Ohio cleaning up toxic train derailment as pollution 'plume' moves downstream

I also had family on the Alabama gulf coast at the time. They were finding globs of oil on the beach for a few years after "everything was cleaned up"

How many people graduate in computers and say “now I want to go maintain 25 year old enterprise Java code for banks?” No? Same principle applies.

It’s hard to get people to maintain the boring stuff in a country with so much interesting shiny new stuff going on.

It doesn’t help that these industries are also low margin and are not attractive investment targets.

Local environmental hazards like this have unanimous bipartisan support for being thorough and transparent, thats how we got legislation like the Clean Air Act. How greased hands and coverup agents feel about it is a separate matter.

> along with the idea that you shouldn't trust our media, agencies, etc.

Imagine that. Although, I'm more accustomed to the idea people only ever think this sort of thing because of those dastardly Russian disinfo campaigns.

Most people care more about their health than a balloon that - even if it is a nefarious - has no impact on their lives.

and someone trying to cover up this toxic spill story with the balloon story,

I'm wondering what I really missed in the "turmoil"...

So the answer is probably yes, with it being a lot harder to say what the exact effects are (because how much did it dilute in the atmosphere before going into solution, how quickly did it fall in rain, etc.).

It seems likely enough that there will be some rain that is moderately effected and not much else (because in terms of mixing with the atmosphere, tens of thousands of pounds isn't that much material).

This has been multiple headlines on the front page of both reddit and HN for like an entire week, how much more do I have to hear about this before people like you acknowledge there is news about this incident?

The day of and after there wasn't front page coverage about this because there was a national event happening, and it turns out local, small scale industrial accidents are pretty common and regular, and most people don't GAF.

This story has enough hysteria already.

The safety requirements in question, mandating ECP brakes on certain trains carrying toxic cargo (I think it was trains above a certain length unless they stayed below some specified speed or something like that), were enacted under the FAST Act in 2015.

One of the requirements of that was that before their scheduled effectiveness date that the National Academy of Sciences was to investigate this and determine if the assumptions made when requiring ECP brakes were justified.

My Googling has failed to turn up a copy of the NSA report, but from the small amount that has been quoted in newspaper and magazine articles that did turn up, and from what DOT said when they announced in late 2017 that the ECP mandate would be rescinded, it sounds like the NSA was unable to come to a conclusion on the relative performance of ECP brakes compared to other brakes in emergencies.

Here's what DOT said:

> In accordance with the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act (Public Law 114-94), the U.S. Department of Transportation today announced the final updated Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) in regard to Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) brakes on certain trains. After careful review in accordance with the Congressional mandate contained in the FAST Act, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will rescind the ECP mandate.

> This determination was made with congressionally-mandated input from the National Academy of Sciences’ Transportation Research Board, U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) and studies by the FRA, which found that the cost-benefit analyses are not sufficient justification for mandating ECP brakes.

> The National Academy of Sciences determined it was unable to make a conclusive statement regarding the emergency performance of ECP brakes relative to other braking systems. In addition, the updated RIA incorporated recommendations from audits conducted by the U.S. General Accountability Office and updated costs and benefits of the ECP brake provision based on current economic conditions. This review demonstrated that the costs of this mandate would exceed three-fold the benefits it would produce.

If the NAS really found that there wasn't enough evidence to say ECP brakes were actually better and the GAO really found that the costs exceeded benefits by 3 to 1 and they were using whatever value is normally used on human life when doing cost/benefit analysis...then this sounds like it might have been destined for repeal regardless of who was President at the time.

I'm curious about why the FAST Act required such a review in the first place. Is that normal? I'd kind of expect such review to come before, not after.

[1] E.g., their weakening of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA). The MBTA implements a treaty from the early 1900s between Canada, the US, and Mexico to protect birds that migrate between them. So for example suppose I have some land that migratory birds covered by that treaty rely on as a nesting ground, and want to say build a parking lot on that land. I'd have to do so in a way that does not harm the birds. At least that's what everyone thought for the prior 100 years, including nearly everyone involved in making or ratifying the treaty.

Trump's administration decided we've all misunderstood what it meant all those years. What it actually meant is that you could not intentionally harm the birds. So if I wanted to pave over my land to make a parking lot because I wanted to kill the birds, that would not be allowed. But if I wanted to pave over my land to make a parking lot because it would make money and killing the birds is just an unintentional side effect, that would not be covered by the treaty.

The data is that there is nothing to report.

The burn off took place over two weeks ago - I'm not sure why we would be looking for dangerous vapors still.