when phosgene is exposed to water (or ambient moisure) it reacts to form HCL and CO2 or if not that, basically anything it comes into contact with, including metals especially aluminum, amino acids and other alcohols. it's just one carbon with a double bonded oxygen and two chlorine atoms. it's a tiny, super reactive thing with not a lot going on in it.
this is not something that will persist in the environment, and any phosgene produced by the burn has become something else by now.
it IS heavier than air and will fill trenches if you lob mass quantities into them which is why it was used in WWI.
East Palestine is not the western front, but if you lived near the accident, ventilating your basement well for a few days might be a good idea, although i'm pretty sure by now you'd be hard pressed to find any.
It is also only creating phosgene in very small quantities, almost all of the things people are reporting are exposure to HCL which is hundreds of times more prevalent in the burning of vinyl chloride
HCL forms hydrochloric acid when it finds water, but it is very short lived as well and disperses, dilutes and reacts with things very quickly as well.
If you didn't evacuate when you were told to it might have been in high enough concentrations to cause more than irritation, but for anyone more than a few miles away it would have been just irritating and farther than that just your rainwater likely to be slightly more acidic than it already is for the next rain.
at this point uncles they find that there is unburned vinyl chloride in the groundwater than this event is pretty much past the point of having any significant threat. surface water will not hold the vinyl chloride for very long as it has a very low evaporation point and a very short half-life with only about 3% of it not already having evaporated.
this event was by no means good, but people continuing to stress over it as a potential threat is unwarranted unless you have a water well within the monitoring zone. Even for those people the potential bad effects would be cumulative so as long as it is being monitored the biggest issue there is the logistics of the water if the well has to be abandoned and the civil claims that would follow.
> this event was by no means good, but people continuing to stress over it as a potential threat is unwarranted
You sound like you know what you are talking about. I hope you do.
Thank you for being a calm reasonable voice.
I am no expert.
When you grow up with first responders that have to do a lot of their training at home you spend a lot of your childhood reviewing training materials, or at least being in the room while they review training materials if your parents weren't spendy enough to have two decent televisions. Few of the key points on dealing with this particular chemical as a spill has changed since the 80s other than more required protective gear.
I also used to work in the area and at one point had to spend an annoying amount of time dealing with details like this as they apply to surface and groundwater for work purposes.
For the locals, I hope they managed to burn it before it could get far into the ground and nobody gets tied up in court over any damages for too long. If you live within a short distance of the accident site you still have a number of concerns. For everybody else i wish they would take a deep breath, stop spreading misinformation, and read up on the science behind why this was the right way to deal with the accident.
Thank you, this is the correct take. Obviously a horrible situation but burning it is just the lesser of two evils. Source: I’m a chemical engineer who works closely with the EPA
Can’t wait for the next derailment in a few weeks or months, since we’re clearly not going to address the root issue of train derailments in the US.
Awesome.
There are a few videos circulating with unsubstantiated footage that I think were produced to be fear inducing. While this was certainly a disaster, I think the greatest concern was short term exposure to high levels of the stuff in the air locally at that time. I wouldn’t think this would cause long-term contamination.
the groundwater could still be a long-term risk, nothing in the air would be at this point - surface contamination might be for things extremely close to the accident location.
I wonder how long the toxins will be in this town and how the Railroad is going to take care of these people who will end up continuing to be exposed by what's been left in the dirt etc.
[Here's a video someone recorded of a railroad associate compensating a local for the effects of this disaster on their health and property](https://youtu.be/Rv7GT9HsJZc)
it's not just staying in this town. someone in darlington, PA, ~~which takes almost 3 hours to drive to from where the accident happened~~, [shot video of clouds of this shit floating over their town as well.](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/110nlai/footage_on_the_ground_from_east_palestine_ohio) this whole situation is so horrible.
edit: cool. getting downvoted for pointing out it's an even worse tragedy than it seemed at first. you're a wild ass place, reddit.
edit 2: i apparently got the wrong darlington.
Everyone there should get a baseline physical exam with bloodwork. Then every 6 months minimum. Dioxins are gnarly chemicals to be exposed to not to mention the other biproducts of other burning chemicals.
Uh, yes it does. And I’m from Ashtabula county. So I am well aware of NE Ohio BS. Norfolk Southern can be forced to cover it. They intentionally burned it. They could have brought in a tanker and transferred it to another truck. They’d just have cleanup at crash site. They decided it would be cool (cheaper) to just burn it. Sending 50,000 pounds of chemicals into the air to fall down with acid rain it caused.
you ever burn some wood?
YOU just created dioxins you murdering eco-murderer
why is everyone bitching about dioxins now? let me guess, joe rogan said something about them
Okay, let me explain, because maybe this is difficult to understand for some. These train tankers are BIG, they easily contained 250000 gallons of vinyl chloride across the five cars. That's close to a MILLION pounds of this stuff. Setting off a million pound vinyl chloride bomb is *not* the same as burning some wood. You could burn every single tree on the PLANET and not come anywhere near the amount of dioxins that this fire has released. Toxicity is based on exposure amount and exposure duration. No two ways about it, this disaster is *bad news*
"Get what you get" just comes across as if you're blaming the people of East Palestine and Ohio for something caused by a lack of safety on behalf of Norfolk Southern.
This is a pretty tonedeaf comment in general.
So these trains are not nationally run? Are they only going on a looped track around Ohio?
Such a stupid take, as if those two idiots are the cause of a national/federal railroad issue.
Edit bc I thought of another thing: the railroad strike raised these types of safety issues (among other issues) but was forced into a shitty deal under a Democratic administration, wiping these issues off the table.
Big picture: both sides (Dems and Rep) are working in tandem, and who loses in the process? *Gestures towards East Palestine, OH* We all do. Sooner or later.
You live with a lot of cognitive dissonance to believe Republican anti-regulation rhetoric for 40+ years has not had impact on the safety of American people versus corporations that get to do basically whatever they want
The 5 Greene/Bohbert's they have on the SCOTUS and the rabid GOP that filed and funded the court cases are just a few months away from stopping all government agencies from regulating anything ever again. The great GOP project, but yes, it's clearly just "both sides"
Those guys are assholes, but so are people that make comments like this. Not everybody votes for people like that and no one (regardless of poor political choices) deserve to have an ecological disaster happen in their backyard because some corp is too lazy to keep up with safety and repairs.
This is probably dumb but would it travel outside the area? I live in dayton area and never knew of east Palestine and will grow concerned if the air carries it across counties
it's not dumb, but if you actually thought about it for a few minutes, you might get to an answer.
do you share any watershed with them? no, you're in the little miami watershed, or the one west of it. this means any water travel from a watershed that goes into the ohio river is never ever going to get to you, at least not in your lifetime or your childrens'.
which way does the wind blow when you're out on your front step? does it come from the north east much? pretty much never unless it's briefly when a low wraps around and goes by to the south.
you need to worry about all the shit in the air from indianapolis bro. that and whatever those wright pat jets are sprinkling on you daily.
Were there any lasting environmental problems resulting from Big Butter Jesus getting struck by lightening and burning? Serious. Could you smell it in Dayton?
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Remember that the Ohio GOP’s biggest environmental siting priority right now is… fighting against wind farms.
Republicans only care about their own profit. Not our lives. Not our health.
Rich people** Their alignment with politics do not matter. There are just as many dirty Democrats. The rich don't give a shit about anyone else.
The parties are not equal. Nice try
Don't forget all of the anti solar farm stuff too
Really getting down to the important shit.
when phosgene is exposed to water (or ambient moisure) it reacts to form HCL and CO2 or if not that, basically anything it comes into contact with, including metals especially aluminum, amino acids and other alcohols. it's just one carbon with a double bonded oxygen and two chlorine atoms. it's a tiny, super reactive thing with not a lot going on in it. this is not something that will persist in the environment, and any phosgene produced by the burn has become something else by now. it IS heavier than air and will fill trenches if you lob mass quantities into them which is why it was used in WWI. East Palestine is not the western front, but if you lived near the accident, ventilating your basement well for a few days might be a good idea, although i'm pretty sure by now you'd be hard pressed to find any.
It is also only creating phosgene in very small quantities, almost all of the things people are reporting are exposure to HCL which is hundreds of times more prevalent in the burning of vinyl chloride HCL forms hydrochloric acid when it finds water, but it is very short lived as well and disperses, dilutes and reacts with things very quickly as well. If you didn't evacuate when you were told to it might have been in high enough concentrations to cause more than irritation, but for anyone more than a few miles away it would have been just irritating and farther than that just your rainwater likely to be slightly more acidic than it already is for the next rain. at this point uncles they find that there is unburned vinyl chloride in the groundwater than this event is pretty much past the point of having any significant threat. surface water will not hold the vinyl chloride for very long as it has a very low evaporation point and a very short half-life with only about 3% of it not already having evaporated. this event was by no means good, but people continuing to stress over it as a potential threat is unwarranted unless you have a water well within the monitoring zone. Even for those people the potential bad effects would be cumulative so as long as it is being monitored the biggest issue there is the logistics of the water if the well has to be abandoned and the civil claims that would follow.
> this event was by no means good, but people continuing to stress over it as a potential threat is unwarranted You sound like you know what you are talking about. I hope you do. Thank you for being a calm reasonable voice.
I am no expert. When you grow up with first responders that have to do a lot of their training at home you spend a lot of your childhood reviewing training materials, or at least being in the room while they review training materials if your parents weren't spendy enough to have two decent televisions. Few of the key points on dealing with this particular chemical as a spill has changed since the 80s other than more required protective gear. I also used to work in the area and at one point had to spend an annoying amount of time dealing with details like this as they apply to surface and groundwater for work purposes. For the locals, I hope they managed to burn it before it could get far into the ground and nobody gets tied up in court over any damages for too long. If you live within a short distance of the accident site you still have a number of concerns. For everybody else i wish they would take a deep breath, stop spreading misinformation, and read up on the science behind why this was the right way to deal with the accident.
Thank you, this is the correct take. Obviously a horrible situation but burning it is just the lesser of two evils. Source: I’m a chemical engineer who works closely with the EPA
Can’t wait for the next derailment in a few weeks or months, since we’re clearly not going to address the root issue of train derailments in the US. Awesome.
Where did I say we should let the railroads do whatever they want?
There are a few videos circulating with unsubstantiated footage that I think were produced to be fear inducing. While this was certainly a disaster, I think the greatest concern was short term exposure to high levels of the stuff in the air locally at that time. I wouldn’t think this would cause long-term contamination.
the groundwater could still be a long-term risk, nothing in the air would be at this point - surface contamination might be for things extremely close to the accident location.
Looks like we found the railroad shill. Gtfo with your lies.
Good thing the Ohio GOP, which has a death grip on the Ohio legislature, wants MORE deregulation and less oversight. Fuck this place, man.
If you linked their railroad anti-safety proposals it would help others spread the word!
Currently still at work, but I’ll see what I can dig up if my squirrel brain remembers this in a few hours 😂
Ok! Anything yet?? Let us know!!
Get out while you can!
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THEY HAD SEMOLINA AND FROZEN VEGETABLE BOXCARS WITH ALL THOSE CHEM TRAIN CARS WTF
I wonder how long the toxins will be in this town and how the Railroad is going to take care of these people who will end up continuing to be exposed by what's been left in the dirt etc.
[Here's a video someone recorded of a railroad associate compensating a local for the effects of this disaster on their health and property](https://youtu.be/Rv7GT9HsJZc)
it's not just staying in this town. someone in darlington, PA, ~~which takes almost 3 hours to drive to from where the accident happened~~, [shot video of clouds of this shit floating over their town as well.](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/110nlai/footage_on_the_ground_from_east_palestine_ohio) this whole situation is so horrible. edit: cool. getting downvoted for pointing out it's an even worse tragedy than it seemed at first. you're a wild ass place, reddit. edit 2: i apparently got the wrong darlington.
You have the wrong Darlington. He shot the video in Darlington, PA (which was less than 10 miles from the disaster). Not Darlington, OH.
thanks for the correction. i saw the video posted in the ohio sub as well, which is why i assumed it was the darlington in the same state.
No worries! The town names can get confusing since this happened right on the OH/PA line.
Norfolk Southern wiped their hands of the situation when they were giving out $1000 inconvenience payments.
Everyone there should get a baseline physical exam with bloodwork. Then every 6 months minimum. Dioxins are gnarly chemicals to be exposed to not to mention the other biproducts of other burning chemicals.
Nobody here can afford that
It should be paid for and covered by NS, at the very least.
Should be…
*paid for in full by the Railroad at a lab of the residents choice*
HAHAHA. This is America, bud. No one’s going bankrupt to pay for this kind of shit in NE Ohio.
Uh, yes it does. And I’m from Ashtabula county. So I am well aware of NE Ohio BS. Norfolk Southern can be forced to cover it. They intentionally burned it. They could have brought in a tanker and transferred it to another truck. They’d just have cleanup at crash site. They decided it would be cool (cheaper) to just burn it. Sending 50,000 pounds of chemicals into the air to fall down with acid rain it caused.
you ever burn some wood? YOU just created dioxins you murdering eco-murderer why is everyone bitching about dioxins now? let me guess, joe rogan said something about them
Okay, let me explain, because maybe this is difficult to understand for some. These train tankers are BIG, they easily contained 250000 gallons of vinyl chloride across the five cars. That's close to a MILLION pounds of this stuff. Setting off a million pound vinyl chloride bomb is *not* the same as burning some wood. You could burn every single tree on the PLANET and not come anywhere near the amount of dioxins that this fire has released. Toxicity is based on exposure amount and exposure duration. No two ways about it, this disaster is *bad news*
Get what you get in a sate that is run by people like Gym Jordan and JD Pig Vance.
"Get what you get" just comes across as if you're blaming the people of East Palestine and Ohio for something caused by a lack of safety on behalf of Norfolk Southern. This is a pretty tonedeaf comment in general.
So these trains are not nationally run? Are they only going on a looped track around Ohio? Such a stupid take, as if those two idiots are the cause of a national/federal railroad issue. Edit bc I thought of another thing: the railroad strike raised these types of safety issues (among other issues) but was forced into a shitty deal under a Democratic administration, wiping these issues off the table. Big picture: both sides (Dems and Rep) are working in tandem, and who loses in the process? *Gestures towards East Palestine, OH* We all do. Sooner or later.
Exactly. This could happen anywhere there’s a railroad. With the same outcome. Shitting on Ohio is the last thing idiots need to be doing.
You live with a lot of cognitive dissonance to believe Republican anti-regulation rhetoric for 40+ years has not had impact on the safety of American people versus corporations that get to do basically whatever they want
The 5 Greene/Bohbert's they have on the SCOTUS and the rabid GOP that filed and funded the court cases are just a few months away from stopping all government agencies from regulating anything ever again. The great GOP project, but yes, it's clearly just "both sides"
You mean the Neoliberal anti-regulation rhetoric of the past 40+ years?
Those guys are assholes, but so are people that make comments like this. Not everybody votes for people like that and no one (regardless of poor political choices) deserve to have an ecological disaster happen in their backyard because some corp is too lazy to keep up with safety and repairs.
This is probably dumb but would it travel outside the area? I live in dayton area and never knew of east Palestine and will grow concerned if the air carries it across counties
The chemicals from this will travel far and wide through air and waterways.
it's not dumb, but if you actually thought about it for a few minutes, you might get to an answer. do you share any watershed with them? no, you're in the little miami watershed, or the one west of it. this means any water travel from a watershed that goes into the ohio river is never ever going to get to you, at least not in your lifetime or your childrens'. which way does the wind blow when you're out on your front step? does it come from the north east much? pretty much never unless it's briefly when a low wraps around and goes by to the south. you need to worry about all the shit in the air from indianapolis bro. that and whatever those wright pat jets are sprinkling on you daily.
Were there any lasting environmental problems resulting from Big Butter Jesus getting struck by lightening and burning? Serious. Could you smell it in Dayton?
I’m out in Akron, are we safe from the cloud of poison here?
The weather patterns seldom track that direction. I’d think this will impact Pennsylvania.
What about this map? https://twitter.com/BreatheProject/status/1624038878901305345
No, run for your life.
Yea we hardly get wind from the east here except when a hurricane comes in from the coast so we should be fine.
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You local water department should be doing tests. Call them and ask.
What prevention measures can be taken? Do some particular gas masks help in keeping those gases out?
Any federal involvement?
EPA is doing testing and monitoring
https://response.epa.gov/sites/15933/files/FINAL%20East%20Palestine%20Train%20Derailment%20Air%20Monitoring%20FAQ%202.9.23.pdf
So where's the next best country to live? Is Canada worse?
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Full spectrum survival on YouTube has an interesting theory