There's a Real Environmental Catastrophe Unfolding In Ohio and the Media Is Downplaying It Or Just Not Reporting It for Some Reason

Let's talk more about carbon dioxide while burying the story about the train derailment that released toxic chemicals into the air of Ohio and the ensuing die-offs of fish.

A train derailment last week in Ohio has turned into a full-fledged environmental disaster, and it's received surprisingly little national media coverage.

Last Friday, a train belonging to Norfolk Southern, one of America's leading rail operators, derailed near the Pennsylvania border, leaving what the Associated Press called "a mangled and charred mass of boxcars and flames" just outside the village of East Palestine, home to about 5,000 people. The crash created a 50-car pileup--half the train's length. According to Norfolk Southern, a fifth of the cars were carrying hazardous materials.

The wreckage proceeded to burn ominously all weekend. By Sunday evening, residents near the train tracks were told to "immediately evacuate" in a sudden alert from the office of Governor Mike DeWine. He went on to warn: "There is now the potential of catastrophic tanker failure which could cause an explosion with the potential of deadly shrapnel traveling up to a mile."

Apparently a particular cause for concern were 14 giant tankers that were "exposed to fire" while full of hundreds of thousands of gallons of vinyl chloride. A chemical used in PVC, vinyl chloride is flammable, toxic, and a declared brain, lung, blood, and liver carcinogen. The federal government banned it from household spray cans in 1974. Breathing it "can make you dizzy or sleepy, or have a headache," a fact sheet released two days ago by the Ohio Department of Health alerts readers. "You can die from breathing extremely high levels of vinyl chloride."

It also boils at just 8 degrees Fahrenheit--meaning moving it into containers that cleanup crews could cart away probably wasn't a safe option.

Instead, the cleanup crew performed a "controlled burn," burning the stuff up.

But the byproducts of incineration are also dangerous.

Residents told the local news they "fear[ed] for their lives." One said that even indoors, "You could smell it and taste it, and I had a headache." Meanwhile, the crash site was leaching other hazardous materials besides vinyl chloride. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says they seeped into surrounding waterways, and "were immediately toxic to fish"--though it added that "actions were taken to minimize that." The agency has assured the public that, the poor aquatic life's fate notwithstanding, everybody's drinking water was "protected."

Bullsh!t.

So why is the media covering up what would usually be a four-alarm fire of a story?

Well, because it's happening on Biden's watch, and because the media knows that this disaster is once again well beyond the capabilities of the Secretary of Transportation, Mayor Butt, to manage.

So into the Quiet Pile the story goes.

This Twitter user gives his own report after noting the derailment hasn't gotten much national media attention, and the media reporting it has gotten is "not good."

Stuff like this makes me think they're lying:

The governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, is very nominally a Republican. If there was actually an official RINO Party, he'd belong to it.

posted by Ace at 12:11 PM

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