The East Palestine Crash: Reality Bubbles Through

Almost two weeks ago, a freight train derailed near the small town of East Palestine, Ohio. The result was a chemical spill and a subsequent evacuation of the area for several days. The story was sidelined by President Xi’s foray into 18th century aerospace technology but suddenly became a national story over the weekend.

Now before we go into this, a caveat: I am not a chemist. I understand some of the basics but many of the chemicals involved in this crash are very specific and have an environmental and health impact that would take me days to figure out. So what I have written below is a summary of what I’ve been gleaning from other scientists who know this stuff.

The pictures of billowing smoke over East Palestine are a result of a controlled burn that was initiated three days after the crash. This controlled burn has been highly controversial, with people claiming that it was a coverup or that East Palestine was “nuked” and making comparisons to Chernobyl. It’s understandable: the burn was of vinyl chloride and resulted in the release of phosgene — a very poisonous gas — and hydrogen chloride — which forms hydrochloric acid on contact with water.

However … while, both chemicals are dangerous, the EPA has been monitoring the situation and neither is in concentrations that are concerning (and those concentrations are set fairly conservatively). Furthermore, burning the VC was probably the least bad option of the ones presented because there was a growing danger of an uncontrolled explosion of the chemicals. Here you can find a thread from a chemist that runs through the various chemicals released in the collision and subsequent burn. The gripping hand is that while these are dangerous, they are not around in massive quantities and pale in comparison to some of the stuff we dump in the environment on a regular basis. It’s bad for the surrounding area. But the idea that this is going to contaminate the entire Ohio River basin and poison 10% of the country is hysteria.

This kind of thing is not unprecedented. In 2005, two trains crashed in Graniteville, South Carolina, resulting in a chlorine leak that killed ten people. In 2002, a train derailed in Farragut, Tennessee, releasing sulfuric acid. And that’s just accidents involving Norfolk Southern.

If you’re going to transport dangerous chemicals by train — and our outstanding freight rail system is probably the best, cheapest and safest way to do so — you’re going to occasionally spill them. The best we can do is to clean it up as fast as possible, monitor the situation and try to make right anyone harmed. That is basically what is going on here, thank to hard work from the EPA and state authorities. Norfolk Southern has thrown in a million dollars to help the people of East Palestine but I expect the bill will explode as government agencies and lawsuits weigh in (the aforementioned Graniteville Crash ended up with over $140 million in settlements and fines). I think the main thing that needs to be done — preferably at Norfolk Southern’s expense — is continued monitoring of the health of the river and paying of any medical bills for the people of East Palestine. Long term, we can investigate how to improve rail safety (such as requiring the brake system that the Trump Admin scotched under pressure from the industry).

I don’t want to downplay what has happened here — a small town got hit with a load of dangerous chemicals and the health effects may take years to play out. This is a serious thing. And I wish the press had been more diligent in covering it. But, at this point, it’s not a scandal. It’s not a cover-up. And it’s certainly not a Chernobyl. It’s the sort of environmental mess that happens periodically and we need to be prepared to deal with.

And, to be frank, I’m not particularly interested in hearing caterwauling about this from the Republican Party that has made abolishing or crippling the EPA a priority. Many of the same judges that struck down Roe last year support using the nondelegation doctrine to strip the EPA of its regulatory power and abolish all regulation that is not enacted by Congress itself. Lawsuits are also trying to strip states like California from the ability to regulate their own environment (because it could force business in other states to comply with those rules). The Ohio River was not in a pristine state before this accident occurred and it won’t be in a pristine state anytime soon. But it’s healthier than it used to be, mostly because of the work done by environmental agencies. And those agencies are the ones are monitoring the situation, will alert us to any problems and can best advise on cleanup. They are not perfect by any means, but this sort of things is the reason we created them in the first place.

There is one aspect of this accident where a Chernobyl comparison is appropriate. When people worry about nuclear power, I sometimes point out that the alternative — fossil fuels — is like having a Chernobyl every week only more spread out. For those worried about this crash — and the concern is legitimate — I would note that we have an East Palestine on a regular basis. It’s just more spread out. We produce 13 million tons of vinyl chloride every year, 26,000 times what was released in the crash. That’s not including the vinyl chloride produced as a byproduct. Not all 13 million pounds of that are safely contained. East Palestine is a glimpse of the dirty underbelly of our industrial society and the never-ending need to keep an eye on what exactly we’re putting out there.

With the elephant-sized exception of global warming, every environmental indicator for the United States has improved over the last five decades. We no longer have rivers that catch fire and you can usually breath the air in Los Angeles. The situation in East Palestine is how bad things used to be in far too many parts of the country (and, in many part of the world, how bad things still are). It’s a sign of progress that we now rightly consider that situation unacceptable and that hearings, fines and lawsuits are sure to come in its wake. I welcome ongoing concern about the environment and chemicals being spilled therein. But we also need to take a step back and realize that this is a long struggle and that dealing it will require a functional robust EPA of the type that many people think shouldn’t exist.