There was a train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio

The Norwich Southern Railroad Derailed as a High Hazard Material Train: Air and Water Monitoring in East Palestine Since the February 8, 2005, Fire Chief Keith Drabick

The Norfolk Southern train that derailed was not categorized as a high hazardous material train, meaning the railroad didn’t have to inform state officials about the chemicals in the rail cars.

Feb. 8 — The evacuation order is lifted, five days after the derailment, after water samples are analyzed overnight. The results lead officials to deem the water is safe, East Palestine Fire Chief Keith Drabick says at a news conference.

The evacuation order was lifted on Feb. 8. Some residents have complained of headaches and nausea and many have voiced concerns about the air and water supply, since then.

Some business owners and residents in East Palestine filed lawsuits against Norfolk Southern, saying it was negligent and demanding that the company give court-supervised medical screenings for serious illnesses caused by exposure to those chemicals.

Air monitoring throughout East Palestine continues, the EPA says. Since the fire went out, there has not been any concern attributed to it.

The Ratner home, for instance, was tested and cleared for VOCs, he said. In a Monday news update, the EPA stated that no chemical detections have been identified so far and that more homes are to be screened.

Breathing or drinking vinyl chloride can cause headaches and dizziness. People who breathe the chemical over many years may also experience liver damage.

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. When it is spilled in soil or surface water, the chemical evaporates into the air quickly, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

The EPA has been monitoring for several other hazardous chemicals, including phosgene and hydrogen chloride, which are released by burning vinyl chloride. Exposure to phosgene can cause eye irritation, as well as dry burning throat, vomiting, and irritate skin, nose, and throat, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At-home air screening: How dangerous is it to move hazardous materials on a freight train, or by truck or plane? The American Railroad Association argues against the railroad’s obligation to notify

Karen Dannemiller, professor at The Ohio State University who studies indoor air quality, said the people are going to be concerned about the long-term exposure that comes at lower levels.

She urged East Palestine residents to take part in the EPA’s at- home air screening, which she said can be an important point of exposure.

Dannemiller recommends residents to clean surfaces that collect dust, and wash items that stink, including bed sheets and curtains. She recommends vacuuming in short spurts to make sure there is no pollutants in the air.

America’s railroads move a lot of chemicals. The Association of American Railroads states that 2.2 million carloads of chemicals were moved by freight trains.

A train that was carrying stuff but not required to inform state or local officials if it came into a state is fundamentally wrong. It’s absurd that the train didn’t meet the current law requirement that the railroad company notify.

“It’s the mode of transportation that’s capable of moving bulk quantities,” Federal Rail Administration spokesperson Warren Flatau told CNN. The alternative to moving commodities by truck is not liked by the public.

Even though federal and industry statistics show that rail is a safer way to carry hazardous materials than truck or plane, spills and leaks still happen.

“The real issue is the risk of derailment and explosion,” Kimberly Garrett, a researcher and PFAS expert at Northeastern University. “If natural gas were to have a derailment like the vinyl chloride, it would be devastating.”

Environmental and Chemical Experts in the Ohio River Watershed after a Chemical-Spilling Explosion at Lemaitre Avenue on March 17, 2016

“Air monitoring and sampling will continue until removal of heavily contaminated soil in the derailment area is complete and odors subside in the community,” the EPA said Sunday.

The EPA said Tuesday there were chemicals spilled into the local waterways, but that the majority of it was contained. The initial release of chemicals from the waterway made it to the Ohio River, but they are still in very low concentrations and the water facilities are trying to keep them from being passed onto water customers.

Andrew Whelton, an expert on disasters, environmental chemistry, and water quality, said at the news conference that there are other chemicals that were released in the spill that didn’t diffuse as easily as volatile organic compounds.

“Because of their size, they don’t go in the air as easily,” Whelton said. “They like to stick to soils and other materials. How polluted is the creek and what will be done to clean it up?

About 3,500 fish with 12 species died when the water was contaminated from the chemical spill.

The volatile organic compounds released by the controlled explosion can cause symptoms including headache, sore throat, and nose and eye irritation – which some East Palestine residents have complained of. However, Ohio’s state health director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff said air quality doesn’t appear to be behind the reported animal deaths near the derailment.

