Investigators are raising questions about the decision to burn chemicals in the aftermath of a February train wreck in Ohio, which sent a massive toxic plume over the region.
(Bloomberg) — Investigators are raising questions about the decision to burn chemicals in the aftermath of a February train wreck in Ohio, which sent a massive toxic plume over the region.
Disagreements between the chemical manufacturer and others on site were revealed in documents released Thursday by the US National Transportation Safety Board. The agency is holding a two-day hearing into the East Palestine derailment to examine the fallout and consider ways to prevent future accidents.
Contractors hired by Norfolk Southern Corp. recommended the so-called “vent and burn” procedure to help prevent five tank cars containing vinyl chloride from blowing up, according to the documents. Responders to the accident feared a reaction known as polymerization, which could cause an explosion.
But the temperature of the car considered to be at the highest risk had stabilized and was decreasing in the hours before its contents were burned, according to NTSB data. A senior vice president at Oxy Vinyls LP, which had produced the liquid in the tank car, told one of Norfolk Southern’s contractors at the time, “Let me be clear, polymerization is not occurring.”
The revelation adds a new wrinkle to assessments of an accident that has become one of the most high-profile railroad disasters in years, prompting extensive news coverage, congressional inquiries, calls for new regulation and outrage from the public. The NTSB hasn’t concluded what caused the derailment or issued formal findings.
Read More: After a Toxic Train Derailment, East Palestine Is Fracturing
“This whole incident reminds me of the fog of war,” NTSB Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg said Thursday.
During the hearing, Norfolk Southern and one of its on-scene contractors defended the decision to burn as a last-resort option.
Drew McCarty, president of Specialized Professional Services Inc., the company that was advising Norfolk Southern, testified that it was difficult to get temperature readings from the tank cars. There was also concern that the wreck and prolonged burning initially after the accident could have caused other types of failures in the cars.
“We made an absolute safety decision for the good of this community and for our own people,” McCarty said.
Train Derailment
The train, with 149 rail cars and three locomotives, lurched off the tracks shortly before 9 p.m. on Feb. 3, after a bearing holding wheels on a car overheated and burned. Five tank cars containing more than 115,000 gallons of toxic vinyl chloride didn’t initially leak in the wreck.
The decision to burn the cars three days later came in a meeting that included Ohio Governor Mike Dewine and federal and state officials. Pennsylvania officials also attended. The meeting didn’t include representatives of Oxy Vinyls, NTSB said.
The Norfolk Southern contractors recommended burning because they feared that devices on the tank cars designed to vent dangerously high temperatures had failed. Heat was rising in one of the cars because it was adjacent to a fire for a period of time.
The temperature in that car reached 135 degrees on Feb. 5, but by that evening it had dropped to 130 degrees and was stable, according to data released by NTSB.
Oxy Vinyls officials repeatedly said they didn’t believe the car was in danger of exploding, according to NTSB documents. The records also note that a company representative on the scene said he wasn’t able to rule out the risk of explosion.
William Carroll, former president of the American Chemical Society and a consultant, testified at the hearing that the temperatures measured on the cars did not indicate they were at risk of exploding.
Local residents in a 1-by-2-mile area were evacuated as the massive fireball and plume of smoke rose over their community. Hundreds of residents have reported a range of symptoms that could be the result of contact with chemicals, but federal and state officials have yet to find evidence of contamination.
–With assistance from Thomas Black.
(Updates with hearing testimony from seventh paragraph)
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