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A video claiming to show the extent of water contamination in ohio The aftermath of the East Palestine train derailment has garnered over 11 million views on social media.
A train operated by the Norfolk Southern Transport Company derailed close to the city, carrying about 150 cars, 20 of which contained hazardous materials. newsweek,
The footage was posted by Nick Sorter on 16 February and shows a woman tossing a log into the water of a creek in the vicinity of East Palestine, soon before colorful patterns appear on the surface. The people shown in the footage suggest that the logs brought chemicals as they sat on the riverbank.
The footage prompted a debate on social media about the safety of the water in the area after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared it safe.
“Even more proof that the EPA is lying to the people of East Palestine. This water is insanely contaminated,” Mr. Sorter wrote,
In a February 15 statement issued by Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine, officials said that “the results of the new water tests have been returned to the Ohio EPA. These results indicate that water coming into East Palestine’s municipal water system No contaminants have been detected in the raw water of five wells.
“The combined, treated water test results from all five wells also did not detect any contaminants associated with the derailment. With the results of these tests, the Ohio EPA is confident that the municipal water is safe to drink,” he added. Said.
On Friday, Mr DeWine responded to another viral video, this one shared by Senator JD Vance, an Ohio Republican, which also showed a so-called “chemical rainbow” in a water stream in East Palestine.
The February 16 video has been viewed over 4.7 million times on Twitter.
“I know there has been some video played on TV broadcasting the visible contamination in one of the local waterways,” Mr DeWine said on Friday. According to Fox News. “A section of Sulfur Run that is very close to the crash site remains seriously contaminated. We knew it. We know it. It’s going to take a while to fix.”
Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Said that “in anticipation of the rainfall, emergency response teams have drawn up plans to prevent pollutants that have not yet derailed from washing into local waterways during the storm”.
The agency said the Sulfur Run River to the west of the accident site and to the east of the accident site has been dammed, creating an empty channel between the two dams in the area of the accident.
(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
“Teams are pumping clear Gulf water from the point at the East Dam, diverting it away from the dry creek bed area, and releasing it back into Sulfur Run at the West Dam. allows it to bypass and prevent clean creek water from picking up contaminants and carrying them into other waterways,” the state EPA said. “As it pertains to precipitation, this process will treat any contaminated rainwater runoff will also drain into the dry drain bed where it will be removed and treated.”
“It’s going to take some time to treat the water in the direct area of the peel, just like it’s going to take some time to deal with the dirt,” Mr Devine said.
“It is not an easy process. “We are encouraging people to avoid that area.”
“There are dead worms and dead fish all over the water,” Mr Vance said in the footage.
Running a stick along the bottom of the stream, he noted that chemicals were “leaking out of the ground”.
“It’s disgusting,” he said.
Mr. DeWine’s press secretary, Dan Tierney, told Independent That “the senator’s video is from our Tuesday press conference where we discussed that this specific section is still contaminated. It is important that the Section be reformed as quickly as possible, and we agree with public officials like Senators who call for speedy reform.
“Out of an abundance of caution,” Mr. DeWine said of using bottled water with private wells.
(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
A February 15 statement from Ohio officials said, “East Palestine’s municipal water system, which provides drinking water for most of the area’s residents, draws water from five wells located approximately 100 feet from the site of the derailment.” Located a mile away.” “The municipal wells are at least 56 feet below the surface and covered with a solid steel casing that protects the water from contamination. Before making drinking water available to the public, the water from these five wells is mixed and treated in a water treatment plant.
“While it was unlikely that any contaminants entered wells supplying municipal water, the Ohio EPA tested combined, treated water shortly after the derailment. Those tests showed no contamination,” the release said.
(Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)
Mr. Sortor criticized Mr. Devine and the EPA on Friday, Tweet That “people in East Palestine are literally showering with water bottles because of your ineptitude. Fix this mess. You’ve done nothing but destroy public confidence in their government.”
He accused them of “trying to run away from this problem”, but said that “if we keep up the pressure, the people of East Palestine will win this fight”.
He claimed that the video exposed the EPA’s “blatant lies about water quality” and that the footage “really woke up a lot of people, and I’m very proud of that. I truly believe that without Citizen journalists are using the new Twitter [mainstream media] Continues to ignore this story. However, we cannot give up. Because as soon as we do that, the people of East Palestine will be thrown out of the way, and I will not let that happen.”
In an update released by the governor’s office on the afternoon of February 16, officials said the governor has sent a Letter “Requesting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to immediately dispatch medical experts to East Palestine to evaluate and counsel community members who have questions and/or are experiencing symptoms”.
Independent Mr. Sortor has contacted Norfolk Southern and the Ohio EPA for comment.