East Palestine Masthead




*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:*
May 26, 2023




*MEDIA CONTACTS:
*Dan Tierney: 614-644-0957
Jill Del Grecco: 614-644-0957






East Palestine Update -- 5/26/23

(COLUMBUS, Ohio)?The following are updates from the State of Ohio regarding remediation work at the site of the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

*Track Clean Up Progress
*The cleanup of the track area is near completion. After this work is finished, Norfolk Southern contractors will begin working on other areas that were directly impacted by the derailment and response operations, including the wreckage yards, as well as the north and south ditches.

*Hazardous Waste Removal
*According to Ohio EPA, approximately 19.3 million gallons of liquid wastewater have been hauled out of East Palestine in total.?There is currently a pile of approximately?14,400 tons of excavated soil waiting for removal from East Palestine, versus?51,100?tons that have been removed.?

*East Palestine Municipal Drinking Water*
The latest drinking water [ [link removed] ] results have been posted from the East Palestine Municipal Water System and continue to show no indication of contaminants associated with the derailment. The public water system continues to meet all state and federal standards for safe drinking water. Sentinel and monitoring well sampling also show no indication that chemicals associated with the derailment are moving toward the East Palestine well field.

*Onsite Storm Water Treatment
*Contractors continued this week building a temporary treatment plant specifically for stormwater that comes in contact with the derailment site. Since the initial weeks of the derailment, rainwater/stormwater that has flowed through contaminated areas has been pumped into tanks and hauled away from the site for disposal. This temporary equipment would allow for treatment on-site. After the equipment is installed, Unified Command must approve its use. If approved to proceed, the water, once treated, would be held until sampling results show that it has met treatment goals, is no longer hazardous, and can be removed from East Palestine for disposal. This treatment process would be supervised by Ohio EPA to ensure the safety of the East Palestine community. The equipment would only treat water collected from the response site; no other water will be treated with this equipment. The equipment would be removed when it is no longer needed.

*Private Well Testing*

The Ohio Department of Health, working with the Columbiana County Health District, has received verified laboratory results from 443 samples from private water systems as of noon Thursday. Of those, 342 showed no detectable contaminants. Ninety-nine samples have had trace detections at levels below safe drinking-water standards. There is no evidence that these trace detections are linked to the train derailment.

Since the sampling program began, two wells have exceeded safe standards: One for disinfection byproducts, and one for dinitrotoluene, which is not suspected to be related to the derailment. Both wells were later re-sampled and had no detections.

For more information and previous updates from the State of Ohio, visit ema.ohio.gov/eastpalestine [ [link removed] ].

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