Railroaded – detailed analysis of E Palestine derail | Hacker News Reader

Railroaded – detailed analysis of E Palestine derail

doomberg.substack.com

22 pointsolivermarks12 comments

I think my biggest complaint about this situation is that Norfolk Southern gets to put their damn nose into the attempts to fix and remediate the situation. IMO, they should be 100% sidelined, while the EPA brings in an independent team of people who have probably done this before, and have no incentive to cheat anything, and then just hand Norfolk Southern the bill.

So how did all the fish and other animals die then?

Well, do we know either way?

Every dead animal within a hundred miles of Palestine Ohio has no doubt been attributed to the disaster. If something like this is on people's mind, and they all report every finding of a dead animal, you're gonna find a lot of dead animals. Until there's an actual autopsy, could be they're all related, or none of them.

What was the process after similar catastrophes, like Exxon Valdez, or Deepwater Horizon?

If you find a bunch of dead birds covered in crude oil, there's not much need for further analysis. I mean I guess a few could have died of unrelated causes just as they were contaminated by the oil, but if they hadn't, they still most likely would have died.

Also, are they really similar catastrophes? The Deepwater Horizon is a spill the size of about 10,000 train cars. Obviously the effect of different materials differs, but the sheer area contaminated is in an entirely different ballpark.

For Deepwater Horizon at least, there was a lot of concern that the dispersant they used to break up the oil would cause a catastrophe not visible in the same way as an oil covered bird.

This stuff in Ohio is burning up into the sky and being dispersed by wind. Not as bad as Deepwater Horizon given the much lower volume, but the perimeter of the consequences will be quite large and similarly difficult to delineate.

butyl acrylate has a higher toxicity to certain animals like fish

If they were all right next to where some of the chemicals leached into the water, they could experience acutely toxic levels while the concern about the eventual state of the environment stays fairly low.

Carbon dioxide will cause severe harm if you huff a paintball tank, but if you empty that same tank into a gymnasium, it's not a concern.

Stopped reading at “20,000 gallons of gas”. What a ridiculous measurement.

> You may assume standard conditions

Vinyl chloride tank car capacity is usually specified in gallons. E.g., [1].

It sounds like what the article is saying is that a 20000 gallon vinyl chloride tank car released all its load.

[1] https://www.gbrx.com/railcars/25800-gallon-vcm-pressure-tank...

And it’s transported as a liquid in rail cars, so that 20,000 gallons of liquid turns into many many more gallons (lol) of gas.

Why not use mass? The reportable quantity is 1 pound.

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