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Ohio cleaning up toxic train derailment as pollution 'plume' moves downstream
- neogodless 4y agohttps://www.reuters.com/world/us/arizona-truck-spill-toxic-acid-closes-interstate-highway-2023-02-15/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/arizona-truck-spill-toxic-a...
- swader999 4y agoThere's a lot of claims being made by officials in this article. Be nice to see the data.
- legitster 4y ago> Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, director of the Ohio Department of Health, said the compounds spilled can cause headaches, eye and nose irritation even at levels considered safe, but that the "measured facts" show air sampling is not reporting any dangers. The data is that there is nothing to report. The burn off took place over two weeks ago - I'm not sure why we would be looking for dangerous vapors still.
- rob74 4y ago> Railroad union officials said they have been warning that such an accident could happen because railroad cost-cutting harmed safety measures. [...] The train of three locomotives and 150 freight cars [...] 20 of the cars were carrying hazardous materials, including 10 that derailed. The NTSB said 38 cars in total left the tracks and that the ensuing fire damaged an additional 12. Maybe put hazardous materials on shorter trains that are in less danger of derailing? But yeah, ok, that wouldn't be as profitable for the railroads...
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- uoaei 4y agoHey wow remember those rail strikes a couple months back? The ones where none of the media talked about what the workers wanted except for allegedly-dubious demands for "sick days"? The ones where "Amtrak Joe" pulled all the strings he could to shut it down? I wonder what they were so adamant about back then...?
- infecto 4y agoWas this crash related to labor safety or mechanical? I got the impression that this might have happened because the conductor was told not to stop until it hit some sort of secondary wheel/axle temperature check, it had already failed one. Not that I disagree with the busting of the strike but it is important to not conflate the two issues. If the above is true this could be more related to Trumps repeal of ECP brakes.
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- TrispusAttucks 4y agoThey are running on skeleton crews to reduce costs and increased speeds to boost production. If there is no one there to pull the brakes it doesn't matter what kind of brakes they have. The rail workers have been complaining for years.
- infecto 4y agoThere was a conductor though? I am not disagreeing that the labor practices going with rail workers is not right, especially with the ability the federal government has to jump in. Only pointing out that this appears to be a mechanical failure, not a labor safety failure.
- ticviking 4y agoThe engineer was ordered by dispatch to ignore safety regulations when the warning tripped and did not have the labor protection to tell them no it is unsafe we are stopping and doing a safety inspection.
- legitster 4y agoThis is a bad idea. Having more, shorter trains actually increases the odds of derailment/accidents.
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y agoNo. Because longer (freight) trains with dispersed multiple engine units pulling and pushing freight cars with old braking systems, have different driving physics and characteristics. They are not a good fit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_power
- kevinventullo 4y agoThat seems to assume the probability of derailment is independent of the length of the train. If, at a certain size, doubling the length of a train more than doubles the probability of derailment, you are better off with shorter trains.
- legitster 4y agoSure, but just at a base rate - doubling the amount of trains would double the amount of derailments. When you add in the amount of coordination each train takes to keep it on its own lines safely, more shorter trains would be worse.
- ryathal 4y agoShorter trains would also mean less severe derailments. Shorter trains also mean that trains are in risky areas for less time, less time decelerating and accelerating, so derailment could be far less than double. Shorter trains would also make coordination easier, because the current trains are too long for bypass tracks so currently none of these trains can pass each other and it tacks a very long time for a multi-mile train to clear the tracks. Allowing trains to actually overtake each other again would help with congestion, but that mostly helps Amtrack so companies don't care.
- NamTaf 4y ago
- advisedwang 4y agoThe whole point the union is makings is that the railroad companies are making trains longer and longer.
- jokoon 4y agoWill there really be acid rain? Anyway it's really weird how there is so little news about this incident.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jakear 4y agoIs there? It's been all over this site, all over twitter, and all over AM radio around me. NPR has reported about it, as have other major media outlets. Yet I keep seeing people insist it's "not being talked about".
- chucksta 4y agoHow much have you heard about the balloons in comparison?
