East Palestine Derailment: Was burning the chemicals the right move?

We've all seen a lot about the potential damage burning those chemicals may have caused. I even live in the projected path of the burn fallout over here in western Pennsylvania. I'm lucky in that we have had no noticeable effects as of yet(that I am aware of at this point anyway). Granted, I'm about an hour and a half away(some 80 or so miles).

The government's response or seeming lack thereof is one angle of this story, but this thread is about whether those chemicals should have been burned at all.

My thoughts? I have absolutely no idea. Obviously burning them comes with it's own set of environmental and health problems, without question. But was this the best method? I don't know enough about HAZMAT to make any kind of objective determination. Obviously it's lose-lose no matter what is done here because there's no way to avoid damage from these toxic substances, so the question is whether the best lose scenario was chosen.

Would the chance of explosion prevented cleanup efforts from getting underway allowing a larger amount of those chemicals to seep into the groundwater?

Would more damage be done not burning those chemicals and allowing a larger percentage to drain into the water table and into the river systems?

 

I don't think any of us are qualified to know if it was a good decision or not.

It doesn't seem like it was a good decision, but i don't really have any idea what I am talking about.

 

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Either way prevention is the best solution and the railway lobby got what they paid for, less regulation, more profit.

 

The reason why the vinyl chloride was burnt was to avert an explosion. It's basically a question of pick your poison. A controlled burn, or an uncontrolled explosion, with subsequent further contamination of the water supply.

Now, anyone who saw the black plume from the burn could see it was not good. When hydrocarbons burn cleanly, they generate CO2 and water, basically colorless. The black smoke means that there was lots of partially oxidized side products generated. Mix in the Cl from the vinyl chloride, and things get worse. Phosgene is one of the side products from this reaction. That's why halogenated hydrocarbons are always collected separately from everything else in chemical waste.

Now, it is easy to Monday morning quarterback. The truth is that there was no ideal solution once the train wreck happened. Food for thought when you buy your next product wrapped in PVC packaging. All that PVC has to be made, and lots of vinyl chloride is needed to make it. People don't usually think about the side effect of our lifestyle, until the consequences hit them in their own backyard. And then they cry to the government for help. The better solution would be to stop buying products that don't use environmentally friendly packaging.

 

A sad situation that might have been ameliorated, or maybe even prevented, if it had not been for regulations that the Trump administration rolled back.
https://time.com/6257696/trump-east-palestine-trail-derailment-biden/

 

Maybe.

It's not Trump's fault that they didn't even try to stop the train when they first saw brakes caught on fire though.

 

This is 100% on the private company IMO.
They will continue to put profits over people

This event alone shows how wrong republicans are about regulation and every time we give these massive corporations a cut in regulations stuff like this happens.

 

It's not. But it is his fault that not everything that COULD have been done to ameliorate this was done.

 

We should just be talking about reinstating the rule Trump undone. That would actually make a difference.

Saying it's Trump's fault doesn't help anyone or change anything.

 

There won’t be much “profit” for the railroad after they have paid for the clean-up and the damages. This is an example of poor railroad management and sloppy safety procedures. Responsible companies run much tighter ships.

When my brother in law was made the regional vice president for a well known food processing company, he noted an inordinate number of industrial accidents. He initiated a program to cut them way back with pay incentives included. The program was a big success. Far fewer employees were injured, and the company saved money.

 

I disagree. Changing the rule he undid might help avoid THIS from happening again. Understanding that Trump rolled back regulations that could avoid many tragedies from happening will move us to examine ALL the regulations he undid, and keep other incompetent Presidents in the future from making the same mistakes.

 

This isn't going to change anyone's mind about Trump.

It's just going to distract from what needs to be done.

 

Regulation has become a dirty word and a political football. We need to better understand the intent of them and follow the trail down the road a wee bit to understand what they are designed to avoid. This is a very good example. It's long past time that we should be fighting against regulations simply because they are proposed or initiated by one party or another.

 

given that burning vinyl chloride produced phosgene gas burning that stuff in the open seems to at best not be a good idea. My understanding based on various news reports is that there were other chemicals present that shouldn't be burned except in high temp incinerators. All in all there is only one real reason for burning that stuff in the open air and that has more to do with the fact that handling that sort of stuff correctly is very expensive.

 

This is logical but today's profit is share price driven and must be immediate. Many CEOs are not thinking long term but one or two years ahead. That's a problem for any long term "investment style" business model.

 

Or had the people actually undoing regulations actually gave some thought to it or reinstated the ones that they got rid of once Trump left office two years ago.

 

I don't care if they change their mind about Trump. I want them to change their mind about rolling back regulations without feedback from experts.

What needs to be done is to use expert criteria when establishing or rolling back regulations. Not politics!

Looks like you're intent on putting a band aid to one symptom of the problem, but not so much into looking for solutions to the problem itself.

 

yea, we should have a conversation about regulation without having to refer to individual people.

 

No! We should have one AND refer to individual people who caused the problem.

Nothing is going to change if we don't hold the people who cause these problems accountable!

 

It was going to be bad, no matter what. There's no way anyone, not even experts, can say which is worse.

The car(s?) could have blown up and ignited the chemicals, so it might have just been a no win situation.

Sitting back and allowing the car(s?) to explode did add in the flying debris factor. If the would have been a BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion) the car would have turned into a missile.

 

Who caused the wheel bearing to fail? Who, exactly, do we pin that on?

 

Why didn't they stop the train as soon as the bearing failed?

 

They were stopping when they got the alert that a bearing was overheating. At some point while they were stopping 38 cars derailed. A train doesn't stop on a dime.

 

How far was the derailment from the spot where we see the video of the fire beneath the train?

 

Dunno.

Here's the NTSB's run down...

https://www.axios.com/2023/02/23/ohio-chemical-train-derailment-ntsb-investigation