The East Palestine Railroad Derailment: Response to an East Palestine Anecdote Concerning the Environmental and Health Care Effects

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

East Palestine residents who have private wells but have not had their water tested for nitrates should drinking bottled water out of an abundance of caution.

Feb. 14 — No vinyl chloride is detected in any of the down-gradient waterways near the train derailment, Tiffany Kavalec, Chief of the Division of Surface Water at the Ohio EPA says. The agency is sure that the contaminants are not in the waterways, even though some are still contaminated.

Water treatment facilities can remove volatile organic compounds from the water and it will be safe to drink, according to Kavalec.

PFAS don’t break down naturally, and they can be exposed to sunlight, air and water. The chemicals have also been linked to higher levels of some cancers.

A strong stench of chlorine filled the air this week, as Nathen Velez and his wife had been raising their two children.

The event hosted by East Palestine was supposed to contain officials from Norfolk Southern. But the company, which said it had hoped to provide updates on cleanup efforts and results from air and water tests, backed out earlier in the day, saying it was concerned about a “growing physical threat to our employees and members of the community around this event,” stemming from its belief that “outside parties” would participate.

The company stated in the release that they have become more concerned about the physical threat to the employees and community due to the increasing likelihood of the participation of outside parties.

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 expected to happen Wednesday evening, with residents invited to meet with the attorneys before the meeting to discuss the consequences of the train wreck.

“Is it OK to still be here? Are my kids safe? Is the people safe? Is the future of this community safe?” East Palestine resident Lenny Glavan told reporters at the meeting. “We all know the severity of that question, and what’s at stake. Some people think that they are playing downplaying; others don’t.

“My wife is a nurse and is not taking any chances exposing us and our two young children to whatever is now in our town,” Velez wrote on Facebook. “The risk and anxiety of trying to live in our own home again is not worth it.”

The Clean Water Problem in East Palestine: State and Local Officials Are Concerned by Recent Public Public Information on Public Wells and Private Wells

State officials have repeatedly said water from the municipal system – which is pulled from five deep wells covered by solid steel casing – is safe to drink. The EPA encouraged the residents who use private wells to have the water tested, the office of the governor said.

Nevertheless, worrying signs continue to emerge, including a newly public document that says potentially contaminated soil has not yet been removed from the site – a critical step experts say should be completed quickly so that toxic materials are not further dispersed into the environment and groundwater.

Kurt Kohler of the Ohio EPA Office of Emergency Response said on February 8, that after the emergency response, the Ohio EPA will stay involved in monitoring and cleaning up any future spills. The federal EPA, too, will “continue to do everything in our power to help protect the community,” Administrator Michael Regan said Tuesday.

A document sent to the EPA by Norfolk Southern did not list soil removal among the activities that were completed.

“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. “Every time it rains, a flood of new contaminants will enter the ecosystem.”

CNN asked Norfolk Southern why it did not remove contaminated soil prior to reopening the site, and whether it had filled in those areas as part of the project to reopen the rail line.

He told CNN that he and his family worry about the longer-term risks that are only currently being assessed by environmental officials.

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.

Norfolk Southern is donating money to East Palestine, but does not want to lend money to a future mortgage or to invest in a house?

It is hard to invest in things like that or feel good about paying your mortgage when there is no value for them in the future. It is difficult to come to grips with.

Norfolk Southern promised to support East Palestine in the future by establishing a $1 million charitable fund.

Norfolk Southern’s President and CEO said in a statement they would be judged by their 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.”

Velez and his family are temporarily staying in rentals away from the town. He previously told CNN that when he visited the town Monday, a chemical odor left his eyes and throat burning, and gave him a nagging headache.

State officials and the federal government have repeatedly said air monitoring hasn’t detected any remaining concerns, despite the spread of misinformation on the internet. Even low levels of contaminants that aren’t considered hazardous can create lingering odors or symptoms such as headaches, Ohio’s health director said Tuesday.

Feb. 7 — Residents in the area are told they may smell odors coming from the site because the byproducts of the controlled burn have a low odor threshold – meaning people may smell these contaminants at levels much lower than what is considered hazardous, the EPA says.

