Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

No-Needleworker6950 t1_j86x1ag wrote

Mini Chernobyl aka the East Palestine derailment will go down as one of the most devastating events in the US ever & its barely being reported on. Not only is the air being polluted, animals are dying in the area and water is being heavily polluted killing fish is rivers & streams. The soil is also heavily contaminated which will cause many issues for crop season coming up. Just a few of the chemicals that burned for many hours include;

  • Vinyl Chloride -Ethylene glycol monobutyl ether -Ethylhexyl acrylate -Isobutylene -Butyl acrylate

Very dangerous cancer causing chemicals.

Official EPA document is linked below.

Pray for Ohio.

https://epaosc.org/site/doc_list.aspx?site_id=15933

69

ppitm t1_j87a5aj wrote

> will go down as one of the most devastating events in the US ever

Press X to doubt. According to the air testing results in your link, all the actually harmful chemicals (everything except oxygen) is down below the screening levels and most are already at zero.

So far as I can tell, we are talking about a few square kilometers of agricultural Ohio. Really can't think of anything in U.S. history that has caused more damage than that?

20

NotYou007 t1_j87d362 wrote

It has been national news for days. I don't understand why folks such as yourself say it's barely reported on when that's 100% bullshit.

18

SeawolfGaming t1_j87vo25 wrote

I haven't seen it once and I look at the news a lot.

12

NotYou007 t1_j881i4v wrote

It's been covered by every major news network. There are hundreds of articles online in regards to it. WABI alone has posted numerous articles. Not sure what news you watch because it's been hard to miss the stories.

7

DaNostrich t1_j88gndm wrote

I watched the fires on the news Friday morning

1

DidDunMegasploded t1_j881jmb wrote

Same here. I read the news on the daily. Never heard of this until I saw a tweet with pictures of the cloud itself.

3

hesh582 t1_j898fti wrote

The news you see when you "look at the news a lot" is a function of the algorithmic media bubbles you've chosen to surround yourself in, not what news outlets have actually chosen to report upon.

Every major outlet has had significant, continual, in depth coverage since the event. If you didn't see that but think you should have, you really ought to take a look at your media diet and figure out why that is.

3

MuForceShoelace t1_j8dybz1 wrote

The idea is that it's some sort of end of the world event but that it's covered up, so every time they report on it that is a coverup because they aren't saying the made up stuff twitter said.

1

hesh582 t1_j8982p5 wrote

While it's very locally bad, it's not even close the the worst Ohio has ever seen, much less the US. It's not "mini chernobyl" ffs - the real bulk of the problem comes from the phosgene and hydrogen cloride released in the burning of the vinyl chloride. Very nasty chemicals, but ones that rapidly dissipate.

The Cuyahoga river literally caught on fire 18 times. It used to be an entirely dead waterway. No fish could live there, nothing could live there besides a few invertebrates. The fact that there are even animals present to kill in the first place makes this not nearly as bad as past Ohioan environment debacles.

If you look at the whole country... I mean come on. Google Love Canal. Look at pictures of Centralia, PA, if you want an example of an actual Chernobyl-like exclusion zone in the US. This is unfortunate and will certainly not be without consequences, but we're way better at destroying the planet than this. It's not even that bad in the narrow category of "rail disaster chemical spills" - the 1979 Mississauga derailment makes this look trivial.

It has also been reported on extensively, in every major outlet. Come on, not everything needs to be shades of conspiracy. If you're not seeing anything about it, that's more of a symptom of the algorithmic media bubble you've chosen for yourself than a lack of reporting.

The disaster was bad, but perspective still matters. It's being treated in social media as practically apocalyptic, and it just isn't. The real tragedy here looks to be how avoidable it was, and that should be the focus.

Oh, and if it will actually be a Chernobyl-like long term disaster that will permanently contaminate the area and limit human habitation, it will be the best thing to happen to the Ohio environment in a long time.

9

ppitm t1_j8a0akm wrote

Quit ruining our fun, we wanted to panic.

5