Ohio

Five lingering questions over Ohio train derailment, toxic spill

Published

2 years ago

February 14, 2023

Five lingering questions over Ohio train derailment, toxic spill

Residents of the small city of East Palestine, Ohio are again of their properties this week following their evacuation over looming explosion fears after a practice carrying 20 automobiles of hazardous supplies derailed.

The contents of the rail automobiles have since been burned to stop an explosion, whereas officers performed a “managed launch” of poisonous chemical compounds. Noxious odors have additionally largely dispersed from city, although nonetheless stay close to some streams, in accordance with native reviews.

Questions have swirled in latest days across the root causes of the accident and whether or not residents needs to be involved a couple of continued risk to land and water. It’s additionally raised scrutiny over security laws.

Listed here are 5 lingering questions concerning the spill:

What was on the practice — and what received out?

Quick protection of the Norfolk Southern practice derailment targeted on an pressing risk — 5 leaking automobiles of vinyl chloride, a cancer-causing, explosive chemical ingredient used to make exhausting plastic like PVC pipe.

Confronted with the chance of an explosion, emergency responders diverted the leaking vinyl chloride right into a trench and burned it off — changing it into phosgene gasoline, used as a deadly chemical weapon in World Battle I.

Officers urged residents to shortly evacuate, with Gov. Mike DeWine (R) saying at a media briefing, “You should go away. You simply want to depart. This can be a matter of life and loss of life.”

Two days later, with the gasoline dispersed, state and native well being officers declared “it’s now secure for group members to return to their residences.”

However these 5 practice automobiles — every doubtlessly holding hundreds of gallons of vinyl chloride — weren’t the one hazardous materials, in accordance with paperwork the practice firm supplied to the Environmental Safety Company (EPA).

In the course of the wreck, EPA investigators mentioned they discovered different hazardous material-containing automobiles “derailed, breached and/or on hearth.”

These substances included industrial solvents like ethylene glycol monobutyl ether — which may be absorbed via the pores and skin and is poisonous to liver and kidneys — and ethylhexyl acrylate, one other recognized carcinogen that’s poisonous to the lungs and nervous system.

In keeping with the EPA, about 20 rail automobiles within the wreck have been listed as carrying hazardous supplies, and after the spill chemical compounds have been seen working into storm drains. Different chemical compounds have been buried on web site.

These chemical compounds didn’t keep in place — all of these listed are nonetheless being launched “to the air, floor soils, and floor waters,” the EPA reported.

What’s within the water?

Sulphur Run, the chemical-smelling creek that runs via East Palestine, connects via various waterways right down to the Ohio River, snaking via a densely populated countryside dotted with cities, cities and fields.

Final week, officers within the Ohio River group of Weirton, W.Va., detected butyl acrylate — one other chemical listed among the many burning automobiles — although they aren’t certain if it got here from the spill upriver, The Weirton Each day Instances reported.

Additional downstream in Cincinnati, officers have been monitoring water intakes to see if the chemical compounds make it to them. If detected, officers instructed native station WLWT they may shut off consumption valves to permit the chemical plume to float by.

Different residents don’t benefit from water therapy amenities to insulate them from spills. Fish kills proliferated alongside Ohio River tributaries within the days after the East Palestine spill, together with Little Beaver Creek, a Nationwide Scenic River, WKBN reported.

These streams are an necessary web site for the reintroduction of the hellbender salamander, an endangered species in Ohio — and a creature that, like different amphibians, is at explicit danger from water air pollution.

“We actually don’t know any of the consequences on the hellbender inhabitants the place we’ve accomplished the reintroduction of these within the streams. It’s gonna take time to know what the consequences are,” Matthew Smith, an official with the Ohio Division of Pure Sources, instructed WKBN.

In a press release to The Hill, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) known as on the state and federal Environmental Safety companies to make sure native households obtain full testing and cleanup and continued well being monitoring — and to make sure Norfolk Southern pays for cleanup.

Norfolk Southern mentioned on Monday it has carried out 340 in-home air assessments and hundreds of out of doors assessments, in addition to the water provide in municipal ingesting water and private and non-private wells — outcomes it would launch subsequent week.

It additionally introduced plans to create a brand new monitoring system and process drive to maintain tabs on contamination of native water provides.

Did lax laws assist trigger the crash?

Railroad security consultants and union members have reiterated requires extra stringent federal oversight of the rail business following the derailment.

One space of fixed stress has been brakes. Investigators from the Nationwide Transportation Security Board (NTSB) acquired reviews that crews of the Norfolk Southern practice pulled the emergency brake, and a mechanical situation with one of many railcar axles was found, CNN reported.

The opportunity of a break failure factors to a behind-the-scenes battle in American railroad regulation — and a spot the place critics say that each events have resisted reforms that might make People safer.

