EPA Announces ‘Completion of Major Cleanup Activities’ in East Palestine, OH, 8 Months After Toxic Train Derailment
The EPA is facing criticism for its response, including from the agency’s own inspector general, as well as a leading environmental scientist.
While the world’s attention has been focused on Israel and Hamas, I thought it might be worthwhile checking in on the situation in East Palestine, Ohio. Legal Insurrection readers will recall that it was the site of a train derailment involving tanks filled with reactive and flammable substances.
The responders attempted to do a control burn of the material, which released a toxic plume of material and resulted in serious chemical contamination of the area. Air and water quality was adversely impacted throughout the region. One hazardous material experts stated, “We basically nuked a town with chemicals so we could get a railroad open.”
Now, eight months later, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the completion of significant cleanup activities.
This weekend, the final truckload of impacted soil will be removed from the derailment zone. Moments before Norfolk Southern’s statement, the EPA — alongside village Mayor Trent Conaway — had an update of its own on the progress the work is having on the community nine months later.
A statement Thursday afternoon from Norfolk Southern said “soil excavation is set to be completed … marking a significant environmental remediation milestone.”
The land behind Leake Oil in East Palestine hasn’t been the same since Feb. 3. From the train derailment to the ongoing cleanup process, the public has never been allowed close to the site. But as Taggart Street has reopened and the work to remove contaminated soil from the site is almost finished, the EPA and Conaway felt it was time.
“Because from here, you can get a view of the entire site and see up close the last area where hazardous waste was excavated,” said EPA administrator Debra Shore.
However, there will still be some follow-up activity and testing.
Officials with both the state and federal Environmental Protection Agencies will still oversee the remaining cleanup work, which includes backfilling in excavated areas and assessing chemical contamination in the area’s creeks. Residents post pictures regularly of a chemical sheen on water in the streams anytime the creekbed is disturbed.
Regional EPA administrator Debra Shore promised that her agency will make sure all the contamination is gone before signing off on the cleanup.
…Regular testing of the air and water will still take place too. Officials have said those tests consistently showed it’s safe although many residents remain uneasy.
The EPA is facing criticism for its response to the East Palestine train derailment, including from the agency’s own inspector general, as well as a leading environmental scientist.
A report by Stephen Lester, science director at the Center for Health Environment and Justice, found the EPA’s sampling for dioxin was “highly unusual and very subjective, and did not follow standard procedures for investigating contaminated sites.”
“The EPA is not responding to this in a way that makes any sense. It tells me that EPA may have a different agenda than to really investigate what’s happened at East Palestine and do the kind of testing that will answer questions,” Lester said.
A separate report by the EPA inspector general found “multiple instances of inconsistencies in the air monitoring and sampling data on the EPA’s East Palestine website.”
“While minor when taken individually, these inconsistencies could, when taken together, erode public trust in the data communicated,” the inspector general report said.
Meanwhile, a government whistleblower-protecting watchdog group made another attempt to obtain the EPA’s records concerning dioxin testing in the wake of the train derailment through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The Government Accountability Project made a second request to the EPA Monday, asking for expedited processing of information regarding dioxins and other chemicals of concern from the East Palestine derailment in fulfilling an original request for the information. The original request was made in September.
In a press release, the Government Accountability Project, which was formed in 1977 by the Institute for Policy Studies to “empower whistleblowers, hold the powerful accountable and advocate for change, stated that the group’s environmental investigator Lesley Pacy visited the village last month and experienced herself the same medical symptoms residents have reported.
Finally, the wait for the Biden visit to East Palestine (the site of a massive regional disaster) continues.
It has been 262 days since the toxic train disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, and 236 days since Biden promised he would visit “at some point.”
Biden’s promises are worthless.pic.twitter.com/FNgEftzpzN
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 24, 2023
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Our government is failing its own citizens and it doesn’t seem to care.
“Our” government? You sure about that?
It absolutely cares. In fact, it’s a deliberate effort.
I’m sorry but were you under the impression The Cathedral cares about you?
The responsibility is entirely the railroads.
The burn was to prevent an explosion, not to reopen the railroad.
Railroad reopening is independent of whether there’s an explosion or not. New ballast, new track, done. They do it every day after derailments.
One does have to wonder if an explosion wouldn’t have been preferable,in terms of both human and environmental damage, to the burn.
A burn more or less gets rid of the toxic elements. An explosion just scatters them more thoroughly. According to chemists on this specific issue.
The underlying problem is that an axle bearing can fail in fewer miles than the standard distance between trouble detectors. The fix is closer trouble detectors.
How does igniting an explosive material make it burn instead of…
Explode?
Think of black powder. I can pour a bunch on the ground and set it on fire or contain it in black powder ammunition like 45lc or 43vSpanish and it will explode
You can actually throw dynamite in a fire and it will burn up. To explode, it needs a detonator inside its core.
The same EPA that fines you tens of thousands of dollars for building a shed within 75 feet of a puddle of water they call navigable or wetland is the same EPA that releases toxic contaminates over a widespread populated areas.
Your tax dollars at work.
Animas River, anyone?
So glad the government remembered East Palestine. Would have been nice if Biden was asking for money for them and Maui, as opposed to asking for more money for Ukraine and, yes, even Israel. We are getting to our limits of taking care of all these other countries when Americans are suffering more and more due to our governments’ negligence.
Silly – that’d be putting Americans first.
Can’t have any of that nonsense. Sounds too MAGA.
What’s the difference between Palestine in Ohio and Palestine in the mid-east?
The first has clean people living in a toxic environment and other has toxic people living in a clean environment.
I admit that I am cynical, but my first thought upon an over-quick scan of the headline was that someone in the Federal government thought that East Palestine was in the Middle East and that somehow jumping in now would help HAMAS. The concept still is subject to disproof.
Subotai Bahadur
Townspeople rejoice.