[0:00] agenda item uh we have uh Dr Aon Hayes of the University of Kentucky uh she's

[0:06] going to share results for the health tracking

[0:08] study um and that is it you ready great so it's hard to know

[0:16] which way to face I want to do both you and this group um I did not bring slides

[0:22] but I do have handout so you can see I have some you can share you may have to

[0:28] share um and then I have this one we'll get to

[0:33] that just a second actually can I have one back I'm going to need a cheat sheet

[0:39] just one thanks all right my name is Aaron Haynes with an N I know my husband

[0:44] gave me a name that everybody screws up um still love it still love him um I I

[0:51] have been doing I am an environmental health scientist but I'm from Appalachia

[0:56] I grew up in rural Ohio in Adams Then Brown and in Claremont County just along

[1:01] the river and all of my work has been focused on appalachin Ohio and issues

[1:06] that residents face um whether it be the Hazardous Waste incinerator in East

[1:12] Liverpool um or the Ferro manganes refinery in Marietta um and hydraulic

[1:18] fracturing came to our attention compressor

[1:21] stations um which has forced me to do a lot of pivoting um and not just focus on

[1:26] one chemical so when the derailment occurred over a year ago that was the

[1:32] hugest pivot uh seeing all of the potential chemicals uh things that I had

[1:38] never studied before um made it a necessity and my heart was with you as

[1:44] soon as we saw the flames and the burning Dolores Silverthorn um lives in

[1:49] Rogers and she's been working with me on many of these studies uh for now over

[1:54] two decades with the studies but East Liverpool for like 15 years so when one

[1:59] of the first things um we decided to do and I my heart has been with you since

[2:05] the beginning and I have honestly not stopped thinking every day about this

[2:09] community and what science what data things that I could help and bring to

[2:13] the table so one of the first things we did was to launch a survey to start

[2:19] tracking health symptoms over time that was very important that you could

[2:24] document uh your experiences and the symptoms that you have

[2:30] immediately after and then longterm there may be symptoms people may be

[2:36] great right now and who knows what happens later there's a possibility that

[2:41] has occurred before in other disaster scenarios so we want to set something up

[2:46] that is longterm for tracking so we created a logo created the survey very

[2:52] briefly um and this is a summary of not all of the data but these are like the

[2:58] highlights so I wanted to have everyone in the community take this now that did

[3:04] not happen of course we only had 380 actually go through and take enough

[3:10] of the questions that we can say they've participated some people signed in and

[3:15] then I think they just wanted to see what we were asking and they GL got out

[3:19] so we we struck them from the group but over half of them live within 2 miles of

[3:24] the dur so the majority of the people live in your community right here I

[3:31] think that's important and I summarized with bullets the key pieces that we're

[3:37] noticing and we're working to get this published peer review scientific

[3:41] literature but that takes time and I'm really honored and glad to be be able to

[3:47] share it with you before the years it might take I don't know how long pubs

[3:51] take but um I it's more important to me that you know this information and can

[3:56] start working with it um than it is in the scientific lit literature so out of

[4:01] everyone in the um survey three out of every four reported experiencing at

[4:07] least one new health symptom since the derailment

[4:11] occurred that's quite a few people um and over half of those indicated that

[4:17] those symptoms were upper respiratory which completely follows what we would

[4:22] expect from the chemicals that came from the burn the burning and the um the fire

[4:27] from the derailment um over 80% this is I think very

[4:32] interesting live within one mile so we I did not bring the map of um the data but

[4:40] I'd be glad to share it if you're interested we are working on it as the

[4:43] publication the the concentration of new symptoms being upper respiratory is much

[4:50] higher 80% within a mile and then that number goes out to about 50% at 55 plus

[5:00] miles so it's a nice grade of symptoms for upper respiratory so it it although

[5:07] it's not everyone in the community um I feel good about the the responses that

[5:13] we are getting valid data so all right I'm going to keep going and I'll tell

[5:19] you next steps um we are following so that we did a second survey and over

[5:24] half of them said that their symptoms were still persistent they still remains

[5:30] in the fall so we're going to do it again in February and my hope you know

[5:35] we expect to see them declining that's the intention that's what

[5:40] anticipated um we'll see um we we looked and screened for stress these are actual

[5:47] measures that screen there you know scientifically validated questions to

[5:53] assess uh individual's level of stress um and stress was very high and it

[5:59] continued through the fall and so did post-traumatic stress disorder screening

[6:05] I think that's a really big one um that it's not a diagnostic PTSD but it's a

[6:11] screener and a third of them had those symptoms so your community um needs more

[6:18] than a hug you do need that but you also need um to take mental health very

[6:24] seriously and uh take resources that are available to you I would really

[6:30] encourage that um for everyone for everyone um we did ask questions about

[6:37] bottled water and drinking and half in the fall still said they relied on

[6:42] bottled water so I thought that was interesting that there was still concern

[6:45] about drinking water and odors were still remaining so

[6:51] we continue to follow um we're going to look at long-term tracking these data

[6:58] and more important cly I really want to expand this out to have more people so

[7:03] we're going to start and launch it again we're going to do a uh version 2.0 and

[7:09] um we've been discussing ways to encourage people to do this survey and

[7:15] not not just those who are experiencing a symptom but even those who aren't so

[7:20] that we can we have everybody in this project and the longer that we will keep

[7:26] everyone in this group call it a cohort so that we can follow and look long term

[7:32] at anything related to liver function or kidney disease you know we really want

[7:37] to track you so there's lots of studies that have tracked people over time like

[7:42] the nurse's health study I don't know if you've heard of that one but it's a

[7:46] national study and they tracked nurses and they followed them they thought uh

[7:50] who would be the best at taking surveys nurses so nurses have been followed

[7:56] thousands of them over time and they've looked at where they live and their

[8:00] chemicals and what products they use and then later life cancer and mental health

[8:05] Etc so we're kind of following that model and we truly want to capture as

[8:10] many people as we can so we'll I hope to announce the launch not ready yet of

