Private equity is taking public safety on a dangerous ride.
keeping affected citizens in the dark seems to be the SOP
https://lailluminator.com/2023/09/05/marathon-fire/However, both during the fire and in the days following, neither Marathon, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, nor the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have answered repeated questions from residents and reporters about which chemicals are being tested for. In the absence of information, residents struggle to assess the potential impacts to their health. While Marathon and other chemical companies are required to submit a letter to the state within seven days of an event detailing the root cause and details about how much chemicals were leaked, companies often request an extension for the report, meaning by the time the information does become available many have moved on.
Private equity is taking public safety on a dangerous ride.
snafu
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/east-pa...enate-hearing/The decision to blow open five tank cars and burn the toxic chemical inside them after a freight train derailed in Eastern Ohio last year wasn't justified, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board told Congress Wednesday. But she said the key decision-makers who feared those tank cars were going to explode three days after the crash never had the information they needed.
The vinyl chloride released that day, combined with all the other chemicals that spilled and caught fire after the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, have left residents with lingering fears about possible long-term health consequences.
Experts from the company that made the vinyl chloride inside those tank cars, Oxy Vinyls, were telling contractors hired by Norfolk Southern railroad that they believed that no dangerous chemical reaction was happening, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said. But Oxy Vinyls was left out of the command center.
"They informed them that polymerization, they believed polymerization was not occurring, and there was no justification to do a vent and burn," Homendy said. "There was another option: let it cool down."
However, that information was never relayed to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and the first responders in charge, she said.
Free East Palestine
Death to Gaza
Norfolk Southern was more concerned with reopening the rails than protecting people
linkThe National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday that a rail car’s defective wheel bearing caused the derailment and subsequent hazardous material release in East Palestine, Ohio, last year.
NTSB investigators said that the derailment occurred when a bearing on a hopper car failed and overheated, leading to the fiery February 3, 2023, derailment in the center of this small Ohio town.
NTSB investigators, speaking at an NTSB board meeting held Tuesday at East Palestine High School, said the decision by the local incident commander three days later to conduct a vent and burn of the contents of the tank cars carrying vinyl chloride monomer was based on incomplete and misleading information provided by Norfolk Southern officials and contractors. The vent and burn was not necessary to prevent a tank car failure, NTSB investigators found.
According to the Federal Railroad Administration, a vent and burn procedure should be a last resort, used when a tank car is about to fail. Norfolk Southern rejected three other removal methods and began planning for a vent and burn shortly after the derailment, investigators found.
With their s in Gym Jordans and Trumps mouth no doubt.
We'll probably never know how much other cover up occured.
linkWhen government officials lifted an evacuation order for people who lived near the site of a train derailment and toxic spill in East Palestine, Ohio, last year, many homes held on to an odd odor.
It was a sickly-sweet smell, and it evoked comparisons to paint thinner, but fruitier, or maybe potpourri mixed with old perfume.
To reassure residents, the train’s operator, Norfolk Southern, and the US Environmental Protection Agency offered to check the air in homes for chemicals.
More than 600 households signed up. What they didn’t know was that the handheld devices used for the screening couldn’t detect one of the main chemicals spilled from the train — butyl acrylate — at levels that could irritate the eyes, nose, throat and lungs.
Case studies of people exposed to butyl acrylate in previous spills have raised questions about whether brief exposures may lead to longer-term health problems.
RELATED ARTICLEA year after a toxic train derailment, cleanup continues and trauma lingers in a divided community
“I would say this is one of the most significant errors associated with the response,” said Dr. Andrew Whelton, an environmental engineer at Purdue University who has done independent testing in East Palestine. “It’s because of this so many people were chemically exposed when they returned.”
Although the EPA and Norfolk Southern’s contractor, CTEH, understood the limitations of the machines, they carried on with the home testing, according to an air testing plan drawn up by CTEH. They relied on smell to pick up on the presence of butyl acrylate at lower levels — although residents weren’t told that odors could indicate chemical exposure, according to an EPA official who answered questions on behalf of the agency on the condition that they not be named.
