It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, February 17, 2023
Turkey arrests 78 over earthquake social media posts
FEBRUARY 15, 2023
Woman is seen in front of displayed social media logos in this illustration taken, May 25, 2021.
Reuters file
ANKARA — Turkish police said they have arrested 78 people accused of creating fear and panic by "sharing provocative posts" about last week's earthquake on social media, adding 20 of them were being held in pre-trial detention.
The death toll in Turkey and Syria from the devastating earthquake has climbed above 41,000, and millions are in need of humanitarian aid.
Turkey's General Directorate of Security said it had identified 613 people accused of making provocative posts, and legal proceedings had been initiated against 293. Of this group, the chief prosecutor had ordered the arrest of 78.
The directorate added that 46 websites were shut down for running "phishing scams" trying to steal donations for quake victims and 15 social media accounts posing as official institutions were closed.
Last October, Turkey's parliament adopted a law under which journalists and social media users could be jailed for up to three years for spreading "disinformation", raising concerns among rights groups and European countries about free speech, particularly ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections due this summer.
President Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party had said a law was needed to tackle false accusations on social media, and it would not silence opposition. The government has also blocked social media in the past.
Last week Turkey blocked access to Twitter for about 12 hours from Wednesday (Feb 8) afternoon to early Thursday, citing the spread of disinformation, prompting an angry response from opposition politicians and people using the platform to find loved ones and share information about rescue efforts.
Turkey's Communications Director Fahrettin Altun tweeted on Monday that Turkey was experiencing "serious information pollution" and authorities would share a daily bulletin correcting false information.
Within a week of the earthquake, some 6,200 items of false information and news were reported to the government, Altun added.
Colorado considers allowing local rent control amid crisis
Democratic lawmakers in Colorado are considering repealing the state’s ban on rent control, as housing prices reach crisis levels
Jesse Bedayn 1 day ago Colorado Rent Control (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
In a vast hall at Colorado's Capitol building on Wednesday, Mary Bashor’s voice quavered as she described the terror she felt of possibly being pushed from her home of 28 years due to rent increases.
“My greatest fear is that I will have to leave my home I love, which is filled with memories of my deceased daughter and family. That would kill me,” Bashor said through Zoom during a committee meeting on a bill addressing rent control.
After Colorado's housing prices ratcheted up to crisis levels, Democratic lawmakers are considering a drastic measure: repealing the state's 1981 ban on rent control and allowing local towns and counties to pass their own caps on rents.
If approved, Colorado would join a group of states, including California and New York, that have some level of statewide or local rent control. While the bill would not install statewide rent control, the goal is to give communities the power to dampen rent increases after the state’s median home price rose by 40% — nearing $600,000 — since the beginning of 2020, according to the rental platform Zillow.
Even though Democrats hold majorities in both state chambers in Colorado, the legislation faces an uphill battle.
Critics argue that rent control dissuades developers from building more units, strangling housing supply and driving up rent in adjacent neighborhoods.
“We understand why these policies look attractive,” said Ted Leighty, CEO of the Colorado Association of Home Builders, in the committee hearing. “But this policy is a false idol. We need more supply. Period.”
Even Colorado's Democratic governor, Jared Polis, has opposed similar measures in the past and could veto the bill if it gets passed in both the House and Senate.
“Governor Polis is skeptical that rent control will create more housing stock, and locations with these policies often have the unintended consequences of higher rent,” his spokesperson Katherine Jones said in a statement.
The legislation could be amended or watered down to appease the governor as it works its way through the legislature.
The bill is one of several housing affordability measures the state’s Democratic-controlled Legislature is considering this year, including opening up state-owned land for affordable housing developments.
“Almost every issue we debate here in the Legislature comes back to housing because it’s the most basic of human needs,” said Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, a Democrat and one of the bill's sponsors, during the committee hearing on her rent control bill.
In the Senate, the bill only has one sponsor and might find a cooler welcome than in the House.
“I don’t think anyone thinks this policy is the only solution; I think it’s a way to provide relief,” said Democratic Senate President Steve Fenberg, adding, “I think it’ll be a good discussion.”
Construction worker Jimmy Velasco, who lives in Fort Collins, a city north of Denver, testified at the hearing that 60% of his salary went toward keeping a roof over his wife's and three kids' heads.
As their rent rose with lease renewals, his wife started cleaning to bring in an extra paycheck — money that ended up going to pay childcare while both parents worked during the day.
After turning to foodbanks and local churches for support, Velasco and his family decided to move.
“We had to think if we wanted to eat or have a place to live," he said.
___ Jesse Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
“The world is controlled by a secretive elite.” This claim will strike some as conspiratorial nonsense and others as an obvious statement of fact. Either way, it is now beyond doubt that a large minority of the adult population believes it to be true. The latest data from UnHerd Britain reveals that 38% of the British population agrees, while 33% disagree and 30% are not sure.