[8:17] this survey 2.0 the second one and uh enable abroad like hopefully more people

[8:23] and maybe after we'll say the dust has settled and it's a little quieter more

[8:27] people will be interested and inclined to take this

[8:30] so I could pause and say if you have any questions on this part I'd be glad to

[8:35] answer them or I can move on to some other fun stuff that we did yes will we

[8:39] be reaching out to the folks that participated the first time around or

[8:42] would we have to

[8:45] re oh yeah those so those who are in are in and we we well we got you unless you

[8:51] say hey stop stop calling me um but we will always try to reach you um and then

[8:59] now we just want new more more people great

[9:04] question so you said um 380 this how many did you kick

[9:10] out uh it it was over I was getting excited over 400 that was sounding

[9:15] better but there were some who took answered maybe one or didn't answer any

[9:20] and if we didn't have enough information we had to draw a line and

[9:24] say uh that's really not a participant so you bottomed out at 380 yeah that's

[9:29] our that's our current number oh no we love we'll take anyone

[9:35] we love smokers bring them on I'm a smoker bring smoker anyone anyone

[9:41] actually the eligibility was anyone I we didn't want to just limit it to the one

[9:47] mile or the two we did all of Colombiana County and then I we said any County

[9:52] surrounding colombi County anyone County great Erin you're eligible

[9:58] and and if you're 18 and over and then that's it live in one of those counties

[10:03] and an over 18 we had the limit I didn't having a child do a survey takes parents

[10:08] and then there's more complications and I will I'm more of I love uh children

[10:13] studies but um for this it was a little complex but we are asking questions

[10:18] about kids and how are they responding and I hope um that would be a great

[10:23] study another day but this information is really important to start saying okay

[10:29] where are the key uh things that need to be further addressed to identify

[10:35] research tracks question um you did the blood

[10:40] test yeah okay we know you're going to talk about that yes and then um are you

[10:45] doing any testing with the liver like can you test the liver for dioxins or no

[10:50] no um you can do I'll talk about the blood yes I'll give you that um but

[10:57] there are liver like you can um have your blood drawn and like a

[11:02] normal clinical test would measure a liver function there are tools for that

[11:09] and if you asked your physician to have your liver function tested they could

[11:12] easily do that and if you want advice on what exactly to ask for we'd be glad to

[11:17] give that to you dioxin if you can ask that dioxin is all right do you ready

[11:23] for the blood I think that's a segue all right so this this one's a

[11:31] two-parter so I'm going to ask that you carefully count the pages and just take

[11:37] to I have um this and then there's an example

[11:42] okay all right this has not been shared before you guys are getting something

[11:47] new um we have not published it I'm working on it um very few media Outlets

[11:55] I've shared it because it's like um I wanted to bring it back to this group

[11:59] and before the world this is your data so there were so many questions about

[12:06] dioxin and any other chemicals in the Der can you measure them in the body and

[12:12] it was okay we can help I don't know how to you know let's figure this out how

[12:16] can we do this so um dioxins form um when burning occurs so forest fires

[12:26] create dioxin um burning trash creates dioxins

[12:31] there's also industrial sources it's when there's carbon in the air and then

[12:37] chlorine and wow did you have a perfect scenario to create dioxid in your airs

[12:43] like so it was very scary was like perfect storm so it was we must measure

[12:49] dioxin in the community it was like that was one of the top

[12:54] priorities so I knew EPA was doing soil so I didn't you know you know waste

[12:59] money you don't want to redo what somebody else is doing um and I the best

[13:04] laboratory is the in the U in the US is the centers uh for Disease Control the

[13:09] CDC they have the standard methods I reached out to them and they were

[13:14] absolutely wonderful and said yes we will do your samples for free they did

[13:20] this which is great we invited 20 of our participants to do the Pilot We

[13:26] collected blood and urine and I'll tell you about urine in a moment but we

[13:32] collected the blood participants had to give four tubes of whole blood to have

[13:38] one measure of serum enough serum to analyze for dioxin that was a lot so is

[13:45] that a typical measure you ask your doctor for no they don't even know

[13:50] really where to send the samples to God love them but there's no they don't what

[13:55] do they do with it how do they collect it do they use the right equipment you

[13:59] know it's very technical it took our team months to go through the protocol

[14:05] learn the method and be able to do this we're ready now but it took time so the

[14:11] CDC had the samples they analyzed them we got the data back and for that study

[14:17] I didn't want dioxy or I didn't want smoking to interfere at all so we took

[14:22] smokers out of the equation so only invited nonsmokers those who are within

[14:27] a mile cuz I thought let's invite those who if if there was dioxin enough that

[14:33] we would see it it would be those who are close so close to the

[14:39] dment um non-smokers and then obviously they were over 18 and we wanted to have

[14:45] a range a nice mix of males and females because there's a difference all

[14:51] right so I gave you I think the this summary has a lot of information about

[14:57] what they are how people people are exposed to them um I just wanted you to

[15:02] have it because uh it helps to make sense of what dioxins are and how you

[15:07] get exposed everyone in America has the dioxin level in their body we've all

[15:11] been exposed um and normally right now we get that from eating high fat foods

[15:17] meat eggs some fish so it's in our body no matter what we've got it and the way

[15:24] we analyzed it um or gave the data back were because there's 20 of these dioxins

[15:31] that we measured and so you can have all of them summed up into one value that

[15:37] you can then compare to others in the US so we summed them all up it's called

[15:42] called a toxic equivalency equivalent value

[15:47] teq I'm glad to have my little cheat sheet it's the teq and we could compare

[15:52] that to uh a large group in the US have had their Dio

[15:59] measured and we could compare in 2010 2011 that had been done and it's called

[16:04] the enhan study no

[16:08] relation and um we found and I have that second page is an example of what we

[16:16] gave back to one person but I'm happy to say and I was very relieved a little

[16:21] surprised actually but relieved to see that everyone in all 20 actually there

[16:27] were only 18 that we had enough blood for so 18 of them were within or below

