Senator JD Vance takes video showing how polluted the water is in East Palestine Ohio.

 

An environmental crew removing dead fish from a creek. Fox News/Reuters.

Senator JD Vance has taken video showing how polluted the water is in East Palestine Ohio after the train derailment that poisoned the area. Fox News. Vance walked to a creek and said there were dead fish and worms everywhere. He also scraped the bottom of the creek and a chemical sheen quickly bubbled up. Though chemical sheens can happen from oil spills and natural bacteria, its likely that the sheen was from the chemical spill. The EPA says the local municipal water and air quality is safe for humans now though Vance complained of a bad smell when he was in East Palestine. 

Visited a local creek in East Palestine today. These waterways are still very polluted. It’s time for Norfolk Southern to finish the cleanup. Check this video out: pic.twitter.com/4lsHBmrMJj

— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) February 16, 2023

 My Comment:

This story is not going away. People are extremely angry about this incident and the poor response from the government. There are people like Senator Vance that are trying to draw attention to it but they are the exception, not the rule. Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and the governors of both Ohio and Pennsylvania are getting most of the blame. 

I do think that the situation in East Palestine is not good. Though I have seen sheens like that in my own home waters, that are dramatically more polluted than these creeks would be under normal circumstances, I haven't seen anything that bad before. That creek is not doing well at all and I think it will take a long time to for it to recover. 

Of course just because the creek is doing badly it doesn't mean the town is. Supposedly the EPA says the drinking water and air quality are safe. I actually think they are probably right about the water. My guess is that the town is drawing water from the aquifer which probably hasn't had time to get polluted by the chemicals. 

Air quality might be better by now as well. Winds might have blown most of the chemicals out of the town and what was there has probably settled into the ground. The air quality in the houses are a different story. East Palestine isn't a rich area and I am betting that the houses are very drafty and a lot of chemicals got into the houses. 

Given the high lethality and carcinogens found in these chemicals, I don't think it is anywhere near safe to head home yet. Indeed, it's absurd to me that these people haven't been put up in a hotel somewhere. The people that have stayed in the town are at an extreme risk of health effects and even death in the long term. 

The real question is how widespread the damage from this train derailment will be. Is it just one town or is it the entire region? With the size of the chemical cloud from the "controlled burn" and the detection of contaminants in the Ohio Rive I am thinking it will be a larger threat than just one town. It really just depends on luck now and I doubt we will know the full extent of the damage for a long time. 

What I do know is that people are furious about this, even beyond the obvious damage that this disaster has caused. People are calling this America's Chernobyl. I think that's a bit overstated in terms of damage done, but I do think it's true in terms of anger. The kind of anger I am seeing on social media is beyond what I saw even for the 2020 election. 

Why are people so upset? It's largely the response from the federal government and media. Though the media is now finally covering the story they had to be shamed into it by both social media and the few mainstream media figures that brought the story to the limelight, mostly on Fox News. 

And the Federal Government? They are still downplaying it. Biden has mostly remained silent and Pete Buttigieg, the Transportation Secretary, is trying to blame everything on Donald Trump, who, I must remind you, is not the president anymore. And some people have tried to blame Trump but as far as I can tell there isn't any facts to that accusations, but for the sake of argument, let's say there was. Biden and Buttigieg have been in power for more than two years now, the buck stops with them. 

The message that people are getting from both the media and the government is that they simply don't care about the people that live in "flyover" country, and I don't think they are wrong. If this disaster had happened in a blue state or minority area the federal government would be all over this, screaming about racism. But because East Palestine is a white area that went for Trump they don't care if they get sick and die. Indeed, for them that might be a solution, not a problem and people are finally starting to understand what the powers that be really think about them. That's what this disaster is really about, the government simply doesn't care about the people anymore and we are going to have to figure out what to do about that.