, but that the "measured facts" show air sampling is not reporting any dangers.
The plume of pollution in the Ohio River is moving at one mile per hour (1.61 km per hour) toward the Mississippi River, nearing Huntington, West Virginia, on Tuesday afternoon, said Tiffany Kavalec, chief of the surface water division of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
Cities in the plume's path can turn off their drinking water intakes as it floats by, Kavalec said. Drinking water tests have not raised concerns and normal water treatment would remove any small amounts of contaminants that may exist, Kavalec said.
Officials said the volume of the river diluted the plume and the plume did not pose a serious threat.
UNION WARNINGS
Railroad union officials said they have been warning that such an accident could happen because railroad cost-cutting harmed safety measures.
Asked about the union accusations, a spokesperson for Norfolk Southern Railroad said in an email that "our record (and that of most US Class I railroads) is trending safer."
The train of three locomotives and 150 freight cars was headed from Illinois to Pennsylvania when it derailed. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said 20 of the cars were carrying hazardous materials, including 10 that derailed.
Read more: Reuters.com
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