[16:34] the comparison value of the United States

[16:39] yay I what a relief it was a um a a surprise but a very good

[16:46] surprise and you say they were the folks close yes to Ground Zero pretty they

[16:52] were within a mile and they um were

[16:57] non-smokers yep and they did they they had dioxin but no more with they were

[17:04] within the range of typical us or somewhere

[17:10] below so it does not mean I want to make sure we're I you know we translate this

[17:17] right uh my guess is there was you know I you would almost certain chemistry

[17:23] there were probably dioxins in the air but was it enough to ra the to have it

[17:30] it was not enough to make it any different than typical in the

[17:34] US so um so a few things that I want to do next with this is that we compared it

[17:43] to 2010 2011 that's the only data we had that's over a decade old we think dioxin

[17:49] levels should be decreasing over time so as soon as the NY soon as CDC publishes

[17:56] their next data I'm we're going to grab it and we're going to compare and see

[18:02] how it compares to more contemporary values so and then we'll come back and

[18:09] write everybody a new letter hopefully it stays the you know we'll just see all

[18:13] right any questions on the diox that was a I thought that was really big and

[18:18] important to do if I missed when was the blood yeah I did not didn't put that on

[18:23] there um I didn't put it on this either we measured in July July 17 18 19

[18:32] somewhere in that time frame mid

[18:36] July that's when we collected good

[18:41] question so would that have been enough time yeah

[18:47] probably now should we do it on more people you know we could um this was a

[18:52] pilot this was let's try 20 and see um we actually had enough for 18

[18:59] but you know that we could do more um but I was really glad to see that there

[19:03] wasn't anything alarming at this point for

[19:08] dioxin will you test that same 18 six months later 18 we could yep so these

[19:15] take normally they charge you they were uh good about letting us

[19:20] do or doing this uh without cost so um money but we can yeah we it could be

[19:28] done or I wonder should we do the same again or should we and or do more people

[19:35] maybe people who didn't evacuate and stay you know there who knows or maybe

[19:40] by a certain geography where um maybe some levels in soil were higher than

[19:45] others just to rule it out I think if that's a question we need to rule it out

[19:52] we need to answer it with data I love doing that any other on the

[19:58] blood dioxin people from the pirate Department

[20:02] tested not in our pilot we uh on the survey we asked them were you um part of

[20:09] the emergency response were you a first responder I don't think any of them

[20:14] joined our survey so let me make that a call out we

[20:18] would love to have the First Responders uh and I when I was thinking

[20:23] how can we you know you know how can we help what what population of course the

[20:27] First Responders were top of the list but I heard there was a study and that

[20:31] was kind of like taking care of like a group was going to work on them I've

[20:35] heard I don't know how that's going but um okay anyway no they answer your

[20:44] question okay anything anything else on the blood dioxin trying to move

[20:50] relatively quick but also make sure I cover it a well all right we also

[20:54] collected urine and that's always well we didn't you they did they did it

[20:59] themselves self-collection and the goal of the self

[21:06] the urine was um all of the other chemicals so there was Vinyl chloride in

[21:13] the air there were the acrylates

[21:17] and there were uh people going to labor and having their Vinyl chloride tested

[21:23] and it was I'm seeing it in the news and I was reading the the newspapers and the

[21:28] message was I have it in my body what do I do and it was like what are they and

[21:33] for me I was like what are what is that lab measuring because there's not to to

[21:41] our knowledge there is no good measure of these chemicals metabolizing

[21:47] and then measuring it in your urine so whenever you inhale or exposed to

[21:53] chemicals they they are processed just like your food chemicals are processed

[21:58] and those little processed pieces are called metabolites so when you urinate

[22:04] you have lots of metabolites in your body drug screen for instance that's an

[22:08] easy one those are metabolites of chemicals coine in you can see if

[22:13] someone's a smoker if your kid smok random urine test but you can measure

[22:19] those metabolites in urine so there is currently no offthe shelf method for an

[22:28] anzing any of these metabolites and I think that was the reason that the state

[22:35] the feds did not collect and analyze because they the method wasn't readily

[22:41] available but that didn't sit with me a research well let's find one and I

[22:47] there's a lab at Wayne State you have friends in other places

[22:52] and Wayne State um in Detroit uh she's a wonderful chemist her name's Judy westr

[22:59] and she said I'm going to do this I can figure this out and her and her team so

[23:05] they have been working on figuring out the best metabolites for vinyl chloride

[23:11] acryline acrylates Etc I don't have that data to share because she is she um you

[23:20] know we sent it in she had a lab person that lab person then left her lab so

[23:25] then she had someone else pick it up who's now done it twice and now this is

[23:29] number fourth time and I hope this one works so she's developing them and I as

[23:37] soon as we have that data I would love to share it with you so I because it's

[23:41] really important and again these were same they were collected in

[23:45] July um and because these are new methods we reached out to I mentioned

[23:50] that I work in Marietta Ohio and we had a call out for them would you give

[23:56] urance so we can compare to East Palestine residents and they

[24:01] volunteered and did that so we have maretta also is a comparison for you to

[24:06] see what the differences are so I'm excited to look at that when we have

[24:11] it okay that's the year and there's not a lot of excitement you know um data but

[24:16] it's a process different group than the 18 for the blood same same but we had we

[24:21] had more urine because everybody well yeah everybody could give a sample there

[24:26] in Marietta we there was a one guy who couldn't she just I was like drink

[24:31] more she wait nope anyway so just yes please Trent yes all these people to get

[24:39] on national television and say how horrible our town is and all this and

[24:43] say that they have monochloride in their urine it's impossible for them to know

[24:48] whether it's binoc chloride in their urine or anything because there is no

[24:51] actual test to test any V so let me let me address that one I wish I had so

[24:57] there's a a a pathway of metabolites uh for vinylchloride and one

[25:03] of the one of them at the very end of the pathway was the one that lab core is

[25:09] measuring now un unfortunately this chemical can also be

[25:16] found from other

[25:20] exposures it's not specific to vinyl chloride is it from Vinyl chloride could

