11 ms·

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

168 points by webmaven 4y ago

remote_phone 4y ago
[flagged]
- jmclnx 4y ago
  This seems to be par for the course for the "new" Ohio. Because there are/were some MAGA people in high office, I would not be surprise if the penalties for protesters are sever. Also being the new Ohio, maybe the State Gov has no issues ignoring EPA regs :(
  - surge 4y ago
    EPA is a captured entity and not doing anything about it. They trusted Norfolk Southern's own tests rather than doing their own. They're following the corporate line on this and not doing anything about it, similar to everyone else involved whose in a position of power.
    - starkd 4y ago
      Same could be said for the FDA and CDC.
      - surge 4y ago
        It's a problem for most government institutions we rely on to protect us. There is a revolving door between them and the companies they're supposed to keep in check/regulate when it comes to those in high positions.
      - aintgonnatakeit 4y ago
        No, not really.
    - jeffbee 4y ago
      This is how the EPA works and they do it that way because that is what the law says. EPA does not show up and test soil, they order responsible parties to test the soil.
      - surge 4y ago
        That's a major gap, there's no third party oversight, and they have all kinds of incentives to fudge the testing in their favor, including how they collect the samples, what's done in the labs, etc. If criminal investigative agencies have been caught faking DNA results in criminal cases (SBI lab in NC) because there was a conflict of interest between prosecuting cases and the defendent, you certainly can't trust corporations.
        jeffbee 4y ago
        Address your complaints to the Congress. This is not something that is fixable with one weird trick.
        ROTMetro 4y ago
        Conservatives have gutted enforcement agency regulations and replaced them with corporate self enforcement/self governance. Don't like it? Push for tougher corporate regulation and rewriting the statutes to give power back to the enforcement agencies (that were originally created as a response to events like this happening over and over and over).
      - oceanplexian 4y ago
        The EPA levies millions of dollars in fines against auto shops that do as much as list a few unapproved parts on eBay. They don’t investigate squat. The idea the EPA needs to follow some vetted and lengthy process with responsible experts is completely false. They have chosen to downplay this on purpose and the actions they are taking are are 100% political.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - dylan604 4y ago
    But businesses would not be able to survive if they were to behave. Having the people pay for a wee bit of clean up on the corps behalf is an acceptable trade off for the privilege of having the corps be profitable to bring us all of the things. You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs /s Yes, the sarcasm is dripping, but it is not far off from the beliefs of some legislative types. Whether they are MAGA or not is not relevant. We've seen this long before MAGA was a thing.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > no one is reporting on it detail Aside from this article and thousands of others like it? If this is the railroad and government's best effort at suppressing news, they're failing miserably.
- dylan604 4y ago
  Yeah, nobody is reporting on it so here we are talking about it on a techy forum. What does nobody mean to you? It has been in my news feeds every day since it happened, and has only increased as the severity has increased.
  - voisin 4y ago
    Reporting doesn’t mean anyone is being called to account. There’s more action on banning TikTok than there is on actual accountability for the causes of this disaster.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      Is the disaster over? Are the investigations over? We don't even know what the total cost is going to be from this disaster, so how can we apply fines to the company that will cover those costs? Sure, we can start forcing heads to roll if that's what you want, but how many heads? Oh, right, investigations are not over yet. Knee jerk reactions can be just as dangerous
    - tapland 4y ago
      How would environmental activist or their actions being reported in media cause further action than it currently is, when it’s being reported and demonstrated against every day?
      - starkd 4y ago
        Environmental activists have always worked in partner with the media. Raising awareness about issues is how things get done. So, media coverage is a good metric to use for overall focus. When is the last time you heard of an environmental group addressing anything other than climate change? Like regular soot pollution or recycling? Hardly anything gets recycled.
- rideontime 4y ago
  > Where are all the environmental activists? I'm not an environmental activist myself, but the first group that came to my mind, Greenpeace, is already talking about it: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/ohio-train-wreck-could-be-bidens-chance-to-champion-chemical-safety/ https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/ohio-train-wreck-could-be-bid... > no one is reporting on it detail (sic) Besides the article you're commenting on?
  - recuter 4y ago
    The Guardian is a British newspaper. Please ask around acquaintances who live in Ohio, friends of friends, how well informed they were/are about these events and at what point they got looped in. You can find that out first hand, I believe in you.
    - rideontime 4y ago
      I don't have acquaintance in Ohio, so it seems your belief was misplaced. I'm sorry to have disappointed you.
  - starkd 4y ago
    The main environmental groups do seem to be all consumed with climate change issues. You do not any other kind of reporting in the press. And environmental activist have always driven change through the media, so it is a good metric to see where their focus is. Without raising consciousness about issues, little gets done. They don't even talk about recycling anymore.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - smallerfish 4y ago
      https://www.kcci.com/article/erin-brockovich-returns-to-east-palestine/43178184 https://www.kcci.com/article/erin-brockovich-returns-to-east... Front page: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/ https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/
    - 4y ago
- mc32 4y ago
  The only outside activist that retains credibility and remains pretty steadfast in her mission is Erin Brockovich. All the others pick and choose their causes based on political opportunism. Indeed where are all the environmental organizations that would typically be pillorying Corp america or an uncaring government? Where are their vocal marches and demands for rectification and justice? It’s a lot of crickets… Grass roots may create enough noise by 1000 horns to force the hand of the big media and a foot-dragging, uninterested fed government.