The Ratner Family, the Clean Up, the Water, and the Safety of a Villager’s Room during a Train Wreck

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

The “tracking allows for potential closing of drinking water intakes to allow the majority of the chemicals to pass. This strategy, along with drinking water treatment … are both effective at addressing these contaminants and helps ensure the safety of the drinking water supplies,” Kavalec said, adding they’re pretty confident “low levels” of contaminants that remain are not getting to customers.

He said his family has been renting out in the meantime but their finances are running out, so they asked a friend to set up a crowd-sourced fund to help them.

Many of us residents are stuck in the same situation and there is no answer to this, according to him. The only viable solution is to leave and pay a mortgage on a home that is potentially worthless.

People in the Ohio village of East Palestine went to the gym on Wednesday to learn more about the safety of the chemicals that were burned or spilled during the train wreck.

Hundreds of worried people gathered to hear state officials tell them — as they did earlier in the day — that testing so far has shown local air is safe to breathe and to promise that safety testing of the air and water would continue.

Norfolk Southern didn’t attend the gathering because of safety concerns but residents demanded more transparency from the railroad operator because of their many health questions.

Concerns about the huge plumes of smoke, persistence of odors, threats to pets and wild animals, any impact on drinking water and what was happening with the clean up came up at Wednesday’s meeting.

Why are they being hush-hush? “What are they doing?”: Investigative testimony to the Norfolk Southern Railroad in East Palestine

“Why are they being hush-hush?” Kathy Dyke said of the railroad. They’re not answering questions, they’re not out here. We had no idea what was on the train for three days.

The residents of East Palestine wanted to know if the railroad would be held responsible for what happened to the families who were evacuated from the area.

“The pollution, which continues to contaminate the area around East Palestine, created a nuisance, damage to natural resources and caused environmental harm,” Yost said in a letter to the company.

CNN reports investigators are reviewing multiple videos of the train prior to it derailing. 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 says in a statement.

The head of the US Environmental Protection Agency traveled to East Palestine, Ohio, on Thursday and said the agency plans to hold the train company Norfolk Southern accountable for its role in the derailment of a train carrying hazardous chemicals earlier this month.

Speaking to CNN’s Jason Carroll Thursday morning, EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said the agency has full authority to use its enforcement capabilities over the crisis.

A notice of accountability has been issued to the company, and they have signed it, which indicates that they will be responsible for the clean up. “But as this investigation continues, and as new facts arise, let me just say, and be very clear, I will use the full enforcement authority of this agency, and so will the federal government, to be sure that this company is held accountable.”

The East Palestine Train Accident During February 6, 2009: An Aggressing Township Official Explains Community Concerns about Safety, Food Safety, and Disease Control

Hundreds of East Palestine residents attended a town hall to vent their anger. The train operator was scheduled to attend, but later withdrew due to safety concerns.

Regan visited the town Thursday and saw some of the work being done to clean up the train wreck. He said that the state has primary responsibility for the scene but that the EPA was willing to provide needed resources.

Meanwhile, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Thursday he has requested the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention immediately send medical experts to East Palestine to evaluate and counsel community members with questions or health symptoms.

According to DeWine, emergency response teams will work hard during the storm to prevent the contaminants from washing into local waterways.

The risk of livestock remains low because of the Ohio Department of Agriculture’s assurances that its food supply is safe, according to DeWine.

Further spurring residents’ questions about safety were crews’ decision to conduct controlled detonations February 6 of some of the tanks that were carrying toxic chemicals, including vinyl chloride that has the potential to kill at high levels and increase cancer risk.

“I need help,” Conaway told reporters Wednesday night. “I have the village on my back, and I’ll do whatever it takes … to make this right. I am not leaving and I am not going anywhere.

Jami Cozza: Is the train derailing a symptom of the city of Palestine? A response to the public’s frustration about the railroad company

I want the community to know that we have your back, and we will get to the bottom of this, said Regan. “We are testing for all volatile organic chemicals, we’re testing for everything. We are testing for everything that occurred on that train. The picture that we are presenting is wide enough to protect the community.

A man who lives close to the scene of the train derailing told CNN that the company’s absence was “a slap in the face.”

“Most people did not want to go home, but they had to. So, all the people who had to go home were complaining of smells, pains in their throat, headaches, sickness,” he said. The smell makes you sick, so I have gone back a few times. It hurts your head.”