It is a useful phrase to measure core beliefs because it takes us beyond the idea of conspiracy theories, with all their distracting details and absurdity, to the underlying intuition that fuels them. In this world view, the “elites” are faraway and malevolent, exercising control in self-serving ways; meanwhile, democratic politics and the mainstream media are regarded as little more than distractions, likely in the service of powerful secret masters.
Whatever people believe about specific conspiracies — and this week offered no shortage of them, from UFOs over North America to hushed-up explosions in Ohio — our findings reveal how widespread the underlying mindset is that propels them. Thanks to our partner Focaldata and a statistical process called MRP, we can now see which constituencies are the most and least conspiratorial in the country. The results shed new light on how these voters should be viewed by the main political parties.
First, it is clear that conspiratorial thinking is not a “Right-wing” phenomenon. Voters who believe in a controlling secretive elite are much more likely to vote Labour than Conservative, and much more likely to live in a safe Labour constituency. By this measure, the 10 most conspiratorial constituencies in the country are all safe Labour seats, whereas the 10 least conspiratorial constituencies are all Tory (except Chesham and Amersham, which switched to Lib Dem in the 2021 by-election).
As the above table shows, the “most conspiratorial” list is made up of poor and highly diverse inner-city constituencies, which may explain why people come to feel so alienated and suspicious. In these places, a conspiratorial world view is the norm — in Birmingham Ladywood, for example, only 14% of people disagree with the statement. Meanwhile, in the rolling Chiltern hills of Chesham and Amersham and the affluent enclaves of Henley and Mole Valley, where the elites likely seem less distant and more on your side, few are concerned. It is a useful reminder to politicians of all parties that, while they may find conspiratorial voters troublesome, many come from the most disadvantaged communities.
Second, the results should encourage new anti-establishment parties on both the Left and Right. Thanks to our unusually large sample size of more than 10,000 respondents, we were able to measure the attitudes of voters who chose even the smallest parties in 2019 with a high degree of confidence. More than any of the mainstream parties, including Labour, the voters most prone to a conspiratorial outlook come from the anti-establishment parties: 54% of Brexit Party voters agree with the statement, alongside 45% of Plaid Cymru voters and 43% of SNP voters. So, while the Brexit binary pushed a larger proportion of voters towards the two main parties in 2019, it seems there are millions of voters who remain potentially open to new populist appeals.
There is a specific lesson here for the Labour Party. When I first tested this phrase at YouGov during the Labour leadership election of 2015, the belief that “the world is controlled by a secretive elite” was revealed to be a defining characteristic of supporters of Jeremy Corbyn: 28% of Corbyn’s backers strongly agreed with it, compared to 16% of Yvette Cooper’s and just 7% of Liz Kendall’s. Today, 42% of Labour voters agree with it, of whom 18% strongly agree. Antisemitism may have finally been dealt with in the Labour Party, but the mindset that drove it has not disappeared.
This suggests that, rather than Brexit or the election of Trump, the shock outcome of the 2015 Labour leadership election was the first real marker of the new era of low-trust and high-volatility politics; and the best way to understand it is by looking at the general election that took place immediately before. Today, it seems almost comic to recall, in the context of the eye-watering sums borrowed by successive Conservative governments, that the 2015 election was dominated by technical discussions of exactly what percentage point of austerity was appropriate to cut the deficit. Tory strategist Lynton Crosby calculated — correctly, as it turned out — that if nothing more interesting were discussed, the Tories would win by default. It was a cynical way to treat an electorate, for which he was rewarded with a knighthood. Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, meanwhile, frightened of seeming weak on economics, committed a Labour government to “austerity-lite”.
Come the election, the differences between the main parties were marginal; voters sensed a stitch-up in which the Tories and Labour had colluded to starve them of a more meaningful choice. It is hard to say they were wrong: 2015 saw the UK’s highest ever immigration numbers, for example, but this topic was hardly mentioned in the campaign. A rejection of this non-choice sowed the seeds not only for Corbyn’s election but for the Brexit result the following year.
The story of what happened in the years since 2016 is well-known. First came the attempts to frustrate the Brexit vote, which confirmed voters’ worst suspicions about cross-party collusion and elite disregard for the democratic process. And then came the rolling Covid lockdowns, which in turn radicalised a whole new constituency. There has perhaps never been a policy so life-altering and so little-debated, with a cross-party consensus parroted throughout much of the media. In those dystopian months and years, millions of people lost trust in authorities and turned to alternative explanations. These were not Right-wing activists or spotty teenagers in basements: they were mothers, grandparents and people who had never before been political. It’s hardly surprising that Google recorded the all-time high of searches for “conspiracy theory” in March 2020.
