Ohio Toxic Derailment Worked With Weather To Worse Catastrophe

Photo is not a distant tornado in Ohio. It's the toxic plume
from the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio mixing
with an overcast and then precipitating down in
a broad area during this environmental disaster. 

The huge environmental disaster from the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio earlier this month was almost certainly created by human error. 

Weather conditions helped spread the mess. 

 We're lucky some of Ma Nature's extremes didn't make it even worse.  The weather during the disaster was pretty average, helping to contain the toxic mess to a relatively small area. 

Still, it's bad enough.  

The train derailed on February 3 in East Palestine, Ohio, very close to the Pennsylvania border.  The train cars were still burning on February 5 when emergency officials noticed a rapid temperature change in a derailed tanker car that contained vinyl chloride, a chemical used in the manufacture of PVC.

Vinyl chloride explodes violently when heated too much, so a catastrophic blast seemed imminent, according to Ohio officials. So they made a decision to do a controlled release of the chemical, which sent an immense black, toxic cloud of smoke and fumes skyward. 

What goes up must come down. We don't have good information on what kind of fallout came from that cloud.

We do know vinyl chloride is bad. Really bad.

 As the Washington Post reports: 

"'It is unclear how much of this volatile chemical escaped into the air or burned before entering surface waters and soil, but vinyl chloride is highly mobile in soils and water and can persist for years in groundwater,' said Cornell University soil and crop scientist Murray McBride, recommending that farmers test wells and surface soils in the months to come."

It seems pretty clear that there's a high risk to people right near the derailment site. What about people near the cloud released during the "controlled release?"

At the time of the "controlled release," around 3:30 p.m. February 5, winds in the area were from the west to southwest at 10 to 15 mph, according to weather data from nearby Youngstown, Ohio.

The day was overcast, and the release launched a plume of dense black smoke that rose up into the overcast, and spread out when it hit that cloud layer. Judging from photos, there might have been a temperature inversion that allowed the smoke and fumes to linger over the area, probably dropping fallout of some sort. 

I'm not sure how long this "controlled release" lasted, but in the following days, the winds kept changing directions. 

Breezes of 10 to 15 mph came from the northwest on February 6, for instance. On February 7, winds in the area were mostly from the south at 15 to 20 mph, but they shifted to the northwest later in the day.

This helped ensure whatever was in the air was dispersed in almost every conceivable direction.  

So far, the Environmental Protection Agency is saying that the area is relatively safe, though clearly more testing needs to be done. 

The air in and around East Palestine was reported to still have a chemical odor this week, but the EPA says you can smell the stuff and it would still be below unsafe levels. The following is my opinion, not from officials:

I'm not convinced its safe in and near East Palestine, or anyone who lives under or near that plume from the controlled release. 

People living in the area report dead fish in rivers. Chickens as far as 10 miles from the derailment site were found dead. 

 I have been asked by a couple people if there's any risk to us in Vermont from this Ohio environment disaster. The answer, thankfully is no. Even if the wind was blowing from the direction of the derailment, by the time the air got here, the plume would have been so completely dispersed that it would have no effect on us. 

This is the view above the cloud layer as a black plume
of smoke and toxins rise from the derailment disaster
site earlier this month in East Palestine, Ohio.

However, railroad tracks criss-cross Vermont and hazardous material is transported on these tracks. Unfortunately, there's every reason to believe another East Palestine could occur in Vermont. 

It doesn't help that train regulations are lax, and railroad employees are overworked, which can lead to errors. 

Much has been made of U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's somewhat muted response to the East Palestine catastrophe. But - forgive me for injecting politics into this - more blame should go to the previous administration.

It's too soon to pin down the exact cause of the crash. However, the Obama administration in 2015 put new rules in places requiring  trains carrying flammable liquids to use electronically controlled pneumatic brakes. These would apply braking simultaneously across a train rather than railcar by railcar over a span of seconds. This rule would have taken effect this year.

But the Trump administration dropped those rules in 2017, saying they were too expensive for railroads.  

Since it feels like another train disaster is inevitable under current rules and practices, weather conditions will always be there to potential make these catastrophes worse. 

I don't think it's an "if" as to when we see another East Palestine. It's a "when."