  - starkd 4y ago
    Because environmental orgs have been captured. They are more interested in CO2 and pushing people to buy corp's EV's as a cure-all for the planet.
  - oceanplexian 4y ago
    > Indeed where are all the environmental organizations that would typically be pillorying Corp America or an uncaring government? They went to the same place that the activists who were protesting Big Pharma went in the last few years. Clearly on some kind of vacation.
- theknocker 4y ago
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- draw_down 4y ago
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- happytoexplain 4y ago
  The knee-jerk smearing of journalism has really reached a boil with this event. I have seen this "nobody is reporting on it" comment, without exception, in every comment section of the dozen stories I've seen on the topic, and I barely even read the news.
  - starkd 4y ago
    Why would you read something that carries very little credibility? Can you blame anyone for having such a knee-jerk reaction?
    - halocupcake 4y ago
      Most major news outlets were reporting on the derailment shortly after, and yet I see this narrative continually being pushed that nobody reported on it. Yes, we should blame people for pushing such an easily debunked conspiracy theory. The reality is that we live in the social media era, and nobody knew or cared about the derailment until some people screamed about a black cloud on a viral TikTok clip. People should be held to a bare minimum expectation to inform themselves properly before acting as if our government and media are horrendously corrupt. Examples of articles on mainstream sites reporting on the derailment soon after the event (some articles showed up on the front pages as well): https://www.reuters.com/world/us/train-derailment-causes-massive-fire-ohio-local-media-2023-02-04/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/train-derailment-causes-mas... https://apnews.com/article/pennsylvania-ohio-evacuations-fires-5d399dc745f51ef746e22828083d8591 https://apnews.com/article/pennsylvania-ohio-evacuations-fir... https://www.foxnews.com/us/ohio-train-derailment-causes-massive-fire-forces-village-evacuation https://www.foxnews.com/us/ohio-train-derailment-causes-mass... https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/04/us/east-palestine-ohio-train-derailment-fire https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/04/us/east-palestine-ohio-tr...
    - timeon 4y ago
      > Can you blame anyone Yes I can. For moving the goal-post as well.
  - dpkirchner 4y ago
    It's a conservative trope. They're hoping to paint us libruls opposed to chemical spills as hypocrites. They don't have a response do the specific points so they attack the reaction. It's lazy but that's conservatives (in the modern political sense of the term).
- starkd 4y ago
  The media is covering it, but it seems like concern for CO2 has crowded out some of the more mundane environmental issues. The business lobby have turned most of the environmentalists into paid coporate shills who think if only everyone buys an EV, the planet will "heal".
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- throwaway05234 4y ago
  [flagged]
- smallerfish 4y ago
  > no one is reporting on it detail https://news.google.com/search?q=ohio%20train%20disaster&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen https://news.google.com/search?q=ohio%20train%20disaster&hl=...
- maximinus_thrax 4y ago
  > Where are all the environmental activists? I see this trope on most conservative news outlets and it's honestly outrageous. The answer is simple: the environmental activists have always been there, but not a lot of people listened, a lot of people actually mocked them, not a lot of news outlets told their story and finally, not enough money went into PACs to actually make a difference. It is indeed sickening. Maybe in the future, we won't be voting for freedom loving regulation hating corrupt morons. https://peoplesworld.org/article/no-more-bomb-trains-environmental-groups-sue-over-weak-regulations/ https://peoplesworld.org/article/no-more-bomb-trains-environ...
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Classic flamebait lol. Hahaha love it.
- ROTMetro 4y ago
  Have you ever heard the saying 'be the change you want'? You know there aren't like only 30 environmental activist permits given out in the world, right? There might not even be a permitting process, you can start today. Or do you mean you want someone else doing hard work with no reward on a subject that is currently personal to you? Ah yeah, the 1960s are over friend. But if you regularly and consistently have donated to environmental orgs in the past give them a call, they do listen to people in their movements.
- gamblor956 4y ago
  This accident was reported within minutes of it happening, at least on NBC News. For the several days, it dominated coverage of CNN and Fox News. Fox News is currently spending several hours each day covering this train crash. The LAT, WaPo, NYT, Chicago Tribune, and Cleveland Plains-Dealer have all discussed the crash and the toxicity of the chemicals involved and their potential effects on humans and the local environment. What sort of "news suppression" do you think is going on?
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  > Where are all the environmental activists? You didn't hear that Erin Brockovich is on it? The media has been reporting about her, specifically, for well over a week. And she's not the only one talking about it, and more importantly holding town hall events with East Palestine residents: https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/special-reports/train-derailment/ohio-train-derailment-east-palestine-town-hall-erin-brockovich/95-c1c76f98-e1bf-41f0-8552-7b69bff5206b https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/special-reports/train-dera...
recuter 4y ago
If you would like a dollop of confidence for this situation know that competent people are taking care of it: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/m6DJwGPQJVU https://www.youtube.com/shorts/m6DJwGPQJVU
- ericpauley 4y ago
  Maybe it’s just packet loss from a live recording, but this video just reeks of deep fake.
  - recuter 4y ago
    Sometimes life is stranger than fiction. The secretary of transportation really did initially respond to this incident, that was getting "a lot of attention" with, exact quote: "Look, rail safety is something that has evolved a lot over the years, but there's clearly more that needs to be done because while this horrible situation has gotten a particularly high amount of attention, there are roughly 1,000 cases a year of a train derailing," Look it up from any source that pleases you, this is an unedited clip. I searched for "pete buttigieg ohio train" on youtube and that was the top result. I recall seeing it about a week ago and somewhat not being able to believe it myself at the time. Alas. I hope calling "deep fake" on things that are a bummer won't become a thing.
