Health and environment concerns follow after chaos in Ohio – 02/17/2023 – Environment

As authorities investigate the recent derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in eastern Ohio, concerns are mounting about the disaster’s consequences for human health and the environment. Experts have warned that understanding the causes and consequences may require a more comprehensive investigation than has been undertaken so far.

“There are a lot of unknowns,” said Donald Holmstrom, former director of the Western Regional Office of the US Chemical Safety and Hazards Research Council, the federal agency that investigates industrial chemical accidents.

The train derailment and chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio, seemed like a nightmare. After the train derailed on Feb. 3, starting a massive fire, authorities decided to burn the chemical cargo in some cars rather than risk an explosion or other runaway disaster.

Five of the cars were carrying vinyl chloride, a colorless gas used in the manufacture of plastic products, which when inhaled can cause short-term dizziness, headache and drowsiness and, after prolonged exposure, a rare form of liver cancer.

“The volume is just enormous,” said Gerald Poje, an environmental health expert and former member of the Chemical Safety Board. “It’s horrible to think about how much was released and how much was purposely burned.”

The National Transportation Safety Board said its investigation into the causes of the derailment was continuing. The Environmental Protection Agency said it was monitoring the air in and around the buildings and had not detected any harmful gases in homes so far. Authorities said last week that evacuated residents would be able to return home safely.

Holmstrom managed the Chemical Safety Board’s investigation into the 2010 explosion at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, which caused the worst offshore oil spill in American history. He said the Ohio derailment was significant enough to merit a presidential commission along the lines of the one created after the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

Holmstrom said a commission would help investigate many questions about the liability of government agencies and rail operator Norfolk Southern, as well as the effects on the community and the environment.

With chemical spills, threats to human health can persist long after the emergency is resolved, said Erik D. Olson, strategic director of health and food at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit organization dedicated to health. public and the environment.

“Some officials are telling people that when they come back, they should open their windows and clean all surfaces,” Olson said. “Well obviously that means they know there’s still some contamination in the area.”

Particles from a chemical cloud can settle into the soil and enter wells and other sources of drinking water. Contaminants in groundwater can vaporize and migrate through cracks in the ground into basements and homes. “Long-term effects often go unnoticed,” Olson said.

“We are taking this local emergency very seriously and will continue to do everything in our power to protect the community,” said Michael Regan, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, on Tuesday. “We are ready to contribute in whatever way we can.”

One problem with toxic chemical spills is that the dangers aren’t just posed by the individual substances involved, Poje said. Chemical compounds can interact with each other in complex ways and persist after burning.

“There could be hundreds of different decomposition products that remain that we have very poor toxicology profiles for,” Poje said. “A lot of times we’re in that unfamiliar location.”

So far, the derailment’s damage to wildlife has been more immediately apparent than the effects on humans, although broad questions remain there as well. The spill affected approximately 12 kilometers of waterways, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, and had killed about 3,500 fish as of Feb. 8, mostly small fish. Residents reported chickens and other animals dead or sick.

Ecologically, one concern is with the hellbenders, a species of prehistoric-looking aquatic salamander that can reach 60 centimeters in length and is threatened with extinction in Ohio. Battling drastic population declines, scientists, wildlife authorities and other partners collect hellbender eggs from the wild, which they breed in captivity and reintroduce into the wild at around three years of age, when they are believed to be most likely to survive.

One site, where about 250 salamanders have been released since 2014, is among areas where dead fish were found after the derailment, said Gregory Lipps, an Ohio State University herpetologist who is leading the effort.

“A lot of people have put so much time and energy into this,” Lipps said. “Our release site that was impacted is a state forest and a nature reserve. You look around and think, ‘Boy, this is a beautiful protected area,’ but you can’t control what goes down the river, can you?”

Lipps hopes that the dormant state salamanders go into during the winter will help them survive. “Maybe a quick exposure to pollutants isn’t the end of the world,” he said. “I don’t know.”

^{Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves}