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Ok_Improvement_5897 t1_jcms7o5 wrote

Reply to comment by AJ_De_Leon in Levels of carcinogenic chemical near Ohio derailment site far above safe limit by Additional-Force-795

As someone in Easternish PA who's been out of the country for this whole mess and about to return in a couple weeks.....seconded lol. Could it have contaminated the local waterways?

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DonsDiaperChanger t1_jcmy0im wrote

if it did... they don't want you to know. You might sue, that threatens their profits, just like paying for cleanup is bad for profits.

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Odie_Odie t1_jcox949 wrote

I think this is in the Ohio River watershed and you should be fine in E PA.

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Ok_Improvement_5897 t1_jcp03by wrote

Thankyou - sympathies to the people who are not....fucking awful. Hate that our regions have become an absolute toxic heap because of incidents like this over the years - as if PA and OH don't already have some of the highest incidences of cancer.

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Scribe625 t1_jcpu3d5 wrote

I'm in Western PA and the news here has said they've been doing tests to make sure everything is safe and the local governments are trying to make sure areas in Western PA that were close but not in the evacuation zone aren't forgotten by Norfolk Southern.

I know people with farms in Beaver County, PA have been concerned about whether their crops, livestock, or water could be contaminated but no one so far has found anything but the air being contaminated during the idiotic controlled burn. I'm hoping that because our part of the Ohio River is upstream from the derailment the contamination won't spread to the many rivers in the Pittsburgh area, but I'd hope they're being tested regularly since I know some of the Pittsburgh universities like Carnegie Mellon were involved in independent testing in East Palestine.

However, the person I knew who tested the local waterways and raised concerns about what had gone into the Allegheny River when a Norfolk Southern train with hazardous material derailed into the river in 2005 isn't here anymore so I can't find out the real water results this time and know from the 2005 crash not to blindly accept the publicly reported results, so it's kind of anyone's guess right now if it's really safe with the first day of trout starting March 25th for youth and April 1st for everyone else. I'll be erring on the side of caution and skipping fishing this year unless I find someone local who has independently verified the local water and the fish in it aren't contaminated.

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femtoinfluencer t1_jcpw5c7 wrote

> no one so far has found anything but the air being contaminated during the idiotic controlled burn.

Dioxin and many of the other combustion products are solids, and will have settled out of the plume and into the soil based on prevailing winds.

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Ok_Improvement_5897 t1_jcpxi0o wrote

Thanks for the input - and yeah, good idea on skipping trout season. And yeah history has proven time and time again in this state that every environmental disaster is so much worse than what they initially publicly report - sick of it. Stay safe.

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