While state officials say testing shows no dangers from the East Palestine train derailment that led to the release of toxic chemicals, an environmental engineer said he remains concerned about the impact of the “environmental disaster.”

Andrew J. Whelton, a Purdue University professor of civil engineering and environmental and ecological engineering who has consulted on other chemical spills, said: “The question is the magnitude of it and whether or not there will be long-term health effects.

“There is a difference between harming a fish and harming an infant by this disaster. It is unclear to me, based on the limited information and the limited transparency that’s been provided, what actions were taken.”

Whelton said state and federal officials are telling those in East Palestine not to worry and that it’s safe to be home — without being transparent.

“It has had a profound impact on the safety and well-being on people there,” he said. “It needs to be understood and understood very rapidly. We don’t know the long-term impact.”

WHAT HAPPENED

A 150-car Norfolk Southern freight train, which included about 20 carrying hazardous materials, derailed Feb. 3 in a fiery crash in East Palestine. It caused an evacuation of most of the Columbiana County village as well as those living across the Pennsylvania state line.

As the temperature in one of rail cars got higher, the concern was it would probably explode and pose a life-threatening danger, sending shrapnel into the air and traveling for almost a mile, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said. It was decided Feb. 5 that a controlled burn of five cars would be done a day later, releasing toxic chemicals into the air and water.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has since criticized Norfolk Southern for not working with his state’s environmental and emergency management officials on the decision that “put the safety of our first responders and residents at risk.”

In a Wednesday letter to the company, Shapiro wrote Norfolk Southern “gave inaccurate information and conflicting modeling about the impact” of the controlled burn and was unwilling to consider the option of venting and burning chemicals in the rail cars.

Evacuated residents were allowed to return to their homes Feb. 8.

HAZARDOUS RELEASES

It wasn’t until Feb. 10 that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency listed all of the hazardous chemicals released into the air, soil and water by controlled burn, though vinyl chloride was previously discussed by government officials.

About 3,500 fish in nearby waterways died in the first few days after the controlled burn.

There have been reports of people getting sick and animals either dying or becoming ill in and around East Palestine since the derailment.

DeWine said testing shows the air is safe and that the city’s drinking water is also safe though Sulphur Run, a creek near the derailment site, has been contaminated and dammed.

“The remediation of the impacted area of the creek is expected to take time and residents are encouraged to avoid that area,” DeWine’s office said.

Federal officials said they are still in the emergency response phase, but remediation around the derailment site will start soon.

HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS

The five hazardous chemicals released as a result of the controlled burn and derailment, according to the federal EPA, are: vinyl chloride, ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate, isobutylene and butyl acrylate. Vinyl chloride leaked the most and was in the five rail cars that were control burned.

Burning it released phosgene and hydrogen chloride into the air. Phosgene is a highly toxic gas that was used as a weapon in World War I.

Vinyl chloride is used to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and “every house in the country has one or more plastic pipes,” said Clovis Linkous, a Youngstown State University chemistry professor.

“In large volumes it can have an immediate affect on the lungs and it’s a carcinogen,” he said.

The other chemicals are used to make various products such as polyester fibers, paint additives, adhesives, caulk, textiles and in fuel, Linkous said.

In high doses, the chemicals are deadly, he said.

“None are healthy for you,” Linkous said.

They can cause a variety of ailments from headaches, dizziness and nausea to cancer at high-level exposure.

WHAT WAS RELEASED

Whelton said: “I have not heard any federal, state or local agency come out and describe everything that was released. All we have is a pdf (file) that’s posted to a federal website and discussions about chemicals that were released into the air. But there were a whole lot more chemicals on that train.

“Some were released and some were burned reportedly, but nobody’s come out and told everything. Any chemical is dangerous. The ones listed off can be highly toxic at high concentrations. The closer you are to the incident, the more risk you have.”

Some residents have found ash outside their homes and Whelton said that “there’s been no effort to find out what that material is. Is it toxic? That’s a real question. There’s a big disconnect between what state and federal agencies are doing and then what the people most impacted have the most concern about.”

Whelton was asked to provide assistance to West Virginia in 2014 when there was a coal cleaning chemical spill in the Elk River in Charleston. He said the federal EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the spill was contained — when it wasn’t.

He said that could be happening in East Palestine.

“The people most affected are just left to believe (government officials) at their word that everything is OK,” he said. “That’s unacceptable. There’s really no transparency about what’s happening. They may have a whole lot more data than what is being shared. But it doesn’t matter if they don’t share it and provide context. The community has questions and the government isn’t listening. That’s one of the major disconnects with this disaster.”

Regarding the controlled burn decision, Linkous said: “There’s going to be a lot of speculation as to whether that was the correct call.”

One possible alternative was to “train firehoses on the tank to maintain the temperature to cool it down. It would have taken a lot of water to do it. It may not have been accessible,” Linkous said.

Those in and near East Palestine who experience medical issues — particularly dizziness, lightheadedness or nausea — should consult their doctor, Linkous said. Also, if animals are sick, take them to a veterinarian, he said.

LONG-TERM DANGERS

The determination about “long-term dangers will take time and people won’t be happy with that,” Linkous said. “It’s going to take time to ascertain that they’ve seen the last of it.”

He added: “Some of the tanks were ruptured and caught fire and a lot of the chemicals flowed into surface waters in the area. That’s been tracked and monitored. The question is how much is left in the soil in and around the derailment site. That is going to take time. Some chemicals move quickly through soil and others move slowly.”

The best option is to remove all of the contaminated soil and move it to a treatment site as quickly as possible, he said.

“I don’t think they’re hiding something,” Linkous said of state and federal officials at the site. “The derailment was on the 3rd and the next day they installed monitoring devices all around the area and found elevated particulate matters” that have since returned to normal.

Linkous said weather patterns have largely cleaned the air.

“I don’t think there should be a concern about air quality,” he said. “Water will have to be monitored.”

VALLEY EMA

Officials with emergency management agencies in Mahoning and Trumbull counties said they haven’t received complaints since shortly after the controlled burn caused a smell in parts of the two counties.

“The only reason we did monitoring in Trumbull County is because (after the Feb. 6 controlled burn), there was a smell in Liberty, Hubbard, Cortland and Howland,” said John Hickey, Trumbull County EMA director.

After conferring with state and federal EPA officials, Hickey said his department recommended people stay indoors as a “strictly precautionary” measure.

“We haven’t received calls about health problems,” he said. “Like everybody else, I see the social media stuff, but there’s been no calls to 911 or my office since. It’s been fine. There’s been no impact in Trumbull County that I’m aware of.”

Robin Lees, deputy director of the Mahoning County EMA, also said his office hasn’t received calls from residents about anything related to the derailment since shortly after the controlled burn.

“There were reports of a haze” in Springfield Township and an odor in Poland, he said, and a contractor with the EPA did checks for toxins and found none, he said.

“That Monday (Feb. 6), we told people to shelter in place until 11 p.m.” Lees said. “We’ve had no issues since except for the sporadic report on social media, but nothing official.”

dskolnick@tritoday.com