By the time the EPA adopted a more sensitive test and a lower standard for butyl acrylate, the home screening was nearly complete. People who’d had their homes checked weren’t told about subsequent adjustments to the air testing program and why they were made, according to CTEH and the EPA. They were never offered more indoor air testing.
link“When you call, they ask for your address. And if it is outside of that one-by-two-mile radius, they go, ‘OK, sorry, I can’t help you.’ And that’s it,” Flint said, of calling EPA and DEP not long after the derailment. “Even though I understood they weren’t testing in the area, there was just no guidance at all.”
https://x.com/dwallacewells/status/1836860964928639439
Atlanta area
Shelter in place, residents told to turn air conditioners off
https://x.com/ajc/status/1840709007251583005
Cue the: Boom, secret Chinese/lizard-people overlords biolab, source of covid, disclosed by q and military!!!!
Wake up sheeple before it is too late and hillary/her cabal eat your children in the basement of the biolab!!!!
See, I am not crazy; what do you have to say about that???? Answer me, answer me, answer me.
you sound crazy, tbh
the shelter in place order *feels* insane to me -- how well does a house protect people from toxins in the air? they should be evacuated, imho
https://x.com/CodyAlcorn/status/1843737400536965624
Deer Park again
2 Texas cities told to shelter-in-place after fatal chemical release (statesman.com)Shelter-in-place orders were set for two east Texas cities Thursday after a chemical incident killed one person at a gas facility.
Several others were injured, with one person hospitalized when an unknown chemical released at the S Pemex facility in Deer Park, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Officials later alerted that a shelter-in-place order had been placed both Deer Park and Pasadena due to the release of hydrogen sulfide.
Deer Park and Pasadena are located east of Houston.
"If you are in this area, please go inside, close all windows and doors and turn off the air-conditioner until an all-clear is give," the Pasadena Fire Department wrote.
2 dead, 35 triaged.
Shelter in place lifted
https://x.com/KHOU/status/1844564758256595446
god forbid a large company should face accountability for its catastrophic and deadly mistakes
so expensive
https://grist.org/energy/trump-quiet...al-explosions/On a summer night in 2023, an explosion at one of Louisiana’s biggest petrochemical complexes sent a plume of fire into the sky. More explosions followed as poison gas spewed from damaged tanks at the Dow chemical plant, triggering a shelter-in-place order for anyone within a half mile of the facility, which sprawls across more than 830 acres near Baton Rouge.
For more than a year, a little-known government agency has been investigating the incident. But the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board will likely shut down before completing its probes of the Dow explosion and other such incidents across the country. President Donald Trump’s administration has quietly proposed shutting down the board, an independent federal agency charged with uncovering the causes of large-scale chemical accidents.
https://thehill.com/homenews/5354968...os-regulation/Trump’s EPA reconsiders Biden’s asbestos ban
The Trump administration will reconsider a regulation that aims to ban or phase out ongoing uses of asbestos.
The Trump administration revealed its plans to reconsider the Biden-era rule in a court filing on Monday.
The filing did not provide additional details on what changes the Trump administration could make, if any, but the last Trump administration did much less to tackle the issue.
Exposure to asbestos causes lung cancer and mesothelioma, a rare cancer that occurs in the lining of the lung, chest and the abdomen and heart. Asbestos-related diseases are estimated to kill thousands of Americans each year.
Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it would require companies to phase out their uses of a type of asbestos known as chrysotile asbestos, which is the only known type of asbestos used in the U.S.
Under its rule, companies making automotive breaks would have six months to stop making products with asbestos, while other industries would have more time. Most sheet gaskets, a type of seal, that contain asbestos will be banned after two years, while the chlor-alkali sector, which makes chemicals like chlorine for treating water, would have up to 12 years to make the change.
The chemical industry sued the EPA over the rule. When Trump took office, his administration asked the court to pause the case while it decided what it wanted to do with the rule.
The administration now says it plans to reconsider the Biden rule through a formal rulemaking process. It said this process, “including any regulatory changes,” could take about 2.5 years.
...
Make Asbestos Great Again
vice signaling
it's very important to let people know that their government has neither a conscience nor values
nor should a weak-minded regard for the welfare of its cons uents becloud its judgment
or temper its aggression
Last edited by Winehole23; 06-17-2025 at 07:57 PM. Reason: comma removal
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