The pattern, from the 2015 election through to the pandemic, is that whenever views are suppressed, distrust and alienation follow. It is when the “Overton Window” is too narrow, not too wide, that politics feels fake and conspiracies abound. The distrust that now cuts across society is not the fault of a few small-time cranks and bad-faith opportunists — it is overwhelmingly the creation of elites who consistently tried to deny the electorate real choices.
Fast forward to the past few months, with the ejection of Liz Truss as prime minister and the rehabilitation of pre-2015 figures such as Jeremy Hunt, and many will be hoping that the era of political turbulence is finally coming to an end. It certainly feels it; for the first time since 2015, there are two technocrats at the helm of Britain’s major political parties. Centrists in both parties are hoping that as Corbynism and Brexit recede into history, the “grown-ups” will be back in charge.
But today’s UnHerd Britain data suggests that, beneath the surface, voter distrust and suspicion are more present than ever; and that the currents that propelled both Jeremy Corbyn and Brexit still run right through Labour’s heartlands. If the 2024 election is anything like 2015 — with the mainstream parties becoming harder and harder to tell apart — it could be the beginning of a whole new wave of democratic revolts.
Half of Americans believe national news organisations intend to mislead: poll
ByDavid Bauder February 16, 2023
New York: Half of Americans in a recent survey indicated they believe national news organisations intend to mislead, misinform or persuade the public to adopt a particular point of view through their reporting.
The survey, released on Wednesday by Gallup and the Knight Foundation, goes beyond others that have shown a low level of trust in the media to the startling point where many believe there is an intent to deceive.
Donald Trump helped popularise the notion that the media was victimising the public.CREDIT:AP
Asked whether they agreed with the statement that national news organisations do not intend to mislead, 50 per cent said they disagreed. Only 25 per cent agreed, the study found.
Similarly, 52 per cent disagreed with a statement that disseminators of national news “care about the best interests of their readers, viewers and listeners,” the study found. It said 23 per cent of respondents believed the journalists were acting in the public’s best interests.
“That was pretty striking for us,” said Sarah Fioroni, a consultant for Gallup. The findings showed a depth of distrust and bad feeling that go beyond the foundations and processes of journalism, she said.
Journalists need to go beyond emphasising transparency and accuracy to show the impact of their reporting on the public, the study said.
“Americans don’t seem to think that the national news organisations care about the overall impact of their reporting on the society,” said John Sands, Knight’s senior director for media and democracy.
In one small consolation, in both cases Americans had more trust in local news.
The ability of many people to instantly learn news from a device they hold in their hand, the rapid pace of the news cycle and an increased number of news sources would indicate that more Americans are on top of the news than ever before.
Instead, an information overload appears to have had the opposite effect. The survey said 61 per cent of Americans believe these factors make it harder to stay informed, while 37 per cent said it’s easier.
Like with many other studies, Knight and Gallup found Democrats trust news more than Republicans. Over the past five years, the level of distrust has particularly spiked among independents. Overall, 55 per cent of respondents said there was a great deal of political bias in coverage, compared to 45 per cent in 2017.
In a finding reflected in the financial struggles of some news organisations and declining ratings of television news networks, the survey found 32 per cent of Americans said they pay a great deal of attention to local news, compared to 56 per cent in early 2020. That was at the outset of a presidential election year and the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak.
In a picture of how people get their news, 58 per cent said online, 31 per cent said television, 7 per cent said radio and 3 per cent mentioned printed newspapers or magazines.
For members of Gen Z, aged 18- to 25-years-old, 88 per cent said they got their news online, the survey found.
In one olive branch, if Americans believed local news organisations didn’t have the resources or opportunities to cover the news, they would be more likely to pay for it.
The results are based on a Gallup study of 5593 Americans aged 18 and older conducted between May 31 and July 21, 2022.
AP
Exiled Iran chess player doesn't regret removing hijab
White House defends response to toxic train derailment
By MATTHEW DALY Ohio EPA officials, including director Anne Vogel, left, took a tour of the damage in East Palestine, Ohio on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023. Residents of the Ohio village upended by a freight train derailment are demanding to know if they're safe from the toxic chemicals that spilled or were burned off to avoid an even bigger disaster. (Lucy Schaly/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Friday defended its response to a freight train derailment in Ohio that left toxic chemicals spilled or burned off, even as local leaders and members of Congress demanded that more be done.
The administration said it has “mobilized a robust, multi-agency effort to support the people of East Palestine, Ohio,″ since the Feb. 3 derailment. Michael Regan, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, visited the site Thursday, walking along a creek that still reeks of chemicals as he sought to reassure skeptical residents that the water is fit for drinking and the air safe to breathe.
No other Cabinet member has visited the rural village, where about 5,000 people live near the Pennsylvania line. But administration officials insisted that their response has been immediate and effective.
Within hours of the Norfolk Southern train derailment, the EPA deployed a team to East Palestine to support state and local emergency and environmental response efforts, the White House said. Officials from the Transportation Department also arrived to investigate what led to the derailment, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been coordinating with the state emergency operations center and other partners, the White House said.