    - buu700 4y ago
      They aren't calling into question the clip's credibility; they're saying its potato-quality audio literally sounds like a deep fake.
      - recuter 4y ago
        Is that what he was saying? How do you know btw? I read it differently, my mistake. - This isn't happening - It isn't a big deal it happens all the time - He probably didn't say that it isn't a big deal that happens all the time, it reeks of a deep fake - He didn't say it is a deep fake, just that it reeks like one, but isn't
zug_zug 4y ago
What I would like to hear from our government is a clear plan backed by dozens of scientists along the lines of: - soil testing procedures for the next X years where the test-results will be published publicly with no redactions, - downstream water tests to the same effect for whichever news sets of chemicals are necessary (water tests usually only test for 8-10 chemicals) for the next X years. - Cancer rate statistics for the next X years (many of these cancers take over a decade to show), perhaps people in the area should get free screenings - full post-moterm on procedure that addresses all the concerns around skipped safety checks - A publicly available "Whistle-blowing channel" for any rail workers asked to skip safety checks where they can report their employer anonymously and earn rewards up to $1,000,000 for deliberately violating safety rules (a recording/video of a manager doing so would be conclusive proof).
- whitemary 4y ago
  If you want the US government to do something, you need to be clear about how the politicians and/or their capital-owning companions (e.g. the railroads) will profit from your plan.
  - photonbeam 4y ago
    let the lawmakers get a percentage of the whistleblower payouts /s
  - xboxnolifes 4y ago
    We bring out the guillotines and say if they do something they can profit their life.
- tejohnso 4y ago
  Nice plan. Typically what we get is a whole bunch of uncertainty and half measures. Then when an individual starts questioning or accusing, they're labelled as a conspiracy theorist. They may also be accused of having some strong political affiliations that are considered to be reprehensible.
- ROTMetro 4y ago
jeffbee 4y ago
Incineration is how you get rid of dioxins in soil. It's the only way! But mostly I am baffled by the public response to this incident. The thing about America is there are zillions of highly polluted sites in this country, we make more of them all the time, it takes us either decades or forever to clean them up, dioxins are a very common contaminant, and there are already hundreds of communities waiting in line for EPA actions to clean them up. So the idea that EPA actions will promptly remediate this site is somewhat ridiculous. If there are high levels of dioxins, and so far there is no evidence of that, relocating the people out of this town is the only action that can be timely taken. Example: a site contaminated by high levels of vinyl chloride, the same junk that was spilled in Ohio, in the center of Oakland, California, has been polluted since 1960, identified since 1995, on the "national priorities list" i.e. Superfund, but no meaningful remediation has taken place and no responsible party has even been nominated yet.
- slackdog 4y ago
  > But mostly I am baffled by the public response to this incident. You saw the smoke column, yes? It looked like a mushroom cloud. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out why people have gotten spooked.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    Baffled == I am once again disappointed in the typical American's habit of ignoring systemic problems until they arrive literally in their own backyards.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      Do you donate to any cleanup sites? Do you write your congress critters about them? Maybe you do and you are very engaged in pollution sites.. but I would be surprised. Everyone responds to local events more than remote ones. I don't care if the other side of the US has wildfires nearly as much as when the wildfires are close enough for me to smell them. People are self interested.
slackdog 4y ago
On one hand, incineration is the only reasonable method of destroying these kind of compounds. Properly run incineration plants burn the waste so hot that everything is atomized which is exactly what you want. Break the molecular bonds to break down those toxic compounds. On the other hand, I understand the negative reactions. Burning trash has never seemed pleasant, and in this case particularly I can see how it might sound to a person in that community; the government again trying to 'solve' the problem by lighting it on fire. Is that their solution to everything? Bridge is in disrepair? Incinerate the bridge. Bear on the loose? Incinerate the bear. An orphan got lost in the park? Incinerate the orphan. Is fire their solution to everything? Well in this case, fire really is the solution. But public perception is a reality that needs to be considered. Anyway, this whole affair is being made much worse by politicians listening to the experts and being tone deaf to public perception. A little bit more performative care would go a long way to making the public feel as though their problems aren't being brushed under the rug. Biden should have visited that town weeks ago.
- anonymousab 4y ago
  > Break the molecular bonds to break down those toxic compounds. The problem is that there is less than zero trust that the government will do anything other than the equivalent of piling it in the middle of the city and chucking a match at it. This situation is the result of myriad failures ranging from complex to "basic safety", a result of greed, and there's zero reason to assume the followup response will be any different. Benefit of the doubt is hard-earned and easily lost.
  - gruez 4y ago
    >The problem is that there is less than zero trust that the government will do anything other than the equivalent of piling it in the middle of the city and chucking a match at it. This situation is the result of myriad failures ranging from complex to "basic safety", a result of greed, and there's zero reason to assume the followup response will be any different. Can't you make this argument for any sort of cleanup effort? If so, what should we do? Not do any sort of cleanup?
corbulo 4y ago
[flagged]
jws 4y ago
