DeWine's office provides update on private well sampling, liquid - WFMJ.com News weather sports for Youngstown-Warren Ohio

DeWine's office provides update on private well sampling, liquid transfers from East Palestine

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Governor Mike DeWine's Office released an update on remediation work at the site of the East Palestine train derailment Tuesday evening.

The update touched on a number of topics including severe weather impacts, liquid transfers, track removal plans and private well sampling.

According to the release, the heavy rain that hit East Palestine Monday led to increased water flow in the contaminated section of Sulphur Run. The stream is dammed and rainwater that enters the contaminated part is being vacuumed from the site.

The rain also caused minor damage to some containment, collection and stream treatment systems which were expected to be fixed by the railroad Tuesday. The Ohio EPA said the damage may have caused "a small amount of heavily diluted contaminants" from Sulphur Run to enter Leslie Run.

Norfolk Southern is using a bulk transfer method for contaminated liquid at the derailment site after the recent rains. The company reported the onsite liquid storage bins are 90% full as of Tuesday.

The contaminated liquid was removed from the derailment site by truck and taken to licensed hazardous waste disposal facilities. The new bulk method still uses semitrucks to remove wastewater but instead of bringing the hazardous waste straight to a disposal facility, it will be offloaded to rail cars.

According to the release from DeWine's Office, those railcars are stationed at the rail yards in Lordstown. The Ohio EPA is monitoring the transfer and the U.S. EPA will decide where the liquids will be disposed of.

When it comes to railroad track removal, Ohio and U.S. EPA officials are finalizing the process with Norfolk Southern. They say the process could begin as soon as Wednesday.

The Ohio Department of Health and Columbiana County Health District received results from 11 private wells Tuesday. According to the release, six showed no detectable contaminants and five had trace detections at levels well below safe drinking water standards. They say there is no evidence that the trace detections are linked to the derailment.

126 private wells have been tested so far and results have come back for 30 with none showing evidence of contaminants linked to the train derailment.

Governor DeWine is expected to travel to East Palestine Wednesday where he will meet with EPA, FEMA and CDC officials among others.

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