A study published Wednesday detailed the fallout from the chemical fire that occurred when a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio on February 3, 2023. The research shows a massive geographic area throughout the North East U.S. that was contaminated with chemicals produced by the burning of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polyvinyl acetate (PVA) that mixed together in the accident, then illegally lit on fire by the fire department.
“Our measurements revealed a large areal impact from the Midwest through the Northeast and likely Canada, and perhaps as far south as North Carolina (portions of 16 states, 1.4 million km2),” the study said in the ‘Abstract’ section.
The researchers discussed the chemicals they were analyzing in their study. While the list may not be all-encompassing, it gives a look at where the fallout ended up.
“Observations showed the expected high chloride concentrations, but also unexpectedly high pH (basic) and exceptionally elevated levels of base cations exceeding 99th percentiles versus the historic record,” the study said in the ‘Abstract’ section.
Interestingly, the study did not mention the extremely carcinogenic dioxin chemical, something produced by burning chlorinated compounds, as is what happened in the train fire and admitted by the EPA to have been in the fallout.
This omission may be due to the difficulty of testing methods for dioxins.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ad52ac
“The cargo carried by the involved railroad cars included several volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including vinyl chloride, 2-butoxyethanol, 2-ethylhexyl acrylate, etc.,” the study said in the ‘Introduction’ section.
The researchers used the potential of hydrogen (pH) levels to analyze chemical distribution.
There were other chemicals analyzed as well.
“The same analysis was conducted for chloride ion concentrations (figures 2(C) and (D)). A similar pattern of exceptionally high chloride values is evident in the data. Values above the 90th historic percentile are frequent, with most from sites in the Northeast, but also Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin being historically very high. More normal values occur along the East Coast and into the southern states. From these two maps, it is very clear that extreme concentrations of multiple pollutants were present over a widespread area during the days after the accident, and resulted in enhanced deposition of these pollutants to aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, including the Lakes Michigan, Erie, Ontario, and likely Huron and Superior,” the study said in the ‘Introduction’ section. “This pattern of extreme concentration percentiles is also evident for the base cations, sodium, potassium, and calcium (Northeast in figure 3, and East in figures S3–S11). However, in-contrast, the percentiles for sulfate and nitrate were not as extreme as those of pH, chloride, and the base cations. The sulfate and nitrate values were high, but not as regionally consistent as the other compounds. For ammonium, very high concentrations were measured near the accident location and into New York. It is important to note that both sulfate and nitrate are secondary pollutants, or requiring atmospheric reactions from precursor gases, unlike the other pollutants.”
Wind patterns were also analyzed to map out the spread.
“First, the largest impact is seen at our NTN sites along the Canadian/New York border where precipitation (figures 1 and S2) occurred repeatedly from 3 February to 7 February. These sites were downwind of East Palestine during this period, and follow the predicted forward trajectories (figures 4 and S12(a)–(c)). Second, with the passage of the cold front on 5 February, air moved well into the southern US, to Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. The rain produced by the frontal passage likely then washed accident emissions out of the atmosphere at some of these sites,” the study said in the ‘Introduction’ section.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ad52ac
The researchers were able to conclude with a map that clearly outlines the area of contamination.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ad52ac
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