Most trains run on a system the place wheels cease separately utilizing a compression system, left-leaning information outlet The Lever reported. Against this, electronically managed pneumatic brake expertise (ECP) halts all of the automobiles concurrently — dramatically decreasing stopping time.

Whereas Norfolk Southern initially touted these advances, it was additionally a part of a coalition of rail corporations that efficiently fought the laws, successful a reprieve from the Obama administration and a repeal underneath the Trump administration, in accordance with the Lever.

The outlet reported that the Norfolk Southern practice wasn’t regulated as a “high-hazard flammable practice” despite the fact that its crash triggered a fireball.

“Railroads mustn’t use their lobbyists to dam or weaken commonsense security measures that shield employees and communities,” Brown instructed The Lever.

In his assertion to The Hill, the Ohio senator known as on the NTSB, which is investigating the derailment, to inform Congress and the Division of Transportation what may be accomplished “to avert future derailments involving hazardous supplies.”

One such measure is earlier than the company now. Members of a number of railroad unions are combating a possible rule that might permit trains utilizing the brand new digital brakes to journey 2,500 miles — up from 1,500 — with out stopping to have their brakes examined.

Whereas these trains would have digital logs, such a ledger “can not justify decreasing the frequency of inspections and repairs to coach brakes within the discipline,” Wealthy Johnson of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen mentioned in a press release.

“Such adjustments will virtually actually scale back the general security of trains working throughout the nation,” Johnson added.

Will it result in railroad reforms?

Within the aftermath of the crash, railroad union leaders have been fast to attach it to a problem they’ve warned about for years: that railroad layoffs and reliance on clockwork, rigid scheduling was working them ragged and resulting in catastrophe.

These insurance policies, rolled out underneath a broader mannequin in 2015, “pose actual threats to employees and public security,” Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Division of the AFL-CIO union, wrote the pinnacle of the Federal Railroad Administration final week.

“In actual fact, derailments per practice mile and incidents at rail yards have considerably elevated on a number of main freight railroads since they adopted the Precision Scheduled Railroading,” Regan added.

The query of scheduling is a very divisive one. Final 12 months, Congress voted to drive union employees to simply accept a cope with railroad corporations that gave them just about no capacity to take unscheduled sick time — after which narrowly voted down a plan that might have compelled the businesses to present sick time anyway.

Unions and progressive politicians see the latest derailment and leak as added proof that this was a foul resolution that benefited railroad service steadiness sheets over public security.

Final week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) linked the Ohio crash to railroads’ file 2022 earnings and what he characterised as persistent underinvestment in each infrastructure and staffing.

Sanders joined with Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) to demand rail corporations give employees not less than seven days of paid sick time.

He had motive to be optimistic: CSX Transportation — one of many nation’s largest railroad corporations — reached a deal final week with two railroad unions to supply that quantity of sick days.

In a speech, Braun framed this as a common sense measure. “On this day and age you don’t know whenever you’re going to get sick. It’s going to be a problem on retaining staff long run. The place I come from, most of these things needs to be pure,” he mentioned.

Sanders was extra pugnacious. He prompt the remainder of the most important rail carriers attain voluntary offers of their very own. “If not, I look ahead to seeing them proper right here,” he mentioned, gesturing on the Senate chambers.

Will it occur once more?

About 4.5 million tons of poisonous chemical compounds are transported via U.S. communities yearly by rail, and 12,000 trains carrying hazardous supplies cross via cities and cities every day, The Guardian reported.

“The Palestine wreck is the tip of the iceberg and a crimson flag,” Ron Kaminkow, a former Norfolk Southern freight engineer and secretary for the Railroad Staff United, instructed The Guardian. “If one thing just isn’t accomplished, then it’s going to worsen, and the subsequent derailment may very well be cataclysmic.”

Railway security advocates additionally level to reporting round near-disaster occasions.

The NTSB operates a confidential “shut name” reporting system — which permits staff to report unsafe occasions and near-misses to allow them to be mounted.

“Not one of many seven main U.S. freight railroads voluntarily use this program,” Regan, the AFL-CIO official, wrote in his letter to the Federal Railroad Administration.

Regan known as on Congress to drive rail carriers to take part within the reporting program, which he mentioned would “create a safer freight rail system and establish potential issues of safety earlier than they result in harmful catastrophes.”

With out significant reform, he wrote, “we worry that these security incidents will sadly maintain taking place.”

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Ohio

What an Ohio State win over Michigan would mean for two Buckeye captains

Published

2 hours ago

November 26, 2024

Press Room

What an Ohio State win over Michigan would mean for two Buckeye captains

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Every day, Ohio State linebacker Cody Simon walks past the countdown in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, a gentle reminder throughout the year of the matchup against Michigan and what’s to come in late November.