President Joe Biden has offered federal assistance to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, officials said.
In response to a request from DeWine and Ohio’s congressional delegation, the Health and Human Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are sending a team of medical personnel and toxicologists to conduct public health testing and assessments.
The team will support federal, state and local officials already on the ground to evaluate people who were exposed or potentially exposed to chemicals, officials said.
Senior administration officials vowed to hold Norfolk Southern accountable. The company will be required to pay for cleanup of the spill and related fire under the federal Superfund law for cleanup of toxic sites, a senior administration official said.
But the White House insisted that officials on a call with the media not be identified.
Since the derailment, residents have complained about headaches and irritated eyes and finding their cars and lawns covered in soot. The hazardous chemicals that spilled from the train killed thousands of fish, and residents have talked about finding dying or sick pets and wildlife.
Residents also are frustrated by what they say is incomplete and vague information about the lasting effects from the disaster, which prompted evacuations.
Regan said Thursday that anyone who is fearful of being in their home should seek testing from the government.
“People have been unnerved,” he said. “They’ve been asked to leave their homes.” He said that if he lived there, he would be willing to move his family back into the area as long as the testing shows it’s safe.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said he was glad that Regan visited the site, but it was “unacceptable that it took nearly two weeks for a senior administration official to show up″ in Ohio.
He urged Biden, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and other officials to provide a complete picture of the damage done and “a comprehensive plan to ensure the community is supported in the weeks, months and years to come..′
“It’s past time for those responsible to step up to the plate,″ Manchin said.
Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, who toured the site with Regan on Thursday, sent a letter Friday asking EPA to provide detailed information about the federal government’s response to the derailment, including the controlled burn conducted last week and testing plans for air and water quality.
“The community must be able to trust their air, water, and soil is not a threat to their health following this train derailment,” Johnson said.
__
Associated Press writer Patrick Orsagos in East Palestine, Ohio, contributed to this story.
The evacuation order was lifted a week ago near the toxic train wreck in Ohio, but some aren't comfortable going home
An overwhelming stench of chlorine filled the air this week where Nathen Velez and his wife had been raising their two children, quickly burning his throat and eyes. The odour has lingered nearly two weeks after a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials derailed near the Ohio-Pennsylvania line, igniting an inferno that burned for days and prompted evacuations in surrounding areas while crews managed detonations to release vinyl chloride, which can kill quickly at high levels and increase cancer risk. The stay-away order was lifted five days after the derailment, after air and water sample results led officials to deem the area safe, the East Palestine, Ohio, fire chief said at the time.
Governors of both US states that day said air quality samples had "consistently showed readings at points below safety screening levels for contaminants of concern" - but also advised private well users to opt for bottled water and offered free well testing.
Now, a week after residents were allowed to return, bottled water should remain the rule until more test results are back, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine told CNN on Wednesday, noting water in the first well tested "was fine".
Still, he said, "Don't take a chance. Wait until you get the tests back.
As that warning echoes and other worrying signs emerge, many in East Palestine remain plagued with anxiety - and some refuse to return amid fears the water, air, soil and surfaces in the village of 5000 are not safe from fallout from the freight wreck.
Some, like Velez, even are spending small fortunes to try to keep their families safely away from the place they used to call home.
Plaintiffs' attorneys have invited residents to meet on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the derailment's impact ahead of an evening town hall meeting hosted by East Palestine officials. Long-term effects stoke residents' anxiety
The 100-car freight train that derailed February 3 was carrying hazardous materials including vinyl chloride, ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate, isobutylene and butyl acrylate, the US Environmental Protection Agency said.
Of those, the vinyl chloride gas that caught fire could break down into compounds including hydrogen chloride and phosgene, a chemical weapon used during World War I as a choking agent, according to the EPA and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vinyl chloride - a volatile organic compound, or VOC, and the most toxic chemical involved in the derailment - is known to cause cancer, attacking the liver, and can also affect the brain, Maria Doa of the Environmental Defence Fund told CNN.
Cleanup and monitoring of the site could take years, Kurt Kohler of the Ohio EPA's Office of Emergency Response said February 8, vowing that after the emergency response, "Ohio EPA is going to remain involved through our other divisions that oversee the long-term cleanup of these kinds of spill."
The federal EPA, too, will "continue to do everything in our power to help protect the community," Administrator Michael Regan said Tuesday
Norfolk Southern, the company that operated the train, said Wednesday it was creating a $1.45 million charitable fund to support East Palestine.
The Ratner family, here celebrating Halloween in 2022 in their home in East Palestine, Ohio, worries about the longer-term risks that environmental officials are only beginning to assess. (CNN)
"We are committed to East Palestine today and in the future," Norfolk Southern President and CEO Alan Shaw said in a statement.