Burning random manufactured stuff makes dioxins. It would be astonishing if there weren't dioxins in the soil before the accident and some more after it. This being the rural United States, burn barrels for household waste were a thing for most of a century and spewed dioxin and a lot of other stuff all over the place. You can find lots of studies for background levels of dioxin. It isn't a binary "Is there dioxin?" There certainly is. The question is, is it elevated above background? Is it elevated about established safe levels? If you run it through that nearby incinerator, will the dispersed plume raise land above acceptable levels? The EPA has experience with dioxin sites and incineration. They bought a town of 800 people, demolished everything, hauled all the surface dirt to a site-built incinerator and over the course of a year incinerated everything and built a mound out of it. The locals were vocally aggrieved that the incineration was done near them. Its now a nice park for bicycle riding on flat land by a river.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  You refer to Times Beach, I assume? Note that "over the course of a year" commenced eight years after the disaster.
  - jws 4y ago
    Yes, for those unfamiliar, the city used to contract to have waste oil sprayed on the unpaved streets to keep the dust down. (Hush Children of Summer, it was the 1960s and 70s, it seemed like a good idea at the time.) In 1972 their contractor sprayed dioxin contaminated oil, possibly unbeknownst to him and the people who paid him to take the waste oil, but he wasn't being all that careful. Again its the 1970s, the EPA was two years old, the Crying Indian ad had just come out, trying to get people to carry a litter bag in their 8mpg car instead of chucking their beer cans and bottles out the window was the big thing. You wouldn't walk barefoot in a park because of all the pull tabs discarded on the ground. Dioxin is not known to cause problems in humans at this point, though animal studies suggest it could be a thing. No one has studied it. Meanwhile, 10 years pass, the EPA has connected the oil hauler to contamination problems in a number of sites. They take samples at Times Beach and the next day a 500 year flood covers the town. Dioxin is now listed as a human carcinogen, and the towns streets contain 50% of the dioxin contamination in the entire state. The EPA uses the newly passed federal Superfund to buy out all the residents. The town is sealed off from humans, but apparently that river can flood and carry things downstream. 10 more years pass… The EPA decides on incineration, build an incinerated, purify everything with fire. Problems solved. It's now 1997. 25 years from contamination to cleanup. Bonus Context for Diligent Readers: Low level dioxin exposure has since been concluded to not be a health hazard. No one in Times Beach showed signs of dioxin poisoning. The decision maker for destroying the town now says with current knowledge he would not have ordered that. There was actually no disaster.
roughly 4y ago
It's staggering that as the richest and most powerful nation ever to exist, we've put ourselves in a position where we can't safely transport chemicals, we won't provide comprehensive information about contamination to those affected, we either can't or aren't able to put any kind of comprehensive cleanup plan in place, and we can't find trustworthy parties to enact that cleanup. This isn't just a politics problem - the entire investor and management class at the railroads has been gambling with lives for years and the incinerator company's clearly doing the same thing, and we can't even agree as a country that that's bad, because we've bought into the free market philosophy so far that we don't have a civic language for saying "It's not OK that the railroad company management has poisoned an entire town because it helped their bottom line" or "the incinerator company that's also trying to poison an entire town is not within its rights to do so." The cult of the MBA has gutted this country and we've let it do so because we gave up any sense of actual civic or national pride or any sense of society or mutual obligation and can't get through a conversation about how we'd like society to be without someone saying it's going to cost money and is therefore a nonstarter or that we've got no right to tell them they can't render the land they happen to live on toxic for the next thousand years or wipe out a species they don't like.
- libraryatnight 4y ago
  I had a bit of a melt down yesterday while a company all hands meeting was taking place. This guy spoke for 15 minutes and said not one thing that wasn't just a business buzz word, there wasn't a bit of substance, and I realized and cried out to my wife "This fuckhead has no idea what's going on or what this company even does the only thing he knows is how to be an MBA" As soon as something swaps hands from the person or people who built it because they understood the problem it solved to people who only see it as an engine for profit it begins to die, and we've set up systems to make the death long and agonizing while the MBAs bleed it dry.
  - paiute 4y ago
    I felt the same as you when I was younger, but next time watch the faces of all the non-engineers in the room. It will start to make sense.
rdtsc 4y ago
> The new plan is “horrifying”, said Kyla Bennett, a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official now with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility But as a former EPA official, what does she suggest instead? Is there some other kind of chemical process to remove dioxins.
Pigalowda 4y ago
There’s only 4,700 people. If this is really an imminent threat just evacuate the people, create an exclusion zone, and bypass with new rail around the exclusion zone. The evacuated people can be compensated obviously. EPA can figure out the best way to tackle when exclusion is set up. Incineration sounds about as intelligent as shooting/bombing/nuking the dirt.
29athrowaway 4y ago
It is an evidence cover up, not an environmental fix.
resuresu 4y ago
Our infrastructure is crumbling beneath our feet and we are still giving israel and Ukraine billions per year. It’s absolutely sickening.
- nerpderp82 4y ago
  The Ukrainian proxy war has the WarCorps salivating over future profits. So far, Ukraine has been pocket change. How much did we spend on Afghanistan and Iraq? https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/ https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/ Somewhere around 8T. 800 James Webb telescopes!
Bloating 4y ago
My guess is the EPA is as complicit in the mess as the railroad. NS plays ball, takes the short-term heat, and they get to keep making profits as soon as the news cycle refocuses. Of course, this all {some president's} fault!
bhk 4y ago
> ... the EPA has resisted calls to test for [dioxins], and the agency removed from its website the results of its in-depth soil analyses, so it’s unclear which chemicals are in the soil. Menwhile, EPA Administrator Michael Regan says "trust the science" and drink the water.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- threatofrain 4y ago
  A video Ohio governor DeWine and EPA director Michael Regan attempting to drink water in East Palestine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvQck0yZO6k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvQck0yZO6k
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hulitu 4y ago
> Plan to incinerate soil from Ohio train derailment is ‘horrifying’, says expert Thank god it is not radioactive waste. /s