[25:26] be but it could also have been from other things darn it so if a if a survey

[25:34] had been given to those individuals at the time of collection that helped to

[25:38] rule out other things that would have been great but to my knowledge that

[25:43] wasn't done and my second question is there's a lot of talk about dioxins that

[25:48] they do these tests and one group does them and they're within normal range and

[25:52] the other group does them and they're 39,46 times higher than that those

[25:59] dioxins may be in the ground but as far as your study yeah that you don't see

[26:04] any RIS in human dioxin levels in this town from the people you studied I know

[26:09] it's not everybody yeah okay so yeah I am not we did not see anything we saw

[26:15] dioxin in the body we saw it but it was within the US typical wrench thank you

[26:22] yes appreciate it question um these people with the respiratory

[26:28] issues and that sort of were self-reported yeah all of them y was

[26:33] there any Baseline like for example if they've seen an allergist or

[26:38] colonologist or if they're seeing one now so was there any any way to

[26:44] medically yeah help those people and identify that this has been there yep or

[26:51] this is that's a very good question and we we grappled with that like we don't

[26:57] you you weren't studied Baseline not everyone no one had a pulmonary function

[27:01] test the week before the Duram you didn't have your dioxin

[27:06] measured the week before the dment we don't unfortunately we don't have that

[27:10] but we phrased the question in a way it was all caps new neew do you have any

[27:16] new symptoms so and we are also asking a medical history and we hope to see any

[27:23] of those new symptoms decrease the reason I'm asking a lot of people in the

[27:30] in the surrounding area see an allergist on a fairly routined basis so we're just

[27:34] asking we know what we're not saying people are having issues but what are we

[27:39] looking at and how do people get yeah that's the case I yes and we do want

[27:43] people um to get help I don't we asked the question in such a way that it was

[27:48] new you know I I'm not taking their survey but um that we tried to phrase it

[27:54] in a way that it wasn't your normal asthma anything new but it was

[28:00] self-report all of it was self yeah the survey is 100%

[28:04] self-report is that the best know it's better to go to a physician and have

[28:08] them or a health care provider and have them actually give a lung function test

[28:14] and I wish all everyone should have had a long function test or be followed to

[28:19] see if there had was long impacts and then are those get do they get better do

[28:25] they get worse you know what's the outcome but I I recommend Long Function

[28:28] testing as your 18 people that went through the dioxin process several of

[28:34] those people have indicated to me that they're very interested in going to the

[28:38] next step just because they thought it was great to have a baseline yeah they

[28:42] were pleased with their results but they plan to do a followup so hopefully they

[28:47] will see you and I hope we can have the funds to do another followup to do that

[28:51] I think that would be excellent and to do more people I have one more piece of

[28:55] information to share if that's if time allows and that we did some air sampling

[29:01] indoor air uh I it's been another so anytime there's a Hot Topic or a

[29:05] question I I know EPA has their thing and they're doing it but they're not

[29:09] filling all the questions that I'm hearing so indoor air was important

[29:15] right that's at least what I heard so we figured out uh let's um

[29:21] let's do something so we recruited a different group of people to

[29:28] um place a it's a little badge a VOC badge in their in in their home uh for a

[29:37] whole week and it would measure uh all voc's so it's a start it's something

[29:43] that's normally used by in an occupational setting so someone um at a

[29:50] work location where there might be exposures and then they could um either

[29:55] test it on them as an individual are in their workspace so we use these in

[30:00] residences um and I've not shared the data back

[30:04] with the individuals yet and I need to um but I I'm encouraged to share it with

[30:10] you here because I'm here took five hours to get here I might as well give

[30:15] it to you so um we analyze them for and I this is again we sent them to um that

[30:23] wonderful colleague at Wayne State Judy westrik she them for AC the acrylates

[30:29] and then beex which is commonly found in gasoline they are just typical

[30:35] voc's typically from like diesel or you would um at a gas station you're going

[30:41] to have beex exposure you can smell it right that sweet smell my daughter loves

[30:47] it I'm like ah stop breathing it get back in the

[30:51] car um and then uh the lab was able to do um solvents so they threw those in as

[30:59] a bonus so I was most interested in the

[31:02] two acrylates that were related to the dment and I'm very you know I can give

[31:08] you the summary none of the homes that we um had them in for a week and this

[31:15] was in the fall I believe October September Misty thank you it was in

[31:22] September um none of the homes had acry lies I thought that was very good

[31:28] there were two homes out of the 15 that we did that

[31:33] had levels that were um uncommonly high for BCS which meant there's there's some

[31:43] sort of gasoline um exposure in their household

[31:48] so I'm going to we're going to I'm going to do some phone calls with them and try

[31:52] to investigate that a little bit um it could be that and so these chemicals

[31:57] beex they can cause uh dizziness headache

[32:03] rashes and there was a lot of truck traffic going on and during an evacu

[32:09] when you're leaving your home and if a home is

[32:13] closed there the air stays in and it can raise the levels of any you know it just

[32:19] circulates indoors and stays but when your house is open the windows it flows

[32:23] more and the air is better in indoors so one of the homes um we know had they had

[32:30] evacuated and had returned about a month before we sampled and they had the

[32:35] highest value so it made me it makes me just question there's lots of things it

[32:40] could be it could be a gas tank or something but Benzene wasn't high but

[32:44] just one of those BX measures so it makes me wonder if there was if it was

[32:49] because the house was closed or what was it so I'm still investigating that piece

[32:54] and I think um we are we should probably do more with indoor air just because

[32:59] there were two with a 15 that had um unusual beex that shouldn't be in a

[33:05] house not typically in every you know every home has some beex you're going to

[33:11] get a measure but not at these levels so I do want to go back and we're going to

[33:16] offer them to have a second test with us just to see if it's changed since

[33:23] September but I wanted to give you the no acolytes in the air of those homes

[33:29] which is good one other thing I'd like to clarify

[33:33] okay bring it you are totally independent you work for the village

[33:38] right please explain how you you're doing this to help our community yeah

