{"id":6828,"date":"2023-03-04T05:44:49","date_gmt":"2023-03-04T11:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=6828"},"modified":"2023-03-04T05:44:51","modified_gmt":"2023-03-04T11:44:51","slug":"angry-ohio-residents-confront-railroad-over-health-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=6828","title":{"rendered":"Angry Ohio residents confront railroad over health fears<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Residents who say they\u2019re still suffering from illnesses nearly a month after a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in Ohio confronted the railroad\u2019s operator Thursday at a town forum, demanding to know whether they\u2019d be relocated from homes they\u2019re afraid to live in.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s not safe here,\u201d said one man, staring straight at representatives of Norfolk Southern. \u201cI\u2019m begging you, by the grace of God, please get our people out of here.\u201d
\nWhile the railroad announced it was ready to begin moving more contaminated soil from underneath the tracks, buying homes and moving people out of East Palestine hasn\u2019t been discussed, said Darrell Wilson, the railroad\u2019s assistant vice president of government relations.
\n\u201cWhy?\u201d someone shouted.
\nFew seemed to come away satisfied with answers they heard about air and water testing from state and federal officials \u2014 even after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it was ordering Norfolk Southern to begin testing for dioxins, toxic chemical compounds that can stay in the environment for long periods of time.<\/p>\n

Many people remain scared about whether the area will be safe for their children years from now, saying they fear that dioxins not yet detected will cause long-term damage. Testing so far by the EPA for \u201cindicator chemicals\u201d has suggested there\u2019s a low chance that dioxins were released from the derailment, the agency said.
\nSome residents booed, laughed and yelled, \u201cDon\u2019t lie to us,\u201d when Debra Shore, a regional administrator with the EPA, reiterated that tests have continually shown that the village\u2019s air is safe.
\nInvestigators looking into the fire that erupted after the derailment said it melted a key part of the tank cars filled with toxic chemicals, leading federal officials to warn railcar owners earlier Thursday to check their fleets for similar flaws.
\nThe National Transportation Safety Board said investigators determined the aluminum covers over the pressure relief valves on three of the five tank cars carrying vinyl chloride melted and that some of the metal was found around the valves.
\nThe NTSB said melted aluminum may have degraded the performance of the valves and kept them from releasing some of the flammable gas to relieve pressure inside the tank cars. Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw has said the failure of the valves was part of why officials decided to breach the cars and burn off the vinyl chloride. The resulting toxic fire prompted the evacuation of half of East Palestine, Ohio, and the surrounding area near the Pennsylvania border.
\nShaw said the railroad agreed with all the officials responding to the Feb. 3 derailment that venting the hazardous materials cars was the best way to prevent a disastrous explosion.
\n\u201cThe factors on the ground at that time were that the safety valves on the rail cars had failed and the temperatures inside the railcars were heating up,\u201d Shaw said. \u201cSo, our independent expert was extremely concerned about a catastrophic uncontrolled explosion that would shoot shrapnel and hazardous gas throughout this populated community.\u201d
\nWilson told residents that Norfolk Southern feels horrible about what happened. So far, more than 2 million gallons (7.6 million liters) of water and liquid waste have been removed along with 1400 ton (1,270 metric tonnes) of solid waste.
\nMany people have complained that Norfolk Southern opened the tracks less than a week after the derailment and didn\u2019t remove the soil underneath. The railroad now plans to dig up the areas and should be able to remove all the contaminated soil by the end of April if it\u2019s able to start right away, Wilson said.
\nThat only brought more jeers and angry shouts.
\n\u201cYou should have done it right the first time,\u201d someone yelled.
\nThe Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration sent an urgent safety warning out to tank car owners Thursday saying they should check how many of their cars have aluminum covers over the valves like the ones that melted after the Ohio derailment. The agency said car owners should consider switching to steel covers, which is now the industry standard on new tank cars.
\nIt\u2019s not clear how many tank cars in use might have aluminum valve covers. The cars with them involved in the derailment were all manufactured in the 1990s.
\nThe derailment prompted many lingering concerns for the roughly 5,000 residents of East Palestine, even though state and federal officials say their tests haven\u2019t found any harmful levels of toxic chemicals in the air or water around the derailment.
\nThe NTSB has said that an overheating bearing likely caused the train to derail, sending 38 cars, including 11 containing hazardous materials, off the tracks. A trackside sensor detected the overheating bearing just before the derailment, but the crew didn\u2019t have enough time to stop the train.
\nOhio Gov. Mike DeWine has said he is focused making sure Norfolk Southern cleans up the mess while helping the town recover, and Shaw agreed to testify in Congress next week at a hearing about the derailment.
\nAlready, members of Congress and the Biden administration have proposed many rail safety reforms, but Norfolk Southern and the other major freight railroads want to wait until after the NTSB completes its investigation a year or more from now to make any significant changes.
\nThe major freight railroads said earlier Thursday they would take one of the steps Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg recommended and join a government program that runs a confidential hotline for employees to report safety concerns.<\/p>\n

Apnews<\/p>\n

Tags:Toxic chemicals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Residents who say they\u2019re still suffering from illnesses nearly a month after a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in Ohio confronted the railroad\u2019s operator Thursday at a town forum, demanding to know whether they\u2019d be relocated from homes they\u2019re afraid to live in. \u201cIt\u2019s not safe here,\u201d said one man, staring straight at representatives of Norfolk Southern. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[1830,1180,1974],"class_list":["post-6828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-ohio","tag-residents","tag-they"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6830,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6828\/revisions\/6830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}