EAST PALESTINE, Ohio (AP) 鈥� Federal environmental authorities have ordered a temporary halt in the shipment of from the site of a fiery earlier this month in eastern Ohio near the Pennsylvania state line.
Region 5 administrator Debra Shore of the Environmental Protection Agency said Saturday the agency ordered Norfolk Southern to 鈥減ause鈥� of the Feb. 3 derailment in East Palestine but vowed that removal of the material would resume 鈥渧ery soon.鈥�
鈥淓veryone wants this contamination gone from the community. They don鈥檛 want the worry, and they don鈥檛 want the smell, and we owe it to the people of East Palestine to move it out of the community as quickly as possible,鈥� Shore said.
Until Friday, Shore said, the rail company had been solely responsible for the disposal of the waste and supplied Ohio environmental officials with a list of selected and utilized disposal sites. Going forward, disposal plans including locations and transportation routes for contaminated waste will be subject to EPA review and approval, she said.
鈥淓PA will ensure that all waste is disposed of in a safe and lawful manner at EPA-certified facilities to prevent further release of hazardous substances and impacts to communities,鈥� Shore said. She said officials had heard concerns from residents and others in a number of states and were reviewing 鈥渢he transport of some of this waste over long distances and finding the appropriate permitted and certified sites to take the waste.鈥�
The Ohio governor's office said Saturday night that of the twenty truckloads (approximately 280 tons) of hazardous solid waste hauled away, 15 truckloads of contaminated soil was disposed of at a Michigan hazardous waste treatment and disposal facility while five truckloads had been returned to East Palestine.
Liquid waste already trucked out of East Palestine would be disposed of at a licensed hazardous waste treatment and disposal facility in Texas, but that facility would not accept more liquid waste, the Ohio governor's office said.
鈥淐urrently, about 102,000 gallons of liquid waste and 4,500 cubic yards of solid waste remain in storage on site in East Palestine, not including the five truckloads returned to the village,鈥� the governor's office said. 鈥淎dditional solid and liquid wastes are being generated as the cleanup progresses.鈥�
No one was injured when 38 Norfolk Southern cars derailed in a fiery, mangled mess on the outskirts of town, but as fears grew about a potential explosion due to hazardous chemicals in five of the rail cars, officials evacuated the area. They later opted to from the tanker cars, sending flames and black smoke billowing into the sky again.
Shore said the EPA was not involved in the decision to do the controlled burn, but she called it a 鈥渨ell-founded鈥� decision by local and state officials based on the information they had at the time 鈥渢o deal with a highly explosive toxic chemical.鈥�
Federal and state officials have repeatedly said it鈥檚 safe for evacuated residents and that air testing in the town and inside hundreds of homes hasn鈥檛 detected any concerning levels of contaminants from the fires or burned chemicals. The state says the local municipal drinking water system is safe, and bottled water is available while testing is conducted for those with private wells.
Despite those assurances and a bevy of news conferences and visits from , many residents still express a sense of mistrust or have lingering questions about what they have been exposed to and how it will impact the future of their families and their communities.
The Associated Press