That reminder is no longer very gentle.

The Buckeyes matchup against the Wolverines on Saturday is set to take on a bit of a different tone than previous years, as 6-5 Michigan is looking to play spoiler over 10-1 Ohio State with a fourth-straight win over the Buckeyes.

But the countdown for Simon and other Ohio State seniors, more importantly, will reach 1,827 days on Saturday — the five-year stretch from Ohio State’s last win in the series in 2019 to its next potential win. It’s now the last chance for Simon, and for the entirety of the famed 2021 recruiting class, to get the job done.

“It’d just be everything,” Simon said of what a win would mean to him. “You can’t describe it with anything tangible. Just fulfillment in a lot of areas and joy for the team. And for all the seniors that came back, too.”

Senior receiver Emeka Egbuka knows exactly what he’d do after a win over Michigan, too.

“You come to Ohio State to beat The Team Up North, to win a pair of gold pants,” Egbuka said. “Just handing the gold pants to my mother is a memory I’m really looking forward to.”

That chance has never come, though. Ohio State has lost, in 2021, 2022 and 2023, to Michigan in equally deflating ways.

In 2021, it was because Michigan ran the ball at will right at, and through, Ohio State. In 2022, it was big plays allowed and three points scored in the second half that doomed the Buckeyes. And in 2023, Michigan played a mistake-free football game — with, once again, a ground-and-pound approach. Add in the sign-stealing scandal, and there’s a cloud over the last three years that no one can quite shake.

That, amongst other things, kept Egbuka and a bevy of other draft-eligible players from last year’s team on the fence about what to do with their futures. So when it came time to decide what to do for the 2024 season, the Michigan game certainly factored into the equation about nearly all of them returning for a last run.

“I think that we’re worried about what we got going on in our building,” Egbuka said. “We’re not too focused on the negative aspect of The Team Up North, but we’re focused on the positive energy and the love that we have for everybody in this building. So we’re going into that game ready to spill blood for each other because we love each other. Not necessarily going to war because we hate the other side.”

That hatred is certainly there, though. And it’s played out in part through coach Ryan Day, who has undergone the most criticism of anyone in the program since 2021.

“I think that he’s gone through a lot of things that a lot of people shouldn’t have to go through — all the scrutiny and all the stuff that people are saying about him,” Egbuka said. “But he’s a fantastic, great head coach and I wouldn’t have anybody else leading our team in the entire country. So we all have his back 100%, we’re rallying behind him and he says he wants to do this for us, but we also want to do it for him as well.”

Every player that has been around for a few years has come to the defense of Day, who has been at the center of it all — from the losses, to the sign-stealing scandal, to barbs from Michigan’s former head coach.

“He’s gone through so much, I don’t think he deserved any of that stuff he’s gone through,” Simon said. “He’s our leader, no matter he’s always standing in front of the team, and he’s taken all the heat. Taken all the bullets for everyone. If we can get this done for him, it would mean everything.”

It’s hard to encapsulate what “everything” would mean for the Buckeyes, but it also fits considering most players needed to take a beat when asked what the win would mean.

Ohio State is a program that hasn’t beaten its rival in almost 2,000 days. It has had to watch Michigan hoist a national title trophy and have the floor to make whatever comments they want.

Now, with a weakened rival and perhaps the best Ohio State team of the last four years, there’s one more chance — likely the best chance — for the Buckeye seniors to topple Michigan.

And when it comes to legacies for the Ohio State captains, beating Michigan is first on the list.

“It’s kind of hard to put into words,” Egbuka said of what playing in the rivalry is like. “I think over the last three years you kind of see the depths of the rivalry and how it affects people and all that type of stuff. So, for the most part, football is just a game, but this rivalry definitely runs deep. I think it’s hard to explain and put into words, but once you experience it, you kind of know.”

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After loss, Green Bay coach Doug Gottlieb impressed by Ohio State’s defense, physicality

Published

10 hours ago

November 26, 2024

Press Room

After loss, Green Bay coach Doug Gottlieb impressed by Ohio State’s defense, physicality

Doug Gottlieb had a lot to say about Ohio State.

Monday night, the first-year college coach brought his Green Bay Phoenix into Value City Arena and took a 102-69 loss. The Buckeyes never trailed, built a lead as high as 35 points and closed the game with a 44-18 run in the final 12:12 to improve to 5-1.

Stronger challenges lie just on the horizon for Ohio State, which hosts Pittsburgh on Friday to begin a home-and-home series before playing at Maryland and hosting Rutgers next week. First, though, was this game against Green Bay, and Gottlieb said there was plenty that concerned him about the Buckeyes.

It started on the defensive side of the ball.

