In the wake of the East Palestine railway crash and the continued sighting of substances in the nearby waterways following the “vent and burn” of five carriages of vinyl chloride, the city of Cincinnati stated on Friday that it will temporarily suspend sourcing water from the Ohio River.
However, according to Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, testing has shown the plume of contaminates has “completely dissipated” by now and that the water is once again “safe to drink.”
Cincinnati city officials said in a statement that they did not identify any “detectable levels” of the contaminants from the derailment site in more than 130 water samples tested at the city’s Ohio River water intake. Nevertheless, the city’s water system will temporarily switch to using water reserves and turn off its Ohio River intake, according to the announcement, “out of an abundance of caution.”
For the time being, the city says that public confidence and public safety are equally important factors to the city in the choice to use the local water reserves. According to Cincinnati City Manager Sheryl Long, there is no risk that their water reserves contain contaminates and utilizing the reserves will make residents at ease.
“I’m confident that temporarily shutting off the Ohio River intake is the best move. There’s zero risk that our water reserves contain contaminants from the train derailment site, and tapping these reserves will give us all peace of mind,” Long said.
Greater Cincinnati Water Works (GCWW) supplies water to Butler County and some portions of Warren County.
According to GCWW, they gathered the present water reserves before the contamination from the East Palestine train derailment reached the Ohio River and they are safe to drink. In order to assess whether it is safe to reopen the intakes, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stated that it will continue to monitor the Ohio River.
When the intakes reopen, GCWW stated that it will employ “additional optimized treatment” even if no contaminants are found.
According to Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval, they are taking this “preventative step” to “ensure the health safety and confidence of residents.”
At a press conference, DeWine said tests on Ohio River waters revealed pollutants from the derailment were at 3 parts per billion on Thursday and dropped to zero on Friday.
“There is no reason to be concerned about water from the Ohio River now,” DeWine said.
According to earlier statements made by state officials, the Ohio River should be cleaned of any toxins through drinking water treatment procedures.
On February 3, a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed, resulting in a fire that damaged several cars and caused the chemicals to flow into the ground and water. The EPA stated that the rail carriages included vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate, ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, and isobutylene. Some of those hazardous chemicals entered nearby streams, where they killed fish before entering the Ohio River.
“Materials released during the incident were observed and detected in samples from Sulphur Run, Leslie Run, Bull Creek, North Fork Little Beaver Creek, Little Beaver Creek and the Ohio River,” the EPA wrote in a letter to Norfolk Southern.
Despite DeWine’s and others’ assurances, some individuals remain skeptical about whether the accident and chemical spill’s ecological effects have completely subsided. The newly-elected U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) tweeted a video of himself on Thursday at an East Palestine creek pointing out “dead worms and dead fish all over this water” and using a stick to demonstrate what he said were chemicals on the water’s surface.
“The fact that these chemicals are still seeping into the ground is an insult to the people who live in East Palestine,” Vance said.
According to DeWine, Sulphur Run, one of the streams close to the derailment, is currently “a place to be avoided.”
“It’s going to take awhile to remediate this,” DeWine said.
The Northern Kentucky Water District also shut down its Ohio River intakes as a precautionary measure at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, February 19th, ahead of the leading edge of any trace remnants in the Ohio River.
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Hannah Poling is a lead reporter at The Ohio Star and The Star News Network. Follow Hannah on Twitter @HannahPoling1. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Looking Across Ohio River Toward Cincinnati” by William Alden. CC BY-SA 2.0.