- Karunamon 4y agoHow much unidentified flying stuff getting shot at is happening in comparison? Very little new is happening on the derail/disaster to report about. It's one ongoing event everybody already knows about versus lots of little events that keep happening. By definition, the former one is news. What coverage do you want to see that isn't happening?
- corbulo 4y agoThe National Media apparatus is not putting pressure on the right entities to ensure transparency and accountability. They have no problem doing that when it suits their political objectives. Wall to wall coverage of shit most people barely give a shit about for weeks on end with no changes but endless questions. Here's an issue that has very grave implications for us all and suddenly they're not interested in asking the right questions of the right people anymore. You don't find that remotely disappointing or curious? If the 'wrong' people were in office they'd have the sainted mayor talking about how much they need the federal help they're not getting. Why haven't they even bothered asking FEMA for help by the way? Maybe a competent media would ask those questions.
- LatteLazy 4y ago/r/politicalhumour are having a field day with this. Trump guts safety requirements Unions object Biden smashes Union's ability to strike etc Unions proven right and half of Ohio have their pets die...
- speed_spread 4y agoThe "dying animals but no casualities" angle really gets to me. This is possibly the source of millions of future cancers in America. The damage will persist over decades. They're just downplaying it until something else comes along in the news.
- shadowgovt 4y agoVinyl chloride decays into 14-CO2 at 99 parts per 100 within 100 days. There might be more than zero cancers resulting from the spill, but odds are low. Carcinogenic numbers for vinyl chloride are for chronic long-term exposure in plant workers because it doesn't stick around long enough for chronic short-term exposure.
- speed_spread 4y agoIt's no longer vinyl chloride if you set it on fire though. A lot of what is going up in that cloud is gonna turn up to be much more persistent and insidious.
- shadowgovt 4y agoOn the contrary, the cloud is mostly CO2 and soot, trace phosgene (breaks down faster than vinyl chloride), and HCL (reacts with everything; is probably fully absorbed into the environment right now). There is a recommendation to clean the soot and vacuum, but otherwise no major alerts regarding the cloud of burn products that I've seen. They burned it on purpose to turn the vinyl chloride and other chemicals on the train into less harmful byproducts.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
- NamTaf 4y agoOh, the CEO gave his personal guarantee that they won't leave until everything is clean. I'm certainly convinced now! There is absolutely no way they won't walk away from this the moment they can unless they are legally compelled to stay.
- andrewstuart 4y ago"Cleaning up". Really? When companies say "cleaning up" they are trying to convey the idea that their environmental disaster is a bit like spilling milk in the kitchen. Sure it's unfortunate, but all will be fine after it's "cleaned up". Just needs a bit of a wipe down and a mop and all good.
- mtmail 4y agoWhat would be a better word/phrase in this case?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- agilob 4y agodisaster recovery process?
- uoaei 4y agoContaminant/hazard/whatever mitigation
- jdmtheNth 4y agoRemediation is the word environmental cleanup companies often use. Essentially just removing the top ten or fifteen feet of soil and saying "all clean". Interestingly, all a company needs to do to demonstrate that an area is clean is provide x number of groundwater samples that show clean. What officials ignore is that there might be forty or fifty not-clean samples that are ignored in favour of the, say, five clear samples required. Dirty stuff.
- chucksta 4y agolittle bit of a sprucing /s
- tokai 4y agoWhat a weird and inconsequential thing to take offense by. Nothing in the term 'cleaning up' insinuates that it will be fine or that its not a big deal. What you really should be angry over is the spill, not that after-the-fact communication.
- pc_edwin 4y ago[flagged]
- badkungfu 4y ago> Legislation was passed under President Obama that made it a legal requirement for trains carrying hazardous flammable materials to have ECP brakes, but this was rescinded in 2017 by the Trump administration. > The National Transportation Safety Board, a federal agency responsible for investigating rail accidents, told The Lever that the Ohio train that derailed was not fitted with ECP brakes. https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-blame-ohio-train-derailment-1781163 https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-blame-ohio-train-derai...
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- lkbm 4y agoI read this, thought "This looks like it was written by GPT." Checked the profile: > Real Edwin exiled by HN moderaters, PC edwin has the same opinions but translated to silicon valley sensibilities using ChatGPT. Which makes me feel like I can recognize AI comments, but no way to know how many I fail to spot.
