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EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

epa.gov

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Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#21

Post by Meerax »

kflfpfp wrote: post #15
mushbino wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really hoping the residents and rail workers realize they need to come together for this common cause. Unfortunately, busting the rail strike as both parties did only contributes to this problem in a major way. Nobody is coming to save us. These issues can only be resolved with people coming together in collective action. As a side note, i hope they go bankrupt and we expropriate them. Railroads are too important…

[flagged]

Our rail infrastructure is abysmal. Nationalizing it is perhaps not the way to go, but a serious change needs to happen. Speaking as a former Ohioan who grew up in the Ohio river valley.

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#22

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

kflfpfp wrote: post #15
mushbino wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really hoping the residents and rail workers realize they need to come together for this common cause. Unfortunately, busting the rail strike as both parties did only contributes to this problem in a major way. Nobody is coming to save us. These issues can only be resolved with people coming together in collective action. As a side note, i hope they go bankrupt and we expropriate them. Railroads are too important…

[flagged]

Name a country with good rail that hasn't nationalized it (hint, you can't).

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#23

Post by a_JIT_pie »

kflfpfp wrote: post #15
mushbino wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really hoping the residents and rail workers realize they need to come together for this common cause. Unfortunately, busting the rail strike as both parties did only contributes to this problem in a major way. Nobody is coming to save us. These issues can only be resolved with people coming together in collective action. As a side note, i hope they go bankrupt and we expropriate them. Railroads are too important…

[flagged]

A big reason Amtrak is so shit is due to private rail industry taking priority on our shitty track infrastructure.

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#24

Post by braingenious »

kflfpfp wrote: post #15
mushbino wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really hoping the residents and rail workers realize they need to come together for this common cause. Unfortunately, busting the rail strike as both parties did only contributes to this problem in a major way. Nobody is coming to save us. These issues can only be resolved with people coming together in collective action. As a side note, i hope they go bankrupt and we expropriate them. Railroads are too important…

[flagged]

lol at “publicly managed public infrastructure is literally the same thing as genocide!! Ceaușescu also built roads, MURDERER”

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#25

Post by digdugdirk »

spaceguillotine wrote: post #11
xadhominemx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re overestimating the cost of this cleanup by 2 or 3 orders of magnitude. Vinyl chloride is not particularly toxic, has low environmental persistence, and does not bioaccumulate.

wait for the civil suits for all the animal die offs for ag industry, and medical bills from exposure... then tell us how cheap it will be. I hope they end up in Jail.

The medical costs alone should be an eye popping number.

Its going to be interesting to see the interplay between infrastructure/healthcare/environmental regulations with this completely preventable, entirely foreseeable accident over the coming years.

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#26

Post by thechao »

Has anyone seen a good analysis on what went wrong? I found a USAToday article with a partial fragment saying that one of the wheels had a failed bearing, and this was the proximal cause of the derailment. It seems to me that (as pointed out in the article) the mean-time-to-failure increases with the length of the train; perhaps nonlinearly? I think the failure rate of bearings is proportional to the length of the train, but you can't "amortize" failure: any failed bearing would lead to a catastrophic error?

To my mind this means that things like ECP (which have been removed) might've fixed the issue, but the fundamental problem is the train length, which has been discussed (in all of its negatives) here, before.

In that sense, the train company is directly at fault: they are engaging in unsafe practices in order to remain profitable, and the practices are fundamentally not safe-able (to make up a word).

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#28

Post by ctrlaltdylan »

thepasswordis wrote: post #17

I'd like to see the head of the EPA, the transportation secretary, the executive team at NS, and anybody in the Biden administration who was involved in blocking the rail workers from striking move into East Palestine and live there, with their children. Don't want to do that because it isn't safe? Then buy these people all new homes. We can start the bidding at $1M per household. I cannot overstate the fury that I f…

I'm from the Northeast Ohio area, and also from a small town like East Palestine. The lack of response from Governor DeWine and malice to not declare a state of emergency is infuriating.

This rhymes with Flink Michigan's water crisis, and Obama "drinking" the water in a publicity stunt: https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/posts-distort-facts-on-oba...

Vote democrat and only see the elite placate the working class. Vote republican and see unions and the facade of environmental protections decimated even further.

The fact this isn't covered in NYT or headlines on cable TV is insane. How is this unprecedented disaster affecting a major watershed not higher urgency than fucking balloons.

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#29

Post by xadhominemx »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #13
xadhominemx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re overestimating the cost of this cleanup by 2 or 3 orders of magnitude. Vinyl chloride is not particularly toxic, has low environmental persistence, and does not bioaccumulate.

Well, yes. But there was also several tank cars of acrylic ester that were breached and whose contents are now on the way into the groundwater. Anyone whose water is from a private well is not to be envied.

Are you talking about Ethylhexyl acrylate? Not very toxic outside of high dose acute exposures.

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#30

Post by hammock »

thechao wrote: post #26

Has anyone seen a good analysis on what went wrong? I found a USAToday article with a partial fragment saying that one of the wheels had a failed bearing, and this was the proximal cause of the derailment. It seems to me that (as pointed out in the article) the mean-time-to-failure increases with the length of the train; perhaps nonlinearly? I think the failure rate of bearings is proportional to the length of the tr…

There are thousands of derailments every year.

The bigger problem is not the derailment but the fact that they released and burned off the vinyl chloride in order to expeditiously clear the tracks and get them running again, at great health and environmental cost to the local community and even several states in the windshed to the northeast (PA, NY, VT)

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