“I was extremely disappointed that they didn’t show up at the town hall meeting last night. The public deserves transparency,” he said. The public should have the most up to date information. It is our job as a government to hold this company accountable.

Jami Cozza’s family has lived in East Palestine for generations near the contaminated creek, but right now she is staying at a hotel paid for by the railroad due to toxicity from the derailment.

According to Cozza, the railroad company told her it was safe to go back to her house after air testing. She demanded that the railroad company run tests on her soil and water, and that a toxicologist consider her house unsafe.

“Had I not used my voice, had I not thrown a fit, I would be sitting in that house right now, when they told me that it was safe,” Cozza said Thursday.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/us/ohio-train-derailment-east-palestine-thursday/index.html

East Palestine Residents Aren’t Ready to Let Them Know About the Norfolk Southern Trap Derailment, but They Will Seek a Health Clinic

“My concern is how many of those kids are laying in their bed in East Palestine right now that are not safe,” she said. I don’t trust them.

Ms. Guglielmo was one of several people in the area who were looking for ways to conduct their own independent tests, reflecting the distrust residents have in the government and Norfolk Southern.

Ms Guglielmo, who is not from East Palestine, has continued to report a smell of chemicals in some areas of the town and has not received any relief from the assurances they have received.

The town and its surrounding villages will be forgotten in the months to come, and with the threat of long-term exposure to the chemical cocktail released into the air and water, a lot of residents feel like they are on their own to prove that it is safe. Two weeks ago, some have become novice chemists, rattling off the names and effects of chemical compounds that had no meaning to them.

Ohio state officials have opened a health clinic for people in East Palestine who believe they may have health issues related to the train wreck, Gov. Mike DeWine said.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan is going back to the town Tuesday to meet with local and state officials, an EPA official with knowledge of the visit told CNN.

As skepticism and anxiety spread in the small town of 5,000, residents fear a possible link to the February 3 Norfolk Southern train wreck and the subsequent release of a toxic chemical.

A team from the US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention and the US Department of Health is expected to land in the community this week to assist with the assessment of what dangers remain.

As crews continue cleanup efforts and officials promise accountability, East Palestine residents are still dealing with fears surrounding potential impacts from the toxic wreck.

Dr. Erin Haynes, an environmental health scientist with the University of Kentucky, told CNN last week that it will be important to monitor people’s health and the environment around the train derailment for some time to come since health impacts may not emerge until later.

“We should never say we’re done looking at this community for potential exposures and health impacts. Some may not occur until later,” said Haynes, adding that anyone experiencing health symptoms should take them seriously and call the poison control center.

The Norfolk Southern Railroad Derailment and Its Connections with the Ohio River, Sulphur Run, and Maysville Utilities

The EPA said that Norfolk Southern had put up booms and dams to limit the flow of water from the two places where fish were found dead.

The intakes from the Ohio River that were shut off on Sunday as a precautionary measure were reopened after no detection of the specific chemicals from the train wreck, according to the Greater Cincinnati Water Works.

Julian said water measurements have been below the level of concern and that Maysville Utilities took precautionary measures in temporarily shutting down their Ohio River intake valve due to the public concern.

Norfolk Southern continues scrapping and removing rail cars at the derailment location, excavating contaminated areas, removing liquids from affected storm drains and staging recovered waste for transportation to an approved disposal facility, the EPA says. Water continues to be diverted from the upstream wetland area to Sulphur Run.

“There’s been a concern by citizens, very understandably, that the railroad started, got the tracks back on and started running and the soil under the tracks had not been dealt with,” DeWine said. “So, under the administrator’s order, that soil will be removed. So the tracks will have to be taken up and that soil will have to be removed.”

As skepticism spreads about the safety of the air and water, some local business say they’ve seen fewer customers, despite calls to return to normal life.

A stylist at a hair salon also told the station there’s no doubt the salon lost business and that customers may be worried about what may be in the water washing their hair.

“I know a lot of our businesses are already suffering greatly because people don’t want to come here,” local greenhouse owner Dianna Elzer told CNN affiliate WPXI.

The East Palestine freight disaster: Why the Norfolk Southern railroad is responsible for its actions and the public’s concern about its safety and the potential liability from EPA

A number of officials, including US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, have demanded accountability and called for greater safety regulations after the toxic derailment.