168 points by webmaven 4y ago

remote_phone 4y ago

[flagged]

jmclnx 4y ago
This seems to be par for the course for the "new" Ohio. Because there are/were some MAGA people in high office, I would not be surprise if the penalties for protesters are sever. Also being the new Ohio, maybe the State Gov has no issues ignoring EPA regs :(
- surge 4y ago
  EPA is a captured entity and not doing anything about it. They trusted Norfolk Southern's own tests rather than doing their own. They're following the corporate line on this and not doing anything about it, similar to everyone else involved whose in a position of power.
  - starkd 4y ago
    Same could be said for the FDA and CDC.
    - surge 4y ago
      It's a problem for most government institutions we rely on to protect us. There is a revolving door between them and the companies they're supposed to keep in check/regulate when it comes to those in high positions.
    - aintgonnatakeit 4y ago
      No, not really.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    This is how the EPA works and they do it that way because that is what the law says. EPA does not show up and test soil, they order responsible parties to test the soil.
    - surge 4y ago
      That's a major gap, there's no third party oversight, and they have all kinds of incentives to fudge the testing in their favor, including how they collect the samples, what's done in the labs, etc. If criminal investigative agencies have been caught faking DNA results in criminal cases (SBI lab in NC) because there was a conflict of interest between prosecuting cases and the defendent, you certainly can't trust corporations.
      - jeffbee 4y ago
        Address your complaints to the Congress. This is not something that is fixable with one weird trick.
      - ROTMetro 4y ago
        Conservatives have gutted enforcement agency regulations and replaced them with corporate self enforcement/self governance. Don't like it? Push for tougher corporate regulation and rewriting the statutes to give power back to the enforcement agencies (that were originally created as a response to events like this happening over and over and over).
    - oceanplexian 4y ago
      The EPA levies millions of dollars in fines against auto shops that do as much as list a few unapproved parts on eBay. They don’t investigate squat. The idea the EPA needs to follow some vetted and lengthy process with responsible experts is completely false. They have chosen to downplay this on purpose and the actions they are taking are are 100% political.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- dylan604 4y ago
  But businesses would not be able to survive if they were to behave. Having the people pay for a wee bit of clean up on the corps behalf is an acceptable trade off for the privilege of having the corps be profitable to bring us all of the things. You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs /s Yes, the sarcasm is dripping, but it is not far off from the beliefs of some legislative types. Whether they are MAGA or not is not relevant. We've seen this long before MAGA was a thing.
rootusrootus 4y ago
> no one is reporting on it detail Aside from this article and thousands of others like it? If this is the railroad and government's best effort at suppressing news, they're failing miserably.
dylan604 4y ago
Yeah, nobody is reporting on it so here we are talking about it on a techy forum. What does nobody mean to you? It has been in my news feeds every day since it happened, and has only increased as the severity has increased.
- voisin 4y ago
  Reporting doesn’t mean anyone is being called to account. There’s more action on banning TikTok than there is on actual accountability for the causes of this disaster.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    Is the disaster over? Are the investigations over? We don't even know what the total cost is going to be from this disaster, so how can we apply fines to the company that will cover those costs? Sure, we can start forcing heads to roll if that's what you want, but how many heads? Oh, right, investigations are not over yet. Knee jerk reactions can be just as dangerous
  - tapland 4y ago
    How would environmental activist or their actions being reported in media cause further action than it currently is, when it’s being reported and demonstrated against every day?
    - starkd 4y ago
      Environmental activists have always worked in partner with the media. Raising awareness about issues is how things get done. So, media coverage is a good metric to use for overall focus. When is the last time you heard of an environmental group addressing anything other than climate change? Like regular soot pollution or recycling? Hardly anything gets recycled.
rideontime 4y ago
> Where are all the environmental activists? I'm not an environmental activist myself, but the first group that came to my mind, Greenpeace, is already talking about it: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/ohio-train-wreck-could-be-bidens-chance-to-champion-chemical-safety/ https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/ohio-train-wreck-could-be-bid... > no one is reporting on it detail (sic) Besides the article you're commenting on?
- recuter 4y ago
  The Guardian is a British newspaper. Please ask around acquaintances who live in Ohio, friends of friends, how well informed they were/are about these events and at what point they got looped in. You can find that out first hand, I believe in you.
  - rideontime 4y ago
    I don't have acquaintance in Ohio, so it seems your belief was misplaced. I'm sorry to have disappointed you.
- starkd 4y ago
  The main environmental groups do seem to be all consumed with climate change issues. You do not any other kind of reporting in the press. And environmental activist have always driven change through the media, so it is a good metric to see where their focus is. Without raising consciousness about issues, little gets done. They don't even talk about recycling anymore.
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - smallerfish 4y ago
    https://www.kcci.com/article/erin-brockovich-returns-to-east-palestine/43178184 https://www.kcci.com/article/erin-brockovich-returns-to-east... Front page: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/ https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/
  - 4y ago
mc32 4y ago
The only outside activist that retains credibility and remains pretty steadfast in her mission is Erin Brockovich. All the others pick and choose their causes based on political opportunism. Indeed where are all the environmental organizations that would typically be pillorying Corp america or an uncaring government? Where are their vocal marches and demands for rectification and justice? It’s a lot of crickets… Grass roots may create enough noise by 1000 horns to force the hand of the big media and a foot-dragging, uninterested fed government.
- starkd 4y ago
  Because environmental orgs have been captured. They are more interested in CO2 and pushing people to buy corp's EV's as a cure-all for the planet.
- oceanplexian 4y ago
  > Indeed where are all the environmental organizations that would typically be pillorying Corp America or an uncaring government? They went to the same place that the activists who were protesting Big Pharma went in the last few years. Clearly on some kind of vacation.
theknocker 4y ago
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draw_down 4y ago
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happytoexplain 4y ago
The knee-jerk smearing of journalism has really reached a boil with this event. I have seen this "nobody is reporting on it" comment, without exception, in every comment section of the dozen stories I've seen on the topic, and I barely even read the news.
- starkd 4y ago
  Why would you read something that carries very little credibility? Can you blame anyone for having such a knee-jerk reaction?
  - halocupcake 4y ago
    Most major news outlets were reporting on the derailment shortly after, and yet I see this narrative continually being pushed that nobody reported on it. Yes, we should blame people for pushing such an easily debunked conspiracy theory. The reality is that we live in the social media era, and nobody knew or cared about the derailment until some people screamed about a black cloud on a viral TikTok clip. People should be held to a bare minimum expectation to inform themselves properly before acting as if our government and media are horrendously corrupt. Examples of articles on mainstream sites reporting on the derailment soon after the event (some articles showed up on the front pages as well): https://www.reuters.com/world/us/train-derailment-causes-massive-fire-ohio-local-media-2023-02-04/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/train-derailment-causes-mas... https://apnews.com/article/pennsylvania-ohio-evacuations-fires-5d399dc745f51ef746e22828083d8591 https://apnews.com/article/pennsylvania-ohio-evacuations-fir... https://www.foxnews.com/us/ohio-train-derailment-causes-massive-fire-forces-village-evacuation https://www.foxnews.com/us/ohio-train-derailment-causes-mass... https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/04/us/east-palestine-ohio-train-derailment-fire https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/04/us/east-palestine-ohio-tr...
  - timeon 4y ago
    > Can you blame anyone Yes I can. For moving the goal-post as well.
- dpkirchner 4y ago
  It's a conservative trope. They're hoping to paint us libruls opposed to chemical spills as hypocrites. They don't have a response do the specific points so they attack the reaction. It's lazy but that's conservatives (in the modern political sense of the term).
starkd 4y ago
The media is covering it, but it seems like concern for CO2 has crowded out some of the more mundane environmental issues. The business lobby have turned most of the environmentalists into paid coporate shills who think if only everyone buys an EV, the planet will "heal".
- deleted 4y ago
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throwaway05234 4y ago
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smallerfish 4y ago
> no one is reporting on it detail https://news.google.com/search?q=ohio%20train%20disaster&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen https://news.google.com/search?q=ohio%20train%20disaster&hl=...
maximinus_thrax 4y ago
> Where are all the environmental activists? I see this trope on most conservative news outlets and it's honestly outrageous. The answer is simple: the environmental activists have always been there, but not a lot of people listened, a lot of people actually mocked them, not a lot of news outlets told their story and finally, not enough money went into PACs to actually make a difference. It is indeed sickening. Maybe in the future, we won't be voting for freedom loving regulation hating corrupt morons. https://peoplesworld.org/article/no-more-bomb-trains-environmental-groups-sue-over-weak-regulations/ https://peoplesworld.org/article/no-more-bomb-trains-environ...
renewiltord 4y ago
Classic flamebait lol. Hahaha love it.
ROTMetro 4y ago
Have you ever heard the saying 'be the change you want'? You know there aren't like only 30 environmental activist permits given out in the world, right? There might not even be a permitting process, you can start today. Or do you mean you want someone else doing hard work with no reward on a subject that is currently personal to you? Ah yeah, the 1960s are over friend. But if you regularly and consistently have donated to environmental orgs in the past give them a call, they do listen to people in their movements.
gamblor956 4y ago
This accident was reported within minutes of it happening, at least on NBC News. For the several days, it dominated coverage of CNN and Fox News. Fox News is currently spending several hours each day covering this train crash. The LAT, WaPo, NYT, Chicago Tribune, and Cleveland Plains-Dealer have all discussed the crash and the toxicity of the chemicals involved and their potential effects on humans and the local environment. What sort of "news suppression" do you think is going on?
anonymouskimmer 4y ago
> Where are all the environmental activists? You didn't hear that Erin Brockovich is on it? The media has been reporting about her, specifically, for well over a week. And she's not the only one talking about it, and more importantly holding town hall events with East Palestine residents: https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/special-reports/train-derailment/ohio-train-derailment-east-palestine-town-hall-erin-brockovich/95-c1c76f98-e1bf-41f0-8552-7b69bff5206b https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/special-reports/train-dera...