[33:43] you really didn't work with anybody no Village Administration you worked with

[33:46] Misty we thank you for that but I just want to clarify that you don't you're on

[33:51] either side you're totally independent so yeah my funding I I came into it I I

[33:56] think I tried to reach out Dolores knew your mom or hairdresser or something I

[34:02] was like I apologize your mom she knew a mom my mom in that time and I got yelled

[34:07] after that too I thought I had an in I thought I

[34:11] was like okay I didn't I am not funded by The Village or I'm no nobody funds me

[34:17] except I use my own money in the University when you move I'm in Ohio so

[34:21] I was in Cincinnati I went to Kentucky they gave you a startup package I Ed

[34:25] some of that but I also um uh applied we have an internal source but it's from

[34:33] niehs they have a center so we have a great Environmental Health Sciences

[34:37] Center at UK um I'm now the interim director of that Center but I applied to

[34:42] a pilot um and it was $50,000 so it's helping to cover the cost of our travel

[34:48] here and the analysis and um SE the dioxin so that's been great and that was

[34:54] just for one year I just want to add to that too I was pulling on Aaron's

[34:58] heartstrings I'm not going to lie I was sending her pictures from my house of

[35:04] the and everything going on so I just want to clarify that because everybody

[35:08] says oh no that's because you're with that ask I'm you're with somebody I just

[35:12] want to clarify that you are totally independent yeah we've never met I'm

[35:16] not time yes can you speak to the Silicon

[35:23] wristband oh yeah so we did those also um and I and we did so many things and

[35:29] I'm like when I look back and think of all the items but there were so many

[35:32] questions and we had I don't honestly I don't feel like it was enough I feel

[35:36] like this the community needed more than what we did but another thing that we

[35:41] did um there's a lab at Duke University that can

[35:47] analyze um they you uh they clean them first so that's a clean sample but you

[35:53] know like the Liv strong wristbands silicone wristbands so they cleaned them

[35:57] they sent them to me and then we asked residents about 85 people who are in our

[36:02] survey to wear them for a week and they wore the wristband and they are still at

[36:08] Duke being analyzed but because Judy's lab was doing all these super fun things

[36:13] with acrylates and Vino chloride and stuff we asked okay can you cut the

[36:17] wristband you need all of it Duke and they said no we don't need all of it so

[36:21] they're cutting The Wristband half of it's going to go to Wayne State so we

[36:24] get more out of that data so I don't have that yet but I will bring that to

[36:29] you as soon as we get it and that includes measures of uh

[36:34] posos and P's so any burning um chemicals would be there

[36:40] they've used them on firefighters before which is cool so I have that as a

[36:45] comparison um now the day oh you know how research goes it's never perfect

[36:52] it's never perfect but the day we got the wristbands we got them on everyone

[36:56] everyone time to consent form we wake up the next morning and it's all

[37:01] cloudy new the firef Wildfire smoke coming from uh Canada that day a great

[37:10] well it became a wildfire study that day on our wrist V we will see Wildfire

[37:16] smoke on that wrist V that'll be interesting but maybe we'll you know

[37:21] we'll see other things um I'm looking forward to that

[37:25] data that was all that we've done so far yes hi this is a big one how about the

[37:32] potential synergistic

[37:36] impact that's a yeah I ask that question all the time um Even in our work I how

[37:43] so you weren't exposed to just one thing um clearly not many chemicals in the

[37:48] environment our tests can do some things in urine some things in Blood and then

[37:54] being able to put it all together is really important and I have had um

[37:59] residents inform me about like all right when how to give the data back and if it

[38:04] wasn't for the community advis the advisor advice we wouldn't have these

[38:07] beautiful blood dioxin result letters because I I had feedback on how to write

[38:12] those from the locals um what would make sense what wouldn't

[38:17] um but to answer that question it's very challenging to put it all together but

[38:23] the advice was let's just wait until you have all of the information and then we

[38:27] can present it as one but that urine was taking way too long it was just dragging

[38:32] on and I thought let's just get this out you need it soon um it's a great

[38:38] question uh science is still trying to catch up to what we all know is a good

[38:43] there's very little testing at chemical combination yeah and that's yep and it's

[38:49] very hard to statistically analyze that right because they all have different uh

[38:56] um every time you measure in a different body part of your whether hair toenails

[39:01] blood anything teeth I've collected all of these on people and someone's like

[39:06] well can't you put it all together what does it

[39:09] mean just because it's in your tooth how does that compare to your hair I don't

[39:13] know so these are all great questions and I um we have societies and Science

[39:18] and people are trying to look into it but um we don't have it yet as a field

[39:24] as a science good question now yeah now you

[39:27] say you'd like to expand your study but there's no

[39:30] money um I'll talk about money state in the federal government what can we do to

[39:36] help well yes up that would be great just so this group knows the I don't

[39:42] know if you've been aware but um the National Institute of Environmental

[39:46] Health Sciences the one that I do have a pilot from our Center through they are

[39:51] from they're one of the Institutes of NIH so niehs is planning to fund

[39:58] multiple um research studies um Beyond myself so there will

[40:04] be an announcement

[40:10] shortly about who and what they're going to do the encouragement is that they all

[40:16] collaborate so you're not randomly hit by investigators and you don't

[40:21] know which Ser what to do I I really want to make sure it's uh harmonized

[40:27] I have a question yeah getting back to you mentioned the urine study again yes

[40:33] with the polyvinyl chlorides in the urine

[40:37] could there be a link I know your one reported said that there was a uh

[40:43] increase in bottled water consumption there was previously did the

[40:46] microplastics from the from the bottles themselves have any impact on that um so

[40:53] for the vinyl chloride metabolite I don't think so but that's a good

[40:57] question that's good one of the things is with with these bottles sitting out

[41:01] in the sun all the time yeah you're going to get some chemical leeching from

[41:05] the bottle itself I'm just wondering if that has any impact on the

[41:09] study um we can certainly it's hard with a population of what 20 that we have but

[41:15] we do know who's drinking bottled water and who's not but if that's the case