“Together with local health officials, we have implemented a comprehensive testing program to ensure the safety of East Palestine’s water, air, and soil,” Shaw said.

Crews are still working to respond to the freight disaster in East Palestine as community members worry about possible adverse health effects from the toxic materials released when dozens of cars derailed after a likely mechanical failure.

Norfolk Southern receives a general notice of potential liability from EPA to document releases of hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants to the environment. The potential to hold the railroad accountable for associated costs and the EPA’s actions at the site are outlined in the letter.

He plans to hold the company accountable for their actions, and said Norfolk Southern injected unneeded risk into the crisis.

Over $6 million has been committed in East Palestine by the company, including $3.8 million in direct financial assistance to families impacted by the accident.

In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday Alan Shaw said the company invests $1 billion a year in “science-based” safety solutions.

Shaw said that it was pretty clear that the safety culture and investment in safety didn’t prevent the accident. “We need to take a look at this and see what we can do differently and what we can do better.”

The Pennsylvania Environmental Protection Agency is suing Norfolk Southern for its role in the environmental cleanup of the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment after the April 14, 2001, Pennsylvania, plane crash

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro praised the EPA for taking charge of the cleanup from the crash, which took place less than a mile from the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.

“It is my view that Norfolk Southern wasn’t going to do this out of the goodness of their own heart. “There isn’t a lot of goodness in there,” he said. They were compelled to act.

Shaw declined to comment in the CNBC interview on potential causes, citing the investigation. He also said Norfolk Southern is fully cooperating with the NTSB and the Federal Railroad Administration to determine the cause.

“This is really in response to the fears that we have heard, that people want to be able to go somewhere and get some answers about any kind of medical issues that they think they are experiencing,” he said.

The nation’s top environmental official promised to support East Palestine, Ohio, throughout the cleanup of a toxic train derailment there that fueled anxiety about potential health effects and said the train’s operator must pay to clean “the mess that they created.”

President Joe Biden called the EPA order “common sense” Tuesday. This is their mess. They should clean it up,” the president said of Norfolk Southern in an Instagram post.

In the continued turmoil, Pennsylvania’s governor claimed that state environmental officials made a “criminal referral” against Norfolk Southern. The attorney general in Ohio is also looking into actions that the law allows him to take, DeWine said.

EPA Health Concerns After the February 3 Derailment in East Palestine, Ohio: a Call for Improved Air and Water Quality Measurements

Some residents in the community have had health problems, like headaches and a rash, as a result of the death of thousands of fish in Ohio after the train derailed.

Air and water quality testing has so far found no dangers to residents of the small village near the Pennsylvania border after the February 3 derailment, and Regan said he has “absolute confidence” in the agency’s data.

Toasting with glasses of tap water from the home of an East Palestine, Ohio, resident, Regan and DeWine sought to quell bubbling concerns about the safety of the water.

In the days after the train wreck, the train operator gave inaccurate information and refused to discuss alternative options, according to the governor of Pennsylvania.

Shaw said that his company has been in close contact with the EPA since the train wreck in East Palestine.

Shaw said that his company has been monitoring air and water quality for years and has conducted hundreds of tests with thousands of data points which have come back clean.

The law did not require Norfolk Southern to alert officials of a hazardous train coming into the state, according to DeWine.

President Biden accused the Trump administration of limiting the government’s ability to strengthen rail safety measures and called on Congress to help implement them.

“This is more than a train derailment or a toxic waste spill – it’s years of opposition to safety measures coming home to roost,” Biden wrote in an Instagram post.

The state opened a health clinic to address the reports of symptoms in East Palestine.

What Have We Learned About EPA’s Comets?” a Numerical Observation of a Crash and Burn

The EPA administrator, when asked about the reported symptoms, stated that he is not discounting what people are experiencing and asked people to seek medical attention.

I agree with people who say that they are facing adverse impacts. And what we’re doing is we’re asking them to seek medical attention … then we can take that information and add that as part of our response,” Regan said. We aren’t discounting what people are going through. We want them to seek medical help while we conduct our investigations.

“We need our town cleaned up, we need our residents to feel safe in their homes,” Conaway said at Tuesday news conference. “That’s the number one thing. If you don’t feel safe at your home, then you’re never going to feel safe anywhere.