- bananapub 4y agoit's just surreal how disinterested the US is at doing a good job of some things these days. big weapons systems? sure. tax cuts? sure. doing basic stuff like "regulating and checking up on how people move massive quantities of toxic chemicals"? no.
- api 4y agoThose things are both boring and economically stolid with no chance to make big windfall returns. How many people graduate in computers and say “now I want to go maintain 25 year old enterprise Java code for banks?” No? Same principle applies. It’s hard to get people to maintain the boring stuff in a country with so much interesting shiny new stuff going on. It doesn’t help that these industries are also low margin and are not attractive investment targets.
- AdamN 4y agoBuffet is a big investor in railroads and they are cash flow machines. It is true that they use very mature technology but plenty of people are train people and would get into it if there was money. Because the 4 big freight companies in the US are so large though (and have dual duopolies meaning investment isn't rewarded), only safety/environmental regulations will drive big projects and spending.
- sophacles 4y agoNet profit margin for 2022 was ~25%. That's on par with the oil industry.
- breakpointalpha 4y agoIt's easy to interest people in maintenance if you pay them. A quick search shows Bank of America turned a net profit in '23 of $6.9B. It would be trivial for them to pay a fleet of engineers $250k/yr+ for Java maintenance. Ignoring maintenance is always a company choice, not a personal one.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- PopAlongKid 4y agoReminds me of the well-known toxic spill in the Sacramento River in 1991. "The chemical plume left a 41-mile wake of destruction, from the spill site to the entry point of the river into Shasta Lake" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunsmuir,_California#California's_largest_hazardous_chemical_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunsmuir,_California#Californi... There continue to be derailments at that site, although there is now a barrier to prevent cars from tumbling into the river.
- legitster 4y agoSo, keep in mind that this story is over two weeks old at this point. Most of the residents are back home and the chemicals are not showing up even in trace tests anymore. The reason this story is still picking up traction is because Chinese state media made a concerted push starting on Friday to make this a Big Deal, along with the idea that you shouldn't trust our media, agencies, etc. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64633990 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64633990
- VagueMag 4y agoSo, your thesis is that this is showing up in Western media because China is trying to distract from the very crucial super important balloon issue by pointing to something trivial like a large industrial accident with still unknown downstream effects? Did Reuters decide to run a story on it yesterday to placate the Chinese? > along with the idea that you shouldn't trust our media, agencies, etc. Imagine that. Although, I'm more accustomed to the idea people only ever think this sort of thing because of those dastardly Russian disinfo campaigns.
- legitster 4y agoNo, but when this story ran the first time two weeks ago the downstream effects were very well documented and understood: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/06/1154760911/ohio-train-derailment https://www.npr.org/2023/02/06/1154760911/ohio-train-derailm... Again, this was an intentional burn coordinated by 3 separate agencies. Reuters article is only a reiteration of material we already know to placate demand on social media. I understand that locals will continue to have health concerns, but any official reports that this is an "unprecedented environmental disaster" or an intentional cover up all originated from Chinese state media weeks after the fact: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202302/1285450.shtml?id=11 https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202302/1285450.shtml?id=11
- advisedwang 4y ago> the downstream effects were very well documented and understood Incorrect. At that time there was no discussion of pollutants in the Ohio river. As this article mentions, we now know that there is water contamination. This article in fact says not to drink well water, which seems like important new information people in the area should receive.
- breakpointalpha 4y agoImagine the millions of dollars of destroyed property value in the area around the site. At a minimum the rail company should have to buy out all the land at the day-before market value. You broke it, you buy it.
- jollyllama 4y agoThis is confusingly worded. The large clouds from the burnoff were called the plume. They should have come up with a different term for the material in the river to avoid ambiguity.
- downvotetruth 4y agolike seepage - it did not directly spill into the river or the groundwater
- jollyllama 4y agoI'm thinking "spill" would have been better. Edit: to match parent comment edit Ok, spill is innacurate, but it's still less confusing than plume. Just by the headline, or someone talking about a plume, you don't know if the article is talking about something that ended a week ago vs something that is ongoing, which is of importance to people in the affected areas.