[41:19] don't we all drink bottled water and Pepsi and soda um yeah there's other

[41:25] chemicals in the plastic too that come out so but I still do it I mean it's

[41:32] just so darn common I wish we didn't have the bottles but you know part of

[41:37] our life are will you be available for questions after absolutely I'm sure you

[41:42] want to move on well we have another presentation to great I greatly

[41:46] appreciate you making the drive up here I'm happy too thank you very much for

[41:50] letting me come and I'd be glad to come back and give you more as we get it

[41:54] thank you very much [Applause]

[42:01] all right next we have uh NS and the EPA cleanup status update and future

[42:07] projects thank you so hello everybody I've got some slides here but a lot of

[42:12] the slides are on these posters here so maybe you guys can see these while they

[42:16] can see those we'll we'll play it by here but my name's Andy Maguire I'm with

[42:20] the US EPA Region 5 um a lot of you probably don't know my

[42:26] name um you know you're probably expecting Mark

[42:30] dno um because he's talked to you all a lot over the course of this last year

[42:34] I've been here quite a bit um however but my role is more of direct oversight

[42:39] of Northfolk Southern doing operations out in the field so I'm if you see me

[42:43] around town I'm usually got a hard hat and a yellow vest on um so we're g to

[42:49] talk today about mainly the results of a a

[42:55] qualitative um what we call a qualitative Sheen survey that we did

[43:00] last November in Sulfur and Leslie run and then after we talk about that

[43:06] we're going to talk about uh some upcoming work that we're going to do in

[43:09] The Creeks to to clean up do some more Cleanup in The

[43:13] Creeks so forgive me here while I get my slides

[43:21] up all

[43:25] right

[43:30] all right showing up so this this slide here you all can't see it but it's

[43:36] pretty generic um it just shows the spill pathway from the derailment right

[43:41] it's just pinpointing on a map where the dment happened how the contamination ran

[43:47] along the ditches and sulfur run and then beyond down into into um Leslie run

[43:53] and what we did you can see it on the it it's kind of mirrors the maps that you

[43:58] see on the boards the sheen survey was done every 25 ft so each little point

[44:05] there that you you know that looks like they're all stacked together it's

[44:08] actually individual points about 25 ft apart

[44:13] and every 25 ft we went in and agitated the sediment to see if a Sheen popped up

[44:21] a discoloration or a Sheen of the water

[44:26] um you can see on the map on the far left there it's all Sheen observations

[44:31] so you can see there was plenty of Sheen that we found along the

[44:36] Creeks the photo on the left is how we scored the sheen right so there's

[44:43] various types of Sheen there could have been no Sheen there could have been a

[44:46] light Sheen and you when when we're done you can get up or if you want to get up

[44:50] and take a look at the photos a little closer you can see kind of generically

[44:54] how we scored them between light Sheen no Sheen light sheen what we call medium

[44:59] Sheen or heavy Sheen and this you can see all Sheen the

[45:06] next and there's the photos for you guys so you can see so you can kind of see

[45:11] and the boards you can see it a lot better so after the after the meeting

[45:14] you can take a look but um this is just kind of how we scored it right as we

[45:20] went out there and did our agitation in our

[45:24] survey so the next board to your right it's

[45:30] where we did not see any Sheen so those were locations along the creeks and the

[45:34] waterways where we did not see any Sheen and this this is the same thing

[45:39] that's over

[45:42] there next is where we saw medium Sheen so you could see or did that was that

[45:47] light Sheen my bad whoops anyway so light Sheen is here so

[45:56] we saw a lot of light Sheen right and I the kind of the general progress is

[46:01] there was more light Sheen than there was medium Sheen there was more medium

[46:04] Sheen than there was Heavy Sheen so this is where we saw our medium Sheen along

[46:09] the Waterway and then Chris you want to take

[46:13] that one off and then these are the locations

[46:16] where we saw heavy

[46:24] Sheen

[46:28] so you could see as you would imagine you know in November you know several

[46:33] months after the drillman the sheen was you know we saw more light Sheen than we

[46:38] did Heavy Sheen um in

[46:45] November we put some bar graphs or some you know Circle graphs up here you can

[46:51] see them on the on the photos there just just marks out overall what our Sheen

[46:56] count was right for the over 800 points that we took um you could see it up

[47:01] close a little bit more but you could see it you know bra there's much more

[47:05] heavy Sheen or much less heavy Sheen than there was light

[47:10] Sheen and this one is just for sulfur run with the

[47:15] counts and Leslie run we also did background so we went

[47:21] Upstream of where the contamination went into the creeks and tested that as well

[47:27] and I know you can't see this but there was only four locations in those

[47:31] background up Upstream locations that we saw just light Sheen we didn't see any

[47:35] medium Sheen or any heavy Sheen most of it was no

[47:42] Sheen this we don't have a f we don't have a board for this but this is just a

[47:47] location of of where we sampled the sheen so some of those locations we

[47:52] actually took samples to analyze uh what what in the sheen right you mentioned

[47:57] betex right that's something we're looking for um or the you know the

[48:01] acrylates the Fino chloride other things that were released as part of the

[48:08] derailment so one thing that just came out today and there's no board for this

[48:14] um is a public viewer where you can actually go online and look at that

[48:20] assessment that we did um it's going to look a little different than these Maps

[48:25] here there some public there's some uh privacy concerns right A lot of these

[48:29] Creek the creek bed is public prop or private property so we took some

[48:34] Liberties and kind of generalized it a little bit but you can still go into

[48:37] different sections of the creeks and see where the sheen was was was identified

[48:43] and I think we're going to probably get this link in our newsletter that I think

[48:48] should be coming out this week um so yeah so the link will be on that the

[48:52] Link's here it's long so you probably might be able to write it down I did try

[48:57] Googling it before I came here and it Google doesn't know it's there yet so

[49:02] just look for it in the newsletter and I'm sure you know we'll try I was ask

[49:06] you share yeah we'll share with you we'll certainly get the link out make

[49:09] sure it's in the newsletters this week but again yeah it'll just be more

[49:15] interactive there'll be some good information on there to to you know help

[49:19] you walk through the viewer there's photos as well you can scroll through

[49:23] photos on the viewer as well

[49:28] all right so that was kind of our that was our qualitative assessment of the

[49:34] sheen any questions on that yeah wasn't this information the same thing we put

[49:38] on the epa's mailing a while back said Sheen generalization percentage Yeah so

[49:46] there's been some assess Sheen assessments done throughout the

[49:49] throughout the project I'm highlighting one where we did it in a much more

[49:54] granular fashion where we did it every 25 feet um but yes there has been you

[50:00] know information put out in the newsletters throughout the throughout

[50:04] the pro the derailment that that highlighted some of where we saw Sheen

[50:09] now not to se silly or stupid about it how did you do the sheen assessment did

[50:15] you go Downstream and work your way back up because you start poking holes keep

[50:20] on going you're exactly right we went downstream and worked our way up y so

[50:24] the downstream would have been less obvious and as you went up more then you

[50:28] had more of a chance of seeing she or props yeah

[50:34] yeah any other questions before I move on to the cleanup can you describe how

[50:38] you did the agitation did you just stick a stick in and just move around did you

[50:43] get on six in or no it was I mean it's lit a shovel or a pole and you just kind

[50:49] of work to you know look for Sheen down in Leslie run there's a lot of rocks a

[50:52] lot of rock and a lot of the sheen can get caught underneath the Rock rocks so

[50:56] kicking up rocks things like that trying to liberate the sheen as we're looking

[50:59] for it and and while we're doing this immediately Downstream we have we have

[51:05] containment right we don't want to let the sheen continue on Downstream so as

[51:09] we're doing it we're also containing and collecting the the any Sheen that might

[51:13] pop up any other questions on the survey y

[51:19] um did any of the folks who were performing this work have any health

[51:23] impacts I mean we hear stories of Cree Rangers out there poking around in there

[51:28] and then they suffer for a good bit of time afterwards did you find any of that

[51:33] with the folks who were performing this study we did not we did not we also had

[51:38] air monitoring going on while the while they were in The Creeks you know testing

[51:43] to see make sure the air was okay but no to answer your question no nothing Chris

[51:47] did you ever hear anything sing

[51:51] yeah not for this no

[52:01] yeah yeah is there any way to tell whether this is a legacy issue or

[52:09] whether um possibly uh that was not part of this though this we're not trying to

[52:15] determine if it was Legacy or derailment related for this qualitative but there

[52:19] you know we took samples right and actually we're continuing to take

[52:23] samples um to help try and ID identify if it potentially is Legacy or

[52:30] not yeah how does this Sheen VAR from sheets in parking lots I've been up at

[52:37] the bardman mall and it's been raining there's puddles with Sheen right how is

[52:43] that uh it's it's hard to say I mean petroleum Sheen in general right can be

[52:50] kind of a rainbow right that's probably what you're seeing in a parking lot it

[52:54] can be like that we we've seen that it also tends to as it breaks up you know

[52:59] come back together right because there's biological Sheen too from De decomposing

[53:04] leaves that are in the water things like that it acts differently and so the ex

[53:08] the ex we have experts out here when they do the sheen to help determine if

[53:12] it's a if it's a petroleum oil sheen or like a biological Sheen so and it may or

[53:19] may not you know be rainbow it could be you know dark in color too it could

[53:23] depend on how what type of oil it is right so yeah but there's experts out

[53:27] there who are trained to know what the sheen looks like to make sure it's not a

[53:32] biological Sheen just from a you know natural decomposition of of uh organic

[53:37] matter something like

[53:41] that any other questions on the sheen before I move

[53:45] to upcoming cleanup work yeah

[53:54] you that that still be so there are some

[53:59] results out there I'm not I I'm not prepared to talk about exactly what and

[54:02] where but there are some results out there um those be released in public

[54:07] yeah they may already be I'm not 100% sure um but yeah certainly they'll be

[54:12] released to the public yeah yeah I

[54:17] got

[54:21] questions did they give me the link already suppos to be supposed to be able

[54:25] to check

[54:29] everywhere yeah and it may not be in a viewer like this easily to digest it

[54:33] might be in like a report unfortunately you know there there's we have a lot of

[54:38] data out there and it's in various formats you know what I mean uh so it

[54:43] made you know this is this was set up strictly to look at the sheen but I you

[54:48] know there's likely it's probably in some report unfortunately out there

[54:52] that's you know buried somewhere else but

[54:56] any other Sheen before I move to the cleanup upcoming cleanup work all right

[55:03] so as part of this Sheen survey right um we developed a work plan well we're

[55:08] still developing a work plan finalizing a work plan to go to some of these areas

[55:13] right where we're seeing the the mediums the heavy Sheen right and go take some

[55:18] action to clean it up right

[55:23] and you know as we talk about what as I we'll get into what we're going to do

[55:28] just I just wanted to touch on some of the and you guys can't see this I

[55:31] apologize but I'll read through it talk about some of the previous work

[55:36] right that has happened over the last year one of the one of the things we've

[55:42] done to clean up the Creeks um over the past year is a couple

[55:46] different rounds what we call flushing the creek

[55:51] creeks and what that is it's a use of a low pressure high volume amounts of

[55:55] water right just to try and mobilize some of the contamination that's stuck

[56:01] under maybe rocks or you know debris that's in the in the in the

[56:07] Creeks um and then again we have that containment just immediately Downstream

[56:13] as as we you know release the contamination from where it's stuck to

[56:18] capture it Downstream so it doesn't go any

[56:21] further so that's one thing that's been done a few times over the course of the

[56:25] last year um also done another thing called

[56:29] air knifing and what that is it's you know using a pole with compressed air

[56:35] sticking it into the sediments of the creek to try and again mobilize that

[56:40] contamination and collect it immediately Downstream so that was done twice three

[56:45] times several times yeah last summer was mainly when that happened last

[56:51] summer um and again you know you ask about exposure right we're doing air

