Ohio Governor Mike DeWine responded on Friday to a viral video tweeted by U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) that showed a “chemical rainbow” in a creek near the location of a railway crash two weeks ago that released harmful chemicals into the environment in East Palestine, Ohio.
“I know that there’s been some video played on TV circulating of visible contamination in one of the local waterways. A section of Sulfur Run that is very near the crash site remains severely contaminated. We knew this. We know this. It’s going to take a while to remediate this,” DeWine said at a press conference where he gave an update on local environmental testing and cleanup operations.
On February 3, a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed, resulting in a fire that damaged several cars and caused the chemicals to flow into the ground and water. This prompted an inquiry by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
DeWine claimed that immediately after the incident, a polluted segment of the Sulfur Run stream was dammed twice to keep other nearby streams from becoming contaminated. He claimed that in order to redirect clean water around the pollution, workers were pumping clean water from the eastern dam, channeling it away from the contaminated section of the stream, and releasing it back at the western dam.
“This allows clean water to bypass the area of the derailment and prevents clean water from picking up contaminants and carrying them into other waterways. The remediation of the water in the direct area of the spill is going to take some time, just as it is taking some time to deal with the dirt. This is not a simple process. We’re encouraging people to continue to avoid that area,” DeWine said.
Vance previously shared a video on Thursday, of pollution in Leslie Run Creek, which merges with Sulfur Run in East Palestine.
“There are dead worms and dead fish all throughout this water. This is disgusting. And the fact that we have not cleaned up the train crash, the fact that these chemicals are still seeping into the ground is an insult to the people who live in East Palestine,” Vance said.
Using a stick, he scraped the creek bed’s bottom stirring the water that exposed “chemicals coming out of the ground.”
DeWine said at the press conference that EPA officials have teamed up with an independent contractor to test the air in more than 500 residences. Despite ongoing monitoring by authorities, those tests have not yet turned up any contaminants of concern from the train crash in people’s houses.
According to testing, the drinking water from the wells at the East Palestine Municipal Water Source is safe to consume. DeWine, however, suggested that people who had private wells use bottled water until the safety of their well water was established.
When asked about the massive smoke plume over the Ohio River, DeWine said he is happy to report “that sampling has shown that the plume is now completely dissipated. It was never thought to be a threat, but they could get slight detection’s and I want to mention that something I’ve learned during this is the Ohio River is monitored normally very extensively.”
The governor mentioned that butyl acrylate, one of the compounds from the train disaster, has a level of concern of 560 parts per billion and that the highest level of detection was 3 parts per billion.
“Today, it is at zero,” he said.
After the dangerous chemicals were freed from the train carts to lessen the possibility of an explosion, Vance vowed to find the cause of the chemical burn that caused the pollution and the derailment of the Norfolk Southern train. Many domesticated chickens, foxes, and thousands of fish have already perished as a result of exposure to the contaminants, according to locals.
“This is a complex environmental disaster with impacts that may be difficult to assess in the short term. Long-term study will be imperative. As will long-term commitment to remediation by Norfolk Southern for the property damaged, the wildlife disrupted, and the community scarred by this accident,” Vance said.
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Hannah Poling is a lead reporter at The Ohio Star and The Star News Network. Follow Hannah on Twitter @HannahPoling1. Email tips to [email protected]
The theories about the train wreak are all over the board; the contents, the size of the train, why the Biden administration is trying to ignore it, etc. It’s my belief the reason the contents of the cars was burned as opposed to being off loaded to other containers is that the railroad gave priority to getting the tracks repaired and the trains running against the health and welfare of the residents. The potential revenue loss was far more important to them. As to the federal government, I’ll bet the railroads and their investors, that would be Vanguard and Blackrock, put pressure in the corrupt administration to side with the railroad. Time will tell.