"We will be judged by our actions.
We are cleaning up the site in an environmentally responsible way, reimbursing residents affected by the derailment, and working with members of the community to identify what is needed to help East Palestine recover and thrive."
But that's slim consolation to Ben Ratner, whose family worries about longer-term risks that environmental officials are only beginning to assess, he told CNN this week.
The Ratner home, for instance, was tested and cleared for VOCs, he said.
And so far, no chemical detections were identified in the air of 291 homes screened by the EPA for hazardous chemicals including vinyl chloride and hydrogen chloride, it said in a Monday news update, with schools and a library also screened and 181 more homes to go.
But the Ratners - who played extras in a Netflix disaster film with eerie similarities to the derailment crisis - still are feeling "an ever-changing mix of emotions and feelings just right from the outset, just the amount of unknown that was there," said Ben, who owns a cafe a few towns over and isn't sure he still wants to open another in East Palestine. "It's hard to make an investment in something like that or even feel good about paying our mortgage whenever there might not be any value to those things in the future," he said.
"That's something tough to come to grips with."
'Why does it hurt me to breathe?'
The EPA, with the Ohio National Guard and a Norfolk Southern contractor, also has collected air samples - checking for vinyl chloride, hydrogen chloride, carbon monoxide, phosgene and other compounds - in the East Palestine community, it had said.
Air monitoring results posted Tuesday at the EPA's website include more than a dozen instruments, each with four types of measures - and each stating its "screening level" had not been exceeded.
But when Velez returned Monday for a short visit to the neighbourhood where his family has lived since 2014 to check his home and his business, he developed a nagging headache that, he said, stayed with him through the night - and left him with a nagging fear.
"If it's safe and habitable, then why does it hurt?" he told CNN.
"Why does it hurt me to breathe?"
An overwhelming stench of chlorine filled the air this week where Nathen Velez and his wife had been raising their two children. (CNN)
Despite Velez's experience, air quality does not appear to be the source of headaches and sore throats among people or deaths of animals such as cats and chickens in and around the derailment zone, Ohio Health Director Dr Bruce Vanderhoff said Tuesday.
"In terms of some of the symptoms of headache, et cetera, unfortunately volatile organic compounds share, with a host of other things, the ability to cause very common symptoms at the lower levels - so headache, eye irritation, nose irritation, et cetera," he said.
"I think that we have to look at the measured facts - and the measured facts include the fact that the air sampling in that area really is not pointing toward an air source for this." "Anecdotes are challenging because they're anecdotes," Vanderhoff said.
"Everything that we've gathered thus far is really pointing toward very low measurements, if at all."
As to odour, residents "in the area and tens of miles away may smell odours coming from the site," Ohio EPA spokesperson James Lee told CNN on Wednesday.
"This is because some of the substances involved have a low odour threshold.
"This means people may smell these contaminants at levels much lower than what is considered hazardous.
"If you experience symptoms, Columbiana County Health Department recommends calling your medical provider," the EPA said. Wreck and spill blamed for thousands of dead fish
The Ratner family is limiting its water use because of unknown effects, Ben Ratner said. And Velez worries "every time we turn the water on or give my daughter a bath could potentially be hazardous," he wrote on Facebook.
Some waterways indeed have been contaminated - but the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency is confident contaminants are contained, said Tiffany Kavalec, the agency's division chief of surface water.
No vinyl chloride has been detected in any down-gradient waterways near the train derailment, she said Tuesday.
But an estimated 3500 fish across 12 species are estimated to have been killed by the derailment and spillage, said Mary Mertz, director of Ohio's Department of Natural Resources.
"Fire combustion chemicals" flowed to the Ohio River, "but the Ohio River is very large, and it's a water body that's able to dilute the pollutants pretty quickly," Kavalec said. The chemicals are a "contaminant plume" the Ohio EPA and other agencies have tracked in real time and is believed to be moving about a mile an hour, she said.
The "tracking allows for potential closing of drinking water intakes to allow the majority of the chemicals to pass. This strategy, along with drinking water treatment ... are both effective at addressing these contaminants and helps ensure the safety of the drinking water supplies," Kavalec said, adding they're pretty confident "low levels" of contaminants that remain are not getting to customers.
Even so, authorities strongly recommend people in the area drink bottled water, especially if their water is from a private source, such as a well.
Velez also worries about unknown long-term effects of the burned train contents, he said.
"My wife is a nurse and is not taking any chances exposing us and our two young children to whatever is now in our town," he wrote on Facebook.
"The risk and anxiety of trying to live in our own home again is not worth it."
Velez and his family have been Airbnb-hopping 30 minutes from their home since they evacuated, but rental options and their finances are running out, he said, and a friend set up a crowdfunding page to help the family.
"Unfortunately, many of us residents are stuck in the same situation and the sad truth is that there is no answer," he wrote.