recuter 4y ago

If you would like a dollop of confidence for this situation know that competent people are taking care of it: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/m6DJwGPQJVU https://www.youtube.com/shorts/m6DJwGPQJVU

ericpauley 4y ago
Maybe it’s just packet loss from a live recording, but this video just reeks of deep fake.
- recuter 4y ago
  Sometimes life is stranger than fiction. The secretary of transportation really did initially respond to this incident, that was getting "a lot of attention" with, exact quote: "Look, rail safety is something that has evolved a lot over the years, but there's clearly more that needs to be done because while this horrible situation has gotten a particularly high amount of attention, there are roughly 1,000 cases a year of a train derailing," Look it up from any source that pleases you, this is an unedited clip. I searched for "pete buttigieg ohio train" on youtube and that was the top result. I recall seeing it about a week ago and somewhat not being able to believe it myself at the time. Alas. I hope calling "deep fake" on things that are a bummer won't become a thing.
  - buu700 4y ago
    They aren't calling into question the clip's credibility; they're saying its potato-quality audio literally sounds like a deep fake.
    - recuter 4y ago
      Is that what he was saying? How do you know btw? I read it differently, my mistake. - This isn't happening - It isn't a big deal it happens all the time - He probably didn't say that it isn't a big deal that happens all the time, it reeks of a deep fake - He didn't say it is a deep fake, just that it reeks like one, but isn't

