How the Ohio train derailment impacted Pa.'s air and water quality

Social media sites have been full of hyperbole and misinformation since a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, early this month.

Some viral posts have falsely claimed that the derailment and subsequent controlled burn were part of the deadliest environmental disaster in history — even though no human deaths have been reported. Others claimed that a toxic cloud migrated north to Canada, even though the wind was blowing in the opposite direction during the blaze.

The derailment did spill hazardous chemicals into streams near the state border. And the controlled burn did release a large plume of black smoke into the atmosphere.

But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said minnows and darters in streams were the only animals killed.

Legitimate concerns about the local impacts of pollution remain for residents who live near the derailment site, including several Pennsylvanians who live near the Ohio state line in Beaver County. Local lawmakers have called for action against Norfolk Southern.

But there also remains confusion over how far the impacted area stretches. Should all Beaver County residents be concerned? Should Pittsburghers and Allegheny County residents worry?

Some basic geographical and meteorological facts can help Pittsburghers better grasp how the Ohio train derailment can, and cannot, affect them.

Pittsburgh’s watershed

The Pittsburgh area is part of the Ohio River watershed, which includes the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers and all of their tributaries.

That includes some creeks and streams that were impacted by the train derailment, but the derailment site is significantly downstream from Allegheny County and the vast majority of Beaver County.

Lee Hendricks, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Moon, said the streams and creeks impacted by the train derailment empty into the Ohio River in Beaver County just a few hundred yards from the Pennsylvania-Ohio border. Any water from that point can’t flow into the Pittsburgh area because it is upstream.

“None of that flow comes into the vast majority of Beaver County, and none into Allegheny County,” Hendricks said.

Little Beaver Creek and its north fork in eastern Ohio were heavily impacted by the train derailment, Hendricks said. Sulphur Run and Leslie Run in East Palestine flow into Little Beaver Creek, which eventually flows into the Ohio River at the tiny borough of Glasgow in Beaver County. From there, water flows into the northern panhandle of West Virginia and on to cities such as Wheeling and eventually Cincinnati and beyond.

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Hendricks explained that watersheds are like giant misshapen bowls — all water flows down to the lowest point of the bowl, which in Pittsburgh’s case is the Ohio River. Flows in watersheds cannot move uphill, and they can’t cross over ridges within the watershed.

He said there is no threat in Allegheny County of potential water contamination caused by the derailment.

Some on social media have brought up the possibility of underground aquifers getting contaminated. This is a possibility, but Hendricks said aquifers in the Ohio Valley and Pittsburgh region tend to be small, isolated pools under the surface.

While some aquifers in the western U.S. can span hundreds of square miles, that is not the case in Pennsylvania, geologist Gary Fleeger wrote in a publication for the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

“In Pennsylvania, the permeability of the rocks and sediments changes over short distances,” Fleeger wrote. “As a result, most aquifers in Pennsylvania are local. A particular rock layer may serve as an aquifer in one location but not in another.”

Pittsburghers might be confused because the aquifer underneath the Downtown Pittsburgh area has been referred to as an “underground river” transporting water for the Point State Park fountain. Fleeger said that characterization is false. The groundwater beneath Pittsburgh does supply the fountain, but it is a sand-and-gravel aquifer that stretches throughout the low-level parts of the valley.

Hendricks said aquifers are not like underground streams, and their water doesn’t migrate as easily as above ground. He noted that he has a well in Beaver County that has been full on days when his neighbors’ well a few hundred yards away was dry.

When groundwater does move, it follows the same rules of the watershed and flows from higher to lower elevations, eventually expelling into streams and rivers.

The state Department of Environmental Protection evaluated the groundwater near the derailment site and said it flows westward away from the Pennsylvania border and it wouldn’t carry possible contaminants into Pennsylvania groundwater wells.

Minerals in soil also filter out some contaminants in groundwater, the DEP wrote.

“The geology of the area, which includes subsurface sandstone layers below the soil, would likely slow the spread of any surface contamination to the groundwater below, which is why testing will continue for at least six months,” the DEP wrote in a statement on its website.

The EPA said drinking water was safe after it tested municipal water and wells that could have been effected by the derailment.

Wind patterns

Many of the most viral images have stemmed from the controlled burn that occurred Feb. 6, which released a large black plume into the sky and hazardous chemicals such as benzene and vinyl chloride with it.

Hendricks said the wind was blowing from the north-northwest during the time of the controlled explosion, which means the wind carried anything from the explosion to the south-southeast. He said that includes sparsely populated areas in western Washington and Greene counties, and eventually on to an area west of Morgantown in West Virginia.

“This event was pretty much over within a two-hour window, and during that time the winds never changed,” Hendricks said.

He said any effect would be mostly localized to the East Palestine area because the concentration of chemicals would disperse into the atmosphere fairly easily.

Any threat of an inversion — when cold air is stuck near the surface, trapping any pollutants — was nonexistent the day of the controlled burn because a cold front was moving through the area. Inversions happen when a warm front is pushed over a cold air mass.

Allegheny County air quality monitors are capable of reading several of the pollutants from the derailment, such as benzene and vinyl chloride, but, in the days following the derailment, the air quality in Allegheny County appeared to be unaffected, according to the Allegheny County Health Department.

“With more than 25 miles from East Palestine to the county border, the ability for these emissions to disperse before reaching the county is very favorable,” the health department wrote in a Feb. 16 statement.

The county’s air monitors did not see any air quality changes that could be attributed to the derailment, the health department said.

Gov. Josh Shapiro said during a news conference Tuesday that there have been “no concerning air quality ratings” in Pennsylvania since the derailment. The state will continue to monitor the air quality moving forward, he said.

The DEP has been monitoring the air in East Palestine and across the border in Pennsylvania since the derailment, and monitors have not measured any harmful pollutant levels entering Pennsylvania as a result of the derailment or the controlled burn, the agency said.

“There are no long-term air quality concerns related to the derailment,” the DEP said.