"There is no viable solution other than to leave and pay a mortgage on a potentially worthless home."
Progressive group calls on Buttigieg to add regulations after East Palestine train derailment
A progressive group called on Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to reinstate railway safety regulations from the Obama administration in the aftermath of the Ohio train derailment that led to the release of toxic chemicals.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) said in a release on Tuesday that Buttigieg should reestablish regulations that might have prevented “disasters” like the one that happened in the town of East Palestine.
A Norfolk Southern train derailed earlier this month in the town, causing a dangerous chemical spill. Officials evacuated thousands of local residents from the area for several days before lifting the evacuation order last week.
“But he is the one who can do something to hold accountable greedy corporations who cut corners,” PCCC organizer Keith Rouda said in the release. “Accountability by Tweet only will not do.”
Buttigieg said in his tweet that the Transportation Department is supporting the investigation that the National Transportation Safety Board is conducting and will use “all relevant authorities” to ensure accountability.
A petition that the PCCC launched calls on Buttigieg to immediately use his existing power to “make safety rules much stronger, so that rail workers and communities across America are protected.”
Rouda said the Obama administration had rules in place to prevent this type of situation, but the Trump administration removed them following “corrupt corporate lobbying” and Buttigieg has not restored them.
The derailment reportedly occurred because of a mechanical failure.
The Hill has reached out to Transportation Department for comment.
GOP Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and J.D. Vance (Ohio) sent a letter to Buttigieg on Wednesday to question him about the department’s oversight of the rail system.
Ohio cleaning up toxic train derailment as pollution 'plume' moves downstream
FEBRUARY 15, 2023
Drone footage shows the freight train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, US, on February 6, 2023 in this screengrab from a handout video released by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Reuters
Cleanup is moving quickly after a train carrying toxic materials derailed in Ohio 11 days ago, Ohio governor Mike DeWine said on Tuesday (Feb 14), while residents and observers questioned the health impacts of pollution that spilled into the Ohio River.
The Norfolk Southern Railroad-operated train derailed on Feb 3, causing a fire that sent a cloud of smoke over the town of East Palestine, Ohio, and forcing thousands of residents to evacuate. After railroad crews drained and burned off a toxic chemical from five tanker cars, DeWine on Feb 8 said that residents could return to their homes.
While DeWine said the pollution did not pose a serious threat to five million people who rely on the river for drinking water, he and several Ohio health and environmental officials cautioned at an afternoon press conference that residents using private wells near the derailment should use bottled water only.
Reporters pressed DeWine and other officials about some residents' complaints of headaches and concern that the government or the railroad were not telling them the entire truth about the pollution and potential harm.
An aerial view shows a plume of smoke, following a train derailment that forced people to evacuate from their homes in East Palestine, Ohio, US, on February 6, 2023. PHOTO: Reuters
One of the chemicals on the train was vinyl chloride, which the US Environmental Protection Agency says is highly flammable and carcinogenic, especially through inhalation. When burned, it decomposes into other toxic compounds including hydrogen chloride.
Dr Bruce Vanderhoff, director of the Ohio Department of Health, said the compounds spilled can cause headaches, eye and nose irritation even at levels considered safe, but that the "measured facts" show air sampling is not reporting any dangers.
The plume of pollution in the Ohio River is moving at 1.61km per hour towards the Mississippi River, nearing Huntington, West Virginia, on Tuesday afternoon, said Tiffany Kavalec, chief of the surface water division of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
Cities in the plume's path can turn off their drinking water intakes as it floats by, Kavalec said. Drinking water tests have not raised concerns and normal water treatment would remove any small amounts of contaminants that may exist, Kavalec said.
Officials said the volume of the river diluted the plume and the plume did not pose a serious threat.
Union warnings
Railroad union officials said they have been warning that such an accident could happen because railroad cost-cutting harmed safety measures.
Asked about the union accusations, a spokesperson for Norfolk Southern Railroad said in an email that "our record (and that of most US Class I railroads) is trending safer".
The train of three locomotives and 150 freight cars was headed from Illinois to Pennsylvania when it derailed. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said 20 of the cars were carrying hazardous materials, including 10 that derailed.
The NTSB said 38 cars in total left the tracks and that the ensuing fire damaged an additional 12. The NTSB has not commented on the derailment's cause.
Clyde Whitaker, chairman and director of the Ohio State Legislative Board for the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers Transportation Division, said he had notified federal railroad inspectors that crews at one railroad, which he would not name, were disregarding warnings from detectors designed to prevent accidents and was told that their use is voluntary and not subject to regulation.
An environmental company removing dead fish downstream from the site of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, US, on February 6, 2023. PHOTO: Reuters
"No one wants to listen until we have a town blown off the face of the earth, then people listen," said Whitaker, whose union is the largest US railroad union representing conductors, engineers and other workers.
DeWine said that he spoke with Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw on Tuesday morning.