zug_zug 4y ago

What I would like to hear from our government is a clear plan backed by dozens of scientists along the lines of: - soil testing procedures for the next X years where the test-results will be published publicly with no redactions, - downstream water tests to the same effect for whichever news sets of chemicals are necessary (water tests usually only test for 8-10 chemicals) for the next X years. - Cancer rate statistics for the next X years (many of these cancers take over a decade to show), perhaps people in the area should get free screenings - full post-moterm on procedure that addresses all the concerns around skipped safety checks - A publicly available "Whistle-blowing channel" for any rail workers asked to skip safety checks where they can report their employer anonymously and earn rewards up to $1,000,000 for deliberately violating safety rules (a recording/video of a manager doing so would be conclusive proof).

whitemary 4y ago
If you want the US government to do something, you need to be clear about how the politicians and/or their capital-owning companions (e.g. the railroads) will profit from your plan.
- photonbeam 4y ago
  let the lawmakers get a percentage of the whistleblower payouts /s
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  We bring out the guillotines and say if they do something they can profit their life.
tejohnso 4y ago
Nice plan. Typically what we get is a whole bunch of uncertainty and half measures. Then when an individual starts questioning or accusing, they're labelled as a conspiracy theorist. They may also be accused of having some strong political affiliations that are considered to be reprehensible.
ROTMetro 4y ago

jeffbee 4y ago

Incineration is how you get rid of dioxins in soil. It's the only way! But mostly I am baffled by the public response to this incident. The thing about America is there are zillions of highly polluted sites in this country, we make more of them all the time, it takes us either decades or forever to clean them up, dioxins are a very common contaminant, and there are already hundreds of communities waiting in line for EPA actions to clean them up. So the idea that EPA actions will promptly remediate this site is somewhat ridiculous. If there are high levels of dioxins, and so far there is no evidence of that, relocating the people out of this town is the only action that can be timely taken. Example: a site contaminated by high levels of vinyl chloride, the same junk that was spilled in Ohio, in the center of Oakland, California, has been polluted since 1960, identified since 1995, on the "national priorities list" i.e. Superfund, but no meaningful remediation has taken place and no responsible party has even been nominated yet.

slackdog 4y ago
> But mostly I am baffled by the public response to this incident. You saw the smoke column, yes? It looked like a mushroom cloud. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out why people have gotten spooked.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Baffled == I am once again disappointed in the typical American's habit of ignoring systemic problems until they arrive literally in their own backyards.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    Do you donate to any cleanup sites? Do you write your congress critters about them? Maybe you do and you are very engaged in pollution sites.. but I would be surprised. Everyone responds to local events more than remote ones. I don't care if the other side of the US has wildfires nearly as much as when the wildfires are close enough for me to smell them. People are self interested.

slackdog 4y ago

On one hand, incineration is the only reasonable method of destroying these kind of compounds. Properly run incineration plants burn the waste so hot that everything is atomized which is exactly what you want. Break the molecular bonds to break down those toxic compounds. On the other hand, I understand the negative reactions. Burning trash has never seemed pleasant, and in this case particularly I can see how it might sound to a person in that community; the government again trying to 'solve' the problem by lighting it on fire. Is that their solution to everything? Bridge is in disrepair? Incinerate the bridge. Bear on the loose? Incinerate the bear. An orphan got lost in the park? Incinerate the orphan. Is fire their solution to everything? Well in this case, fire really is the solution. But public perception is a reality that needs to be considered. Anyway, this whole affair is being made much worse by politicians listening to the experts and being tone deaf to public perception. A little bit more performative care would go a long way to making the public feel as though their problems aren't being brushed under the rug. Biden should have visited that town weeks ago.

anonymousab 4y ago
> Break the molecular bonds to break down those toxic compounds. The problem is that there is less than zero trust that the government will do anything other than the equivalent of piling it in the middle of the city and chucking a match at it. This situation is the result of myriad failures ranging from complex to "basic safety", a result of greed, and there's zero reason to assume the followup response will be any different. Benefit of the doubt is hard-earned and easily lost.
- gruez 4y ago
  >The problem is that there is less than zero trust that the government will do anything other than the equivalent of piling it in the middle of the city and chucking a match at it. This situation is the result of myriad failures ranging from complex to "basic safety", a result of greed, and there's zero reason to assume the followup response will be any different. Can't you make this argument for any sort of cleanup effort? If so, what should we do? Not do any sort of cleanup?

corbulo 4y ago

[flagged]

jws 4y ago

Burning random manufactured stuff makes dioxins. It would be astonishing if there weren't dioxins in the soil before the accident and some more after it. This being the rural United States, burn barrels for household waste were a thing for most of a century and spewed dioxin and a lot of other stuff all over the place. You can find lots of studies for background levels of dioxin. It isn't a binary "Is there dioxin?" There certainly is. The question is, is it elevated above background? Is it elevated about established safe levels? If you run it through that nearby incinerator, will the dispersed plume raise land above acceptable levels? The EPA has experience with dioxin sites and incineration. They bought a town of 800 people, demolished everything, hauled all the surface dirt to a site-built incinerator and over the course of a year incinerated everything and built a mound out of it. The locals were vocally aggrieved that the incineration was done near them. Its now a nice park for bicycle riding on flat land by a river.

