As pollution from Ohio train wreck heads downstream, water utilities assure safety – St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The Feb. 3 disaster, involving 53 cars of a Norfolk Southern freight train, triggered evacuations for the small Ohio town, as significant amounts of vinyl chloride and other contaminants were burnt into the air or spilled into local waterways.

Since then, state authorities have assured East Palestine residents that it’s safe to return to their homes. Several lawsuits have already been filed by residents over the crash, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued a notice of potential liability to Norfolk Southern, which could hold the rail company responsible for cleanup costs.

The disaster has sent local officials throughout the Ohio River basin scrambling to answer public concerns. More than a week later, many are issuing statements about the safety of drinking water drawn from the river. Some communities are switching to alternative water sources.

Multiple water utility officials said this week that the spill does not pose a risk to drinking water and public health. The chemicals are degrading as they move downstream, and anything left in source water for cities like Cincinnati and Louisville, Kentucky, can be removed by existing filtration systems, such as conventional chlorine or activated carbon, according to multiple utilities.

The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission is tracking the chemicals. Officials shared preliminary sampling data, but it had not yet gone through the commission’s routine quality checks.

Those preliminary numbers confirm official statements that levels of butyl acrylate are hundreds of times lower than federal thresholds from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

The commission is working to vet the numbers and provide them to the public as soon as possible, according to Richard Harrison, the sanitation commission’s executive director and chief engineer.

“It’s not prudent to give out approximate information,” he said.

Water utilities up and down the Ohio have used this upstream sampling data to make their individual public health decisions. And despite the low concentrations, monitoring will continue.

“We want the value to always be zero,” Harrison said. “That’s why we’re working so hard on this.”

Tracking the Ohio chemical spill

The main contaminant of concern in water, according to regional officials, is butyl acrylate, which is not classified as a carcinogen. Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission monitoring suggests the spill on Thursday was approaching Huntington, West Virginia.

The plume was traveling along the river at about one mile per hour, Harrison said, meaning it would take days to reach Cincinnati and longer to reach Louisville. Thursday’s forecasted rainfall could accelerate the flow, but will also help dilute chemical concentrations.

Butyl acrylate is insoluble and tends to float on the surface of the river, and the river’s length and slow flow provide time for the chemical to degrade, according to Louisville Water Co.

Harrison said he wouldn’t be surprised if the spill was diluted beyond detection by the time it reached Kentucky. Similarly, Chris Bobay, water quality manager for the utility, said he didn’t expect to see the chemicals in Louisville.

“Our best friend is the river itself,” Bobay said last week. “It’s a pretty thriving ecosystem and handles its own problems.”

Utilities respond downstream

Ahead of the spill’s arrival, West Virginia American Water temporarily switched water supplies for Huntington, West Virginia, from the Ohio River to the Guyandotte River, as a “precautionary measure,” according to the utility.

Small and mid-sized water systems are also preparing based on updates from the Ohio River sanitation commission. Ashland, Kentucky, is a town of more than 20,000, just downstream from Huntington. Its water system operates the first Kentucky intake from the Ohio River.

The system’s operators plan to draw from a nearby reservoir while the spill passes by, Mark Hall, Ashland’s director of utilities, said Wednesday. The spill was expected to reach Ashland by Friday, according to the sanitation commission, but that was before the rain accelerated flow and dilution.

Further downstream, water utilities in Cincinnati and Louisville aren’t expecting any trouble in treating the chemicals, when and if they make it there. Bobay said scientists at the Louisville Water Co. are researching the best ways to remove the contaminants, and are confident that existing treatments will be sufficient.

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management issued a statement saying that if chemicals reach the state, utilities “may close their intakes to allow the majority of the chemical to pass,” and that “precautionary treatment strategies may also be used.”

Meanwhile, the community in East Palestine is working to recover from the disaster. The EPA continues to test the air and water for contaminants, and has screened hundreds of homes for chemicals.

Norfolk Southern is creating a $1 million fund as part of its recovery in East Palestine, the company announced Tuesday, and has been distributing bottled water, though the town’s municipal water was declared safe to drink as of Wednesday afternoon.

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and the Society of Environmental Journalists, funded by the Walton Family Foundation.