Who is he? A clinical professor of internal medicine at Northeast Ohio Medical University, Nicholas Proia is a pulmonologist in the area.

What are people talking about? Proia said that he hadn’t experienced it but that the doctors were prepared for an increase in patients after the crash and burn.

We haven’t seen much in the way of respiratory illness. A few patients will say that they’ve heard of a rash or a foul smell, and that it’s mostly through the media. There have been no clues as to why this was connected to overt breaths or respiratory failure.

The EPA and Norfolk Southern water treatment plant in East Palestine: a warning on the potential dissipation of water into a well water

A group of people do not have municipal water supply, but use wells to get their water. And I think their biggest concern is: over time, are the chemicals that were dissipated throughout all this getting into the waterways? Is it possible that they will never make it into the well water?

It’s a caveat to remember that you are only going to find what you want. And who knows what else is out there, especially after a large fire with a bunch of different, pretty interesting chemicals.

Officials issue a shelter-in-place order for the entire town of roughly 5,000 people. An evacuation order is issued for the area within a mile radius of the train crash near James Street, due to the risk of an explosion.

They say the EPA’s community air monitoring reads do not detect any pollutants. The agency says Norfolk Southern’s contractor continues to monitor the air.

The confluence with Leslie Run is one of the three locations where aeration pumps operate. Aeration helps treat contamination by injecting oxygen into the water. The East Palestine water treatment plant confirms there was no adverse effects to the plant, the EPA says. The EPA and Norfolk Southern collect water samples.

Public Air Monitoring in East Palestine following a Fire Station Flare: Measurements, Responses and Interactions in a South Palestinian High School Gym

According to the EPA, the 52nd Civil Service team collects air samples from three public administration buildings.

The EPA is investigating a complaint of odors from the fire station. There is an air monitoring team at the station that does not observe any contaminants beyond detection limits.

The EPA found spilled materials in Sulphur Run. Oily product is leaking from a tank car and pooling onto the soil. Norfolk Southern is notified of the spill and begins removing the product using a vacuum truck.

EPA discontinues phosgene and hydrogen chloride community air monitoring. After the fire was extinguished on February 8, the threat of vinyl chloride fire producing phosgene and hydrogen chloride no longer exists. EPA will continue 24-hour community air monitoring for other chemicals of concern.

Feb. 15 — Residents pack a high school gym in East Palestine for a meeting with officials to discuss the current state of their community, CNN reports.

Instead, local leaders take questions from emotional residents who expressed distrust of officials’ accounts and anger – including at the transport company’s decision to skip the event.

Regional Administrator Debra Shore attends a community meeting alongside EPA on-scene coordinators and state and local officials to hear residents’ concerns.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/23/us/east-palestine-ohio-train-derailment-timeline/index.html

The South Side of Sulfur Run is Severely Contaminated: A Train Wreck at East Palestine, Ohio, and Pennsylvania

There is a section of Sulfur Run that remains severely contaminated, despite Gov. Mike DeWine’s claim that no contaminant has been found in homes tested for air quality.

Feb. 19 — The village of East Palestine’s municipal well water sample results show no water quality concerns, the EPA says. The Columbiana County General Health District continues to sample private water wells. To date, 52 wells have been sampled, 49 in Ohio, and three across the border in Pennsylvania, the agency says.

A health clinic has been opened by the state for people who are concerned that their symptoms might be related to the train wreck.

There will be an additional layer of reassurance conducted by EPA staff and contractors once the EPA offers cleaning services to residents and businesses.

The company said Tuesday they understand the responsibility and are committed to doing what’s right for the residents of East Palestine.

The Attorney General’s office in Pennsylvania received a criminal referral from the state environmental protection department and will investigate the train wreck, according to a statement.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/23/us/east-palestine-ohio-train-derailment-timeline/index.html

The Clean-up Law: It Provides the Right Treatment for the Boundaries of the EPA, the State, and the Homeland Security

Number two: They will pay for it. At any moment, if we have to step in because they refuse to do anything, we will do the cleaning up ourselves. The EPA chief said they were able to fine them up to $70,000 a day.

When we recover our costs, we can charge them three times the cost of the federal government. That is what the law provides.”