jeffbee 4y ago
You refer to Times Beach, I assume? Note that "over the course of a year" commenced eight years after the disaster.
- jws 4y ago
  Yes, for those unfamiliar, the city used to contract to have waste oil sprayed on the unpaved streets to keep the dust down. (Hush Children of Summer, it was the 1960s and 70s, it seemed like a good idea at the time.) In 1972 their contractor sprayed dioxin contaminated oil, possibly unbeknownst to him and the people who paid him to take the waste oil, but he wasn't being all that careful. Again its the 1970s, the EPA was two years old, the Crying Indian ad had just come out, trying to get people to carry a litter bag in their 8mpg car instead of chucking their beer cans and bottles out the window was the big thing. You wouldn't walk barefoot in a park because of all the pull tabs discarded on the ground. Dioxin is not known to cause problems in humans at this point, though animal studies suggest it could be a thing. No one has studied it. Meanwhile, 10 years pass, the EPA has connected the oil hauler to contamination problems in a number of sites. They take samples at Times Beach and the next day a 500 year flood covers the town. Dioxin is now listed as a human carcinogen, and the towns streets contain 50% of the dioxin contamination in the entire state. The EPA uses the newly passed federal Superfund to buy out all the residents. The town is sealed off from humans, but apparently that river can flood and carry things downstream. 10 more years pass… The EPA decides on incineration, build an incinerated, purify everything with fire. Problems solved. It's now 1997. 25 years from contamination to cleanup. Bonus Context for Diligent Readers: Low level dioxin exposure has since been concluded to not be a health hazard. No one in Times Beach showed signs of dioxin poisoning. The decision maker for destroying the town now says with current knowledge he would not have ordered that. There was actually no disaster.

roughly 4y ago

It's staggering that as the richest and most powerful nation ever to exist, we've put ourselves in a position where we can't safely transport chemicals, we won't provide comprehensive information about contamination to those affected, we either can't or aren't able to put any kind of comprehensive cleanup plan in place, and we can't find trustworthy parties to enact that cleanup. This isn't just a politics problem - the entire investor and management class at the railroads has been gambling with lives for years and the incinerator company's clearly doing the same thing, and we can't even agree as a country that that's bad, because we've bought into the free market philosophy so far that we don't have a civic language for saying "It's not OK that the railroad company management has poisoned an entire town because it helped their bottom line" or "the incinerator company that's also trying to poison an entire town is not within its rights to do so." The cult of the MBA has gutted this country and we've let it do so because we gave up any sense of actual civic or national pride or any sense of society or mutual obligation and can't get through a conversation about how we'd like society to be without someone saying it's going to cost money and is therefore a nonstarter or that we've got no right to tell them they can't render the land they happen to live on toxic for the next thousand years or wipe out a species they don't like.

libraryatnight 4y ago
I had a bit of a melt down yesterday while a company all hands meeting was taking place. This guy spoke for 15 minutes and said not one thing that wasn't just a business buzz word, there wasn't a bit of substance, and I realized and cried out to my wife "This fuckhead has no idea what's going on or what this company even does the only thing he knows is how to be an MBA" As soon as something swaps hands from the person or people who built it because they understood the problem it solved to people who only see it as an engine for profit it begins to die, and we've set up systems to make the death long and agonizing while the MBAs bleed it dry.
- paiute 4y ago
  I felt the same as you when I was younger, but next time watch the faces of all the non-engineers in the room. It will start to make sense.

rdtsc 4y ago

> The new plan is “horrifying”, said Kyla Bennett, a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official now with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility But as a former EPA official, what does she suggest instead? Is there some other kind of chemical process to remove dioxins.

Pigalowda 4y ago

There’s only 4,700 people. If this is really an imminent threat just evacuate the people, create an exclusion zone, and bypass with new rail around the exclusion zone. The evacuated people can be compensated obviously. EPA can figure out the best way to tackle when exclusion is set up. Incineration sounds about as intelligent as shooting/bombing/nuking the dirt.

29athrowaway 4y ago

It is an evidence cover up, not an environmental fix.

resuresu 4y ago

Our infrastructure is crumbling beneath our feet and we are still giving israel and Ukraine billions per year. It’s absolutely sickening.

nerpderp82 4y ago
The Ukrainian proxy war has the WarCorps salivating over future profits. So far, Ukraine has been pocket change. How much did we spend on Afghanistan and Iraq? https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/ https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/ Somewhere around 8T. 800 James Webb telescopes!

Bloating 4y ago

My guess is the EPA is as complicit in the mess as the railroad. NS plays ball, takes the short-term heat, and they get to keep making profits as soon as the news cycle refocuses. Of course, this all {some president's} fault!

bhk 4y ago

> ... the EPA has resisted calls to test for [dioxins], and the agency removed from its website the results of its in-depth soil analyses, so it’s unclear which chemicals are in the soil. Menwhile, EPA Administrator Michael Regan says "trust the science" and drink the water.

deleted 4y ago
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threatofrain 4y ago
A video Ohio governor DeWine and EPA director Michael Regan attempting to drink water in East Palestine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvQck0yZO6k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvQck0yZO6k

deleted 4y ago

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hulitu 4y ago

> Plan to incinerate soil from Ohio train derailment is ‘horrifying’, says expert Thank god it is not radioactive waste. /s