Plan to incinerate soil from Ohio train derailment is ‘horrifying’, says expert

Soil is being sent to a nearby incinerator with a history of clean air violations, raising fears the chemicals will be redistributed

Contaminated soil from the site around the East Palestine train wreck in Ohio is being sent to a nearby incinerator with a history of clean air violations, raising fears that the chemicals being removed from the ground will be redistributed across the region.

The new plan is “horrifying”, said Kyla Bennett, a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official now with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility non-profit. She is one among a number of public health advocates and local residents who have slammed Norfolk Southern and state and federal officials over the decision.

“Why on earth would you take this already dramatically overburdened community and ship this stuff a few miles away only to have it deposited right back where it came from?” Bennett asked.

Incinerating the soil is especially risky because some of the contaminants that residents and independent chemical experts fear is in the waste, like dioxins and PFAS, haven’t been tested for by the EPA, and they do not incinerate easily, or cannot be incinerated.

The incinerator, owned by Heritage Thermal Services, is already burning PFAS waste from the Department of Defense, which prompted a federal lawsuit from a coalition of local environmental groups. Heritage also faced an investigation and enforcement action from the EPA in 2015 after officials determined the facility had violated the Clean Air Act nearly 200 times between 2010 and 2014.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/04/east-ohio-train-derailment-soil

EPA Head Admits Kids Should Be Nowhere Near East Palestine Water

Even the EPA Administrator admits your kids should be NOWHERE NEAR the water here in East Palestine.

But don’t worry: everything is safe, guys! pic.twitter.com/FVcvZev0hH

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) February 28, 2023

“I would not. I’m a father of a 9-year-old. I think we have to all agree we wish this accident didn’t occur, but the accident occurred and as a result some of our creeks and streams have pollution in them.”

www.zerohedge.com/political/epa-head-admits-kids-should-be-nowhere-near-east-palestine-water

In an op-ed on The Guardian, Stephen Lester, a toxicologist and the science director of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, a project of the People’s Action Institute, wrote, “Here’s the real reason the EPA doesn’t want to test for toxins in East Palestine.”

The decision to release and burn five tanker cars of vinyl chloride and other chemicals at the site of a 38-car derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, just over three weeks ago unleashed a gigantic cloud full of particulates that enveloped surrounding neighborhoods and farms in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

It is well documented that burning chlorinated chemicals like vinyl chloride will generate dioxins. “Dioxin” is the name given to a group of persistent, very toxic chemicals that share similar chemical structures. The most toxic form of dioxin is 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin or TCDD. TCDD is more commonly recognized as the toxic contaminant found in Agent Orange and at Love Canal, New York and Times Beach, Missouri, both sites of two of the most tragic environmental catastrophes in US history.

h/t StellaBlue