“They don’t have any weaknesses defensively,” Gottlieb, a longtime sports broadcaster who played collegiately for Notre Dame and Oklahoma State. “Everybody else we’ve played, we try and attack the weak link. Usually it’s a five-man, and we thought when Sean Stewart played, ‘Oh, we have more of a traditional big, we can expose them a little bit by spacing them out,’ but he just recovers so quickly and plays so hard.”

Playing their fourth road game in their last five games, all in the span of 12 days, the Phoenix finished with their lowest adjusted offensive efficiency rating of the season. According to KenPom, Ohio State limited Green Bay to 94.8 points per 100 possessions despite starting 6-9, 220-pound Sean Stewart at center. Gottlieb credited the versatility of not just Stewart but starting power forward Devin Royal (6-6, 220) and primary rotation player Evan Mahaffey, a 6-6, 200-pound wing.

“Look, that’s a really well-coached team,” he said. “If you watch on tape and you look at the analytics, their defense is outstanding. Outstanding. It’s really, really connected, physical. We played Oklahoma State and they were physical, but it was kind of to the point of ridiculous where you could call a foul every time. They’re just physical but with really good intention.”

Ohio State committed a season-low 14 fouls against the Phoenix, out-rebounded Green Bay 37-23 and shot a season-best 64.9% from two-point range (24 for 37). Gottlieb credited that to Ohio State’s players buying into their specific roles under first-year coach Jake Diebler.

“They’ve got (Evan Mahaffey) dialed in to, ‘All you’re going to do is rebound and defend and drive to the basket or cut to the basket,’ ” Gottlieb said. “They got Sean Stewart, ball screen roll or just be a big guy in the middle and they drive off him. They use him almost like a goalpost in the middle you’ve got to avoid. They are accepting their roles and they’re flourishing. Their perimeter players, all those guards can just go get buckets, and they’re allowed to take a couple chances defensively because they’ve got good anchors inside. They are elite, elite defensively.”

Gottlieb, who hosts a daily national sports talk show on Fox Sports Radio, saved his most effusive praise for junior guard Bruce Thornton, who had a season-high 25 points and nine assists in 29:36. Gottlieb described him as his favorite Ohio State point guard since Scoonie Penn or Jay Burson.

“Bruce was really the story,” he said. “Bruce and Meechie (Johnson Jr.), Meechie just with confidence and Bruce … he leads, shoots, scores, passes. He’s a big-time basketball player. The rest of the guys just defend and feed off his energy.”

ajardy@dispatch.com

@AdamJardy

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Ohio Lottery Powerball, Pick 3 Midday winning numbers for Nov. 25, 2024

Published

18 hours ago

November 26, 2024

Press Room

The Ohio Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big. Here’s a look at Nov. 25, 2024, results for each game:

Powerball

Powerball drawings are held Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m.

05-35-45-60-63, Powerball: 12, Power Play: 2

Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.

Pick 3

Drawings are held daily, seven days a week, at 12:29 p.m. and 7:29 p.m., except Saturday evening.

Midday: 3-9-2

Evening: 2-5-7

Check Pick 3 payouts and previous drawings here.

Pick 4

Drawings are held daily, seven days a week, at 12:29 p.m. and 7:29 p.m., except Saturday evening.

Midday: 6-3-7-8

Evening: 3-0-9-9

Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.

Pick 5

Drawings are held daily, seven days a week, at 12:29 p.m. and 7:29 p.m., except Saturday evening.

Midday: 5-8-3-9-5

Evening: 5-9-5-8-5

Check Pick 5 payouts and previous drawings here.

Rolling Cash 5

Drawings are held daily, seven days a week, at approximately 7:05 p.m.

12-13-18-37-39

Check Rolling Cash 5 payouts and previous drawings here.

Classic Lotto

Drawings are held Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, at approximately 7:05 p.m.

16-17-30-35-41-48, Kicker: 8-8-3-1-7-8

Check Classic Lotto payouts and previous drawings here.

Lucky For Life

Drawings are held daily, seven days a week, at approximately 10:35 p.m.

07-10-14-33-36, Lucky Ball: 01

Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results

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Where can you buy lottery tickets?

Tickets can be purchased in person at gas stations, convenience stores and grocery stores. Some airport terminals may also sell lottery tickets.

You can also order tickets online through Jackpocket, the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network, in these U.S. states and territories: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Texas, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia. The Jackpocket app allows you to pick your lottery game and numbers, place your order, see your ticket and collect your winnings all using your phone or home computer.

Jackpocket is the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network. Gannett may earn revenue for audience referrals to Jackpocket services. GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY). 18+ (19+ in NE, 21+ in AZ). Physically present where Jackpocket operates. Jackpocket is not affiliated with any State Lottery. Eligibility Restrictions apply. Void where prohibited. Terms: jackpocket.com/tos.

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