"I asked if he would personally guarantee that the railroad would stay there until absolutely everything was clean. He gave me his word and his commitment that the railroad would do that, they would not leave until that was done," the governor said.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency had earlier notified the company it may be liable for cleaning up under the US Superfund law.
Ohio train derailment reveals the dark side
of plastics
ByZahra Hirji February 16, 2023 —
A Norfolk Southern Railway freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in fiery fashion in East Palestine, Ohio, on the night of February 3.
The risk of some of those dangerous materials exploding prompted officials to allow the train operator to run what’s called a “controlled explosion” on February 6, releasing known carcinogens and a black smoke into the air. Although residents and businesses were evacuated beforehand and have since been allowed back, many remain hesitant to return home. Melissa Smith took this photo of the train fire from her farm in East Palestine, Ohio, on Friday, February 3.
Environmental and public health advocates also raised concerns after chemicals contaminated waterways that feed into the Ohio River. A federal investigation into what caused the crash is continuing, as is environmental monitoring inside and outside Ohio.
US Environmental Protection Agency administrator Michael Regan announced on Wednesday (US time) that he would head to East Palestine the next day to visit the disaster scene and meet residents and emergency responders.
The disaster highlights the dangers of the world’s growing reliance on plastics, which are made from two key chemicals of concern, vinyl chloride and butyl acrylate.
“This tragedy reminds us we have to pay attention not to just what happens to plastic when you are done with it, but the whole life cycle of using massive amounts of toxic chemicals that have to be transported all over the world to make plastic products,” said Judith Enck, a former administrator at the EPA during the Obama administration and now an activist against plastic pollution. The wreckage of the freight train at East Palestine, Ohio, seen in drone footage on Saturday, February 4.
What do we know about the crash?
About 9pm on Friday, February 3, an eastbound Norfolk Southern freight train travelling from Madison, Illinois, and heading to Conway, Pennsylvania, derailed in East Palestine, Ohio.
The train was carrying a mix of items including malt liquor, frozen vegetables and five main hazardous chemicals: ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate, isobutylene, butyl acrylate and vinyl chloride.
The National Transportation Safety Board said that of the train’s 150 cars, 38 derailed and an additional 12 were damaged by a fire that lasted for days; 11 of the 20 cars carrying hazardous materials derailed. A black plume rises over East Palestine, Ohio, as a result of a controlled detonation of a portion of the derailed Norfolk Southern train on February 6.
There were no fatalities or injuries in the derailment and fire. Investigations into what caused the derailment are ongoing, but surveillance video footage shows the bottom of one rail car overheating beforehand.
“Engineers from the NTSB Materials Laboratory will examine the rail car wheel and axle that potentially experienced a mechanical issue,” NTSB spokesperson Jennifer Gabris wrote in an email to Bloomberg Green.
Why was there a controlled explosion?
In the days following the crash, at least one train car carrying toxic materials started to experience a dramatic rise in pressure. This prompted concerns of a possible “catastrophic explosion” that could send a deadly spray of shrapnel across a wide area. Ohio National Guard Civil Support Team members prepare to enter an incident area in East Palestine, Ohio, to assess remaining hazards with a lightweight inflatable decontamination system.
To prevent this from happening, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Norfolk Southern and others decided to perform a controlled explosion of five cars carrying chemicals including vinyl chloride, a known carcinogen.
It is unknown how much of the vinyl chloride, which is used to make polyvinyl chloride that’s found in many plastic products and other chemical materials, leaked into the environment ahead of the explosion or during it.
Roughly 4700 people live in East Palestine. Residents and businesses within a few kilometres of East Palestine in both Ohio and Pennsylvania were evacuated ahead of time. Following this explosion on Monday, February 6, residents were allowed to return home starting on Wednesday, February 8. What about air contamination?
The EPA conducted a range of air monitoring procedures after the crash, including real-time air monitoring using stationary devices set up around the disaster zone and East Palestine community, roving monitoring using hand-held devices and aerial monitors using an ASPECT (Airborne Spectral Photometric Environmental Collection Technology) plane.
An employee of environmental contractor HEPACO works in a creek along Sumner Street in downtown East Palestine, Ohio on Sunday February 5.
Only particulate matter was detected above the screening levels, and no chemicals or gases were identified at a hazardous level. By the evening of February 13, the EPA had discontinued its community-level air monitoring for phosgene and hydrogen chloride, which can be produced when vinyl chloride combusts. The EPA has been monitoring for chemicals known to be on the train, as well as other materials that those chemicals can break down into or generate upon combustion.
With Norfolk Southern, the EPA also screened the air inside 396 homes and found “no detections” of vinyl chloride or hydrogen chloride; 100 homes still need to be tested.
