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Sep 07, 2023

Is Columbus' water safe from contamination after train derailment?

Is Columbus' drinking water safe from contamination? That question has been on

Is Columbus' drinking water safe from contamination?

That question has been on the minds of some central Ohio residents ever since crews last week released toxic chemicals from derailed tanker cars near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Officials said the cars, part of a convoy that derailed in a fiery crash in East Palestine around 9 p.m. Feb. 3 as the 141-car Norfolk-Southern train was heading from Madison, Illinois, to Conway, Pennsylvania, had been in danger of exploding.

An evacuation order has since been lifted for the area.

Of the roughly 150 cars on the train, approximately 20 were carrying hazardous materials, according to a letter the Environmental Protection Agency sent Norfolk Southern on Friday. "Cars containing vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate, and ethylene glycol monobutyl ether are known to have been and continue to be released to the air, surface soils, and surface waters," the letter reads.

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The derailment site is far from nearby watersheds and pose no risk to local water supplies, a spokesperson for the city's department of public utilities said Monday via email.

Dwayne Stokes, a water research analyst at the city of Columbus' Water Quality Assurance Lab, said in an interview that city employees regularly monitor the three watersheds that the city draws from ― Big Walnut Creek, the Upper Scioto River and Alum Creek ― and notify his lab if they detect anything out of the ordinary.

Additional testing on local water sources is done when Columbus' Division of Water is notified by the Ohio EPA that a spill has occurred in a watershed, Stokes said. "Say a gasoline truck overturns on I-270. That might run into our watershed, and we would do testing around that area, along with the Ohio EPA," he added.

Five of the derailed tanker cars were carrying vinyl chloride, a precursor to the production of PVC plastic. A large plume of smoke appeared over East Palestine when the flammable, carcinogenic substance was released from the cars and ignited.

If vinyl chloride or a chemical similar to it were to infiltrate the local water supply, Stokes said, Columbus' three water plants would remove it using powder-activated carbon. In addition, booms could be used to soak up any vinyl chloride sitting on top of a body of water. "It's partially soluble, kind of like an oil sheen," Stokes said.

The plants also have the ability to limit their intake if the concentration of something in a water supply is high enough to warrant concern, Stokes said.

Vinyl chloride is a colorless gas that's primarily used to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and is associated with an increased risk of a rare form of liver cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute. Vinyl chloride is also found in tobacco smoke.

The Akron Beacon Journal, a sister paper to The Columbus Dispatch, reported Wednesday that multiple agencies are monitoring air and water quality in streams around the derailment area, including the Ohio River.

Officials said at the time that none of the air or water contamination detected outside the derailment site was within limits considered hazardous to humans.

The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) forecasts and issues alerts in central Ohio based on Ohio EPA air monitoring information for ozone and particulate pollution, according to the city of Columbus.

Results are on the MORPC website and air quality is rated between 0 and 300. The higher the number, the more unhealthy the air is considered to be. As of Monday, the quality was at or below 50, which is considered good.

Monroe Trombly covers the workplace and environmental issues for The Dispatch.

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@monroetrombly