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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

#61

Post by suresk »

irrational wrote: post #47
jmclnx wrote: post #5

Glad to see this, and if Norfolk Southern goes bankrupt, all assets go to the cleanup and high level execs are changed or are forced to pay the difference. Also, with this being in Ohio, I hope people in Ohio realize how valuable the EPA is and stop voting for people who want to cut every Gov Program except for Defense.

Why defense? If someone seriously attacked the USA, Ohio would be one of the last places they would go for. It would be the Democrat states like CA and NY that would be hit first. You would think they would be in favor of having less defense so those liberals in CA can be taken out.

There is no credible threat of invasion of the mainland US, even with a much smaller military, so the difference in threat to CA/NY vs Ohio is pretty small. And, at any rate, Defense budget support is more due to economic implications of bases/contractors in the states/districts of people in congress and military worship/nationalism in the US than it is any sort of logical assessment of threats.

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

#62

Post by thepasswordis »

barbazoo wrote: post #59
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…

> It is further demoralizing to watch our President on a tour of Ukraine, giving away tens of billions of dollars to fight a proxy war Because this made it sound like on this trip he gave them "tens of billions of dollars", that's not correct. > In his remarks alongside Zelensky, Biden said the United States would provide another half-billion dollars of assistance to Ukraine, including additional ammunition for the a…

>Because this made it sound like on this trip he gave them "tens of billions of dollars", that's not correct.

I'm sorry if you read that that way. That's now how I meant it.

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

#63

Post by rootusrootus »

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…

We know the bearing was on fire for 20+ miles before it derailed, and it passed through at least one hotbox detector in that condition without being detected. On average, such detectors are placed every 10-20 miles. The one in East Palestine spotted the problem but it was too late to prevent the derailment.

Maybe a start would be to adjust regulation such that detectors need to be placed with higher frequency. ECP is a nice idea, but that's a last ditch effort and not a generalized solution.

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

#64

Post by fineIllregister »

pookha wrote: post #27

Apparently there are something like 1K derailments a year in the US? Had no idea...Seems pretty high. https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/02/17/tra...

Most derailments are completely uneventful. The train just barely goes off the tracks and slows to a stop, remaining completely upright. I've heard from people that they were on a passenger train that derailed and didn't even know it until the conductor told them.

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

#65

Post by mindslight »

hammock wrote: post #39
xadhominemx wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They burned off the vinyl chloride because the combustion products are relatively benign, it was much safer to remediation personnel to ignite the chemicals in a controlled burn vs having them work around flammable chemicals for weeks, vinyl chloride is quite volatile and acute exposure to high concentrations of vinyl chloride vapor is dangerous, and they wanted to get everyone back in their homes (and yes, get the r…

>the combustion products are relatively benign Who told you that? Phosgene and dioxins are "relatively benign"? Dioxins might more properly be called forever chemicals, and will contaminate the soil and water of five states for decades. I understand they were trying to avoid a bleve. The solution they chose was not based principally on minimizing citizen harm though

I haven't seen anything concrete about dioxins coming from the burning of vinyl chloride. From what I've seen, the known dioxin problem is from the burning PVC, which was in bulk cars that were ignited by the derailment (as opposed to deliberately set on fire).

FWIW Only one vinyl chloride car was listed as leaking. I would think the alternative was to bring in mobile pumps, new tanker cars, and possibly chillers. And that should probably be made the default standard, rather than defaulting to "controlled" release in an emergent situation.

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

#66

Post by fr0sty »

pookha wrote: post #27

Apparently there are something like 1K derailments a year in the US? Had no idea...Seems pretty high. https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/02/17/tra...

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2023/why-train-derailm...

Most derailments are in train yards. Few cause injuries, fewer cause deaths, and only a handful involve hazardous substances. I don't say that to downplay the mess in OH/PA, but just to make sure the base-rate is understood.

And if you want to compare to europe it looks like US freight rail volume is at least 6x as large. Also no idea if/how they count "fender bender" derailments in switching yards. US standard is >$12k in damage according to TFA.

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

#67

Post by ROTMetro »

thrashh wrote: post #10
hanniabu wrote: post #4

Based on the fact that there's thousands of superfund sites that are decades old, this probably won't be cleaned up any time soon

Well based on the fact that - we’ve cleaned up 25% of sites in a system that only started in the 80s - the infrastructure bill in 2021 bringing back the superfund cleanup tax on chemical companies that expired in 1995 — at double the rate - and Congress also authorizing an extra $3.5 billion 2 years ago just for cleanups I think it’s too early to be so cynical

I've never been sick more often than when I lived in super fund defending champion Mountain View during college.

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

#68

Post by rootusrootus »

fh973 wrote: post #44
pookha wrote: post #27

Apparently there are something like 1K derailments a year in the US? Had no idea...Seems pretty high. https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/02/17/tra...

Indeed... the EU has a similar network size and there it's less than 100: https://twitter.com/HerrNaumann/status/1626342809438502918 Edit: less than 100 (Entgleisungen).

How much less than 1000 (my German is pretty rusty)? e.g. 900 vs 1100 is not really statistically different, and doesn't suggest a systemic problem. Especially given the heavy focus on shipping for the US rail network versus passengers in the EU. Tracks in the US that are used for passengers are maintained better than shipping-only tracks, for sure.

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

#69

Post by gretch »

ROTMetro wrote: post #52
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fines need to start being paid in company stock, its the only thing companies are beholden to. Everything else is just a price to wreck havoc. The more the company purposefully puts people in danger, the more nationally owned they are. Especially when it comes to infrastructure like this. "Sorry, you've been nationalized due to your continued efforts in proving you cannot be trusted". Fines large enough to matter wou…

This is a great idea. And I like the idea of fines being X% shares outstanding, not X dollars as that proportionally penalizes shareholders for not being good corporate owners. It's a win in so many ways.

This probably doesn’t do the thing you want it to do

1) if there is a demand to have something, it usually raises price of that thing. You could interpret this as a forced buyback, which may raise prices of shares (and thus reward bad behavior)

2) what does the govt do with the stock after it has the stock? It doesn’t have a system for processing it, as it does with USD

Also, why shouldn’t you penalize shareholders? In the future they’ll think twice about investing in companies that cut corners to juice short term gains

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

#70

Post by xadhominemx »

hammock wrote: post #39
xadhominemx wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They burned off the vinyl chloride because the combustion products are relatively benign, it was much safer to remediation personnel to ignite the chemicals in a controlled burn vs having them work around flammable chemicals for weeks, vinyl chloride is quite volatile and acute exposure to high concentrations of vinyl chloride vapor is dangerous, and they wanted to get everyone back in their homes (and yes, get the r…

>the combustion products are relatively benign Who told you that? Phosgene and dioxins are "relatively benign"? Dioxins might more properly be called forever chemicals, and will contaminate the soil and water of five states for decades. I understand they were trying to avoid a bleve. The solution they chose was not based principally on minimizing citizen harm though

Phosgene also has very low environmental persistence. I think the actual amount of dioxin created from combustion of vinyl chloride monomer at atmospheric pressure is very low. In any event, both were dispersed into the atmosphere at concentrations that pose(d) very little danger to people outside of the temporary evacuation zone.
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