But this doesn’t mean there weren’t chemicals in the air, possibly at dangerous levels. In one of the EPA’s daily updates, the agency noted that “residents in the area and tens of miles away may smell odours coming from the site”, a result of the byproducts of the controlled burn having a low odour threshold. Booms are placed in a stream that flows through the centre of East Palestine, Ohio, as the clean-up continues.
Public health experts also warn that testing indoor air quality isn’t sufficient, especially a week after an event, when chemicals and gases may have dissipated.
“What they have to test is the furniture, the rugs, anything that will absorb contaminants,” says Enck. The EPA did not respond by the time of publication to questions about whether it was testing furniture.
Has there been water contamination?
Soon after the crash, emergency response crews found contaminated run-off at two surface streams — Sulphur Run and Leslie Run — prompting the construction of booms and underflow dams to restrict the flow of contaminated water.
Operations to collect contaminated mud and water have continued, with the Ohio EPA taking the lead on water sampling. At least one of the streams empties into the Ohio River, a drinking source for several states, prompting additional water sampling across state lines. The clean-up of portions of the freight train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio,.
Although officials have largely declared the drinking water in East Palestine and elsewhere safe, some communities are being advised to drink bottled water.
About 3500 fish have died in the impacted waterways, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources said. The primary toxic chemical identified in the water is butyl acrylate, which is used to make polymers and resins, including those found in plastics and paint.
Authorities in Ohio plan to release toxic chemicals from a derailed train.
Who is responding to the crash?
A complicated web of local, state, and federal officials are responding to the disaster, along with Norfolk Southern and its contractors.
East Palestine’s city officials have contributed to the emergency response, while both the Ohio National Guard and US Department of Defence contributed to modelling done ahead of the controlled explosion.
The NTSB is running the safety investigation into what caused the crash and will ultimately issue safety recommendations after it is done.
The EPA took initial water and soil sampling around the crash site, and is the primary source for air monitoring in the community; the EPA is also working with Norfolk Southern to do indoor air screening inside the homes of those who have requested it.
The Ohio EPA is the point agency for water sampling in and around the site, while the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission and other water utilities along the Ohio River are doing their own water sampling.
Bloomberg
'Shameful': Pennsylvania governor shreds Norfolk Southern for 'giving the middle finger' to regular people
Matthew Chapman February 16, 2023 Smoke rises from a derailed cargo train in East Palestine,
Ohio on February 4, 2023.
(Photo: Dustin Franz/AFP)
Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) tore into the management of Norfolk Southern, the freight company behind the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, on CNN Thursday.
The disaster, which occurred just miles from the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, forced thousands of people to leave their homes and spilled toxic chemicals into the environment. Locals are enraged over the company's lack of presence in the aftermath, and new reporting reveals that the company has done away with jobs that used to maintain safety features on tracks in that area.
"You wrote a letter to Alan Shaw, that's the president of Norfolk Southern, in which you outlined a series of mistakes you think the company made in the immediate aftermath of this crash, including creating an environment of confusion resulting in a lack of awareness for first responders, getting inaccurate information, and an overall unwillingness to explore alternate courses of action to the proposed vent and burn," said anchor Jake Tapper. "Is Norfolk Southern cooperating with you at all in the aftermath of this attack?"
"I think Norfolk Southern's conduct has really been shameful," said Shapiro. "They load themselves up with lobbyists and lawyers and then they give the middle finger to the good people of Pennsylvania. They made this process much more difficult than it needed to be."
"Let me explain specifically," said Shapiro. "When you're dealing with an emergency situation, Jake — a snowstorm or train derailment, you name it — it's imperative that we create what's known as a unified command structure. This was complicated a bit because we were dealing with two states. But I must say that Governor DeWine and our partners in Ohio cooperated greatly and we worked really well together. The hitch in all of this has been Norfolk Southern. They refuse to participate in that unified command. Which created extra work. It added confusion. It made it harder for us to get the information out. It wasn't insurmountable, but they were not good stewards, participants in this process."
"They need to be accountable," Shapiro added. "Not just now with this current situation in East Palestine, Ohio and the potential effects it could have on Pennsylvania, but they need to be held to a higher account when it comes to federal policy. They work with such arrogance, such disregard for local communities and local residents. That needs to change. And I hope it does change as a result of this."
Train carrying hazardous materials derails in Michigan
A train traveling outside Detroit, Michigan, has derailed this Thursday, with at least one car carrying hazardous material, Fox News reports.
It's not yet known what caused the train to derail. Authorities told local news reporters that there were no injuries and the area has not been declared a hazmat situation.
Officials told reporters that one car that was seen off the track was carrying hazardous materials.
"At this time no one is aware of the release of any hazardous materials, the car carrying hazardous material has been put upright and is being removed from the area of the other derailed cars, and EPA is dispatching a team to ensure public safety," Rep. Debbie Dingell, (D-MI) said in a statement.
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy said it's sending people to the scene "to assist in assessing the situation."
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