History Repeats itself in Ohio
A train carrying a massive amount of hazardous chemicals, including highly volatile vinyl chloride, benzene, and butyle acrylate, derails in a rural town. Fearing a potential explosion that could launch deadly shrapnel as far as a mile, officials evacuate the town and burn, yes burn, some of the chemicals instead, sending large, toxic plumes into the air. In five days, which is hardly enough time for a proper cleanup, residents are told: All good. Come on back. But, just in case, don’t drink water from local sources. When they return, they find the air still reeks of fumes. Their eyes smart and heads spin. Their animals fall ill and fish die by thousands in local waterways.
If you’ve been following this unfolding public health disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, you’ll know that it’s playing out in the same old way such disasters always seem to play out. People are told not to worry much, but reliable information about the extent of damage done and risks posed is really hard to come by. Meanwhile the corporations responsible, one iteration or the other of the peterochemical industrial complex, offer crisis-management PR speak and try to shift blame as much as possible and state actors don’t do nearly enough to help those in harm’s way.
As news reports have pointed out, this is the eighth major train derailment in the greater Pittsburgh region in the past five years, and the third derailment involving hazardous material in the country this month. Given the fossil fuel industry’s ongoing plastics buildout, including Shell’s new petrochemical complex in western Pennsylvania, the transport by rail of volatile chemicals is only going to ramp up in Pittsburgh and elsewhere. Which means the next big derailment probably isn’t far off.
The incident reminds me of the 2015 Aliso Canyon gas storage facility blowout in Los Angeles that spewed out an oily mix of methane and other toxic compounds for 111 days on communities living downhill. Seven years after what’s been called the largest gas blowout in US history, tens of thousands of Angelenos are still living with the fallout, including illnesses that may be related to their toxic exposures, and are still seeking justice.
I’m hoping the residents of East Palestine will be better taken care of, but so far, the evidence hasn’t been reassuring. All in all, this is a stark reminder of the great risk communities living on frontlines of petrochemical development face every day, one more reason why we should wean off of fossil fuels and their byproducts asap.
Maureen Nandini Mitra
Editor, Earth Island Journal
Photo by William Warby
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