[56:56] monitoring so we do air monitoring whenever we're doing any of these

[56:59] activities down in the creek we've got air monitoring going on to make sure the

[57:02] workers and the public we also have when we're doing these activities we have air

[57:07] monitoring outside of the creek in the in the neighborhoods to make sure that

[57:11] if it's you know creating an air issue we're going to know right and be able to

[57:17] report stop work or report out if there's an

[57:21] issue um and then another thing we did in late 2023 last year was Culvert

[57:28] sediment removal so the various culverts that sulfur run crosses through town

[57:34] right we're sitting on one right now on top of one right now

[57:39] um actually went into all not all of them most of them um from the derailment

[57:44] site down um and just removed all the sediment from out of the culverts um

[57:51] didn't do the washing I mean there was washing done over time through the culs

[57:55] but this this operation was to just remove the sediments and debris from the

[57:59] culverts um I'll mention one and it's going to be mentioned in the upcoming

[58:04] work um it's a the longest covert through town kind of goes there from uh

[58:10] the James Crossing at the rail at the rail at the

[58:15] main lines over to well just behind the family assistance center and kind of

[58:20] crosses tager right there um there was some health and safety concerns um with

[58:26] that long stretch of Culvert to to do the full removal but we're going to

[58:33] revisit it right we're going to try and you know put our heads together figure

[58:37] out a safe way to do some of the removal of the sediments and that CT in the

[58:42] upcoming

[58:44] work all right so again you can't read this but I'll read through or you can't

[58:48] see this in the back but I'll read through it this is our upcoming work so

[58:54] I mentioned it's based on that stream assessment I went through that that uh

[58:58] Sheen assessment I went through um we're going to Target areas with that

[59:04] medium and heavy Sheen um and as well as well as that 800 foot

[59:10] long culbert um we're going to evaluate other

[59:15] tactics I mentioned um washing air knifing right we're going to after doing

[59:23] a couple rounds of that over the last year we're going to evaluate other

[59:26] things to do maybe excavation right using shovels you know things like that

[59:33] we're going to evaluate those areas probably with the heavy sheens and see

[59:36] if there's another thing we can do to help you know clean out that

[59:40] contamination

[59:43] um the locations are going to be evaluated site specifically right so we

[59:47] know where the heavy Sheen is we're going to go to those locations we're

[59:50] going to bring experts stakeholders like Ohio EPA and come evaluate it together

[59:56] and come up with a tactic to remove the contamination so like I said it could be

[1:00:00] a a Litany of different things but we're going to focus on those areas and come

[1:00:04] up on a sight specific tactic to get rid of the

[1:00:08] contamination um after we're done after we do a round

[1:00:13] of of a cleanup we're going to go back and do another Sheen assessment right

[1:00:18] we're going to do the same thing we did before see if it worked right make sure

[1:00:22] we got it all and if we didn't we'll do the same thing again we'll just keep

[1:00:26] doing it until we can get that Creek cleaned

[1:00:30] out and again um anything we do in there we'll have we'll have containment down

[1:00:37] immediately Downstream and make sure we're collecting it so it doesn't go

[1:00:40] further Downstream

[1:00:44] so I think that's all I have questions on cleanup or anything would this be

[1:00:50] funded by state EPA or federal EPA so it's funded by Northfolk Southern okay

[1:00:57] but we do direct oversight Ohio EPA US EPA we're there every step of the way

[1:01:03] like I said we're evaluating we're helping um on what tactic to pick right

[1:01:09] what we think will work um all that but it's all funded by North folk

[1:01:16] southern any other questions on cleanup yeah what uh with all the

[1:01:22] assessments and checking everything thing what impact does this had on the

[1:01:26] Aquatic floor and FAA in the streams themselves well I'm going to look at

[1:01:32] Bill Bill zsky our friendly Ohio EPA stream expert and maybe he can expand on

[1:01:38] that sure so oh um we've done a couple of biologic surveys like we talked about

[1:01:46] in 2022 we did a complete survey of Little

[1:01:50] Beaver Creek so we have as fresh of information as we we will in

[1:01:58] 2023 uh a biologic survey was done of the flow path so the map you folks

[1:02:03] couldn't see but the flow path down into a little Beaver Creek biologic stations

[1:02:08] were done there what we know and and this is the amazing thing is

[1:02:15] 2022 Leslie run was meeting Ohio epa's biologic standards sulfur run has been

[1:02:22] so impacted by what we're stand the culting that it doesn't have biologic

[1:02:28] expectations cuz that's not fair for that Creek but we we'll go there was a

[1:02:33] complete fish kill in in the spill so we're going to say without even arguing

[1:02:39] everything that was a fish in that Creek was dead in 6

[1:02:45] months it scored higher than it did in 20122 that that's a testament to Mother

[1:02:52] Nature's resilience and the fact that had we done this in

[1:02:56] 1985 this Creek Leslie was on par with the kyoga and the Mahoning River in the

[1:03:02] worst of their that's how bad this stream was impacted that it could

[1:03:06] recover that quickly is amazing the site we wanted to do the most was the one

[1:03:11] immediately Downstream where the bridge was replaced this summer and when they

[1:03:16] dropped that bridge they screwed up everything for us to do a bi biologic

[1:03:22] survey um the bug we do fish and bugs the bugs we did at Negley because again

[1:03:30] we couldn't get Downstream and it scored higher than it did in 2022 so I'm pretty

[1:03:36] comfortable that biologically we have complete recovery we're doing biology

[1:03:41] again this year just to confirm that that's the trend so there you have it

[1:03:47] and one of the I I didn't mention one of the potential tactics right I talked

[1:03:52] about we're all going to meet at these different locations and come up with a

[1:03:54] cleanup tactic well at some point you know we're going to have folks well

[1:03:58] we're going to have folks like Bill there to tell us yeah I don't want you

[1:04:03] doing anything here because it's going to cause more of an environmental impact

[1:04:08] than cleaning out the sheen right so that's that's part of the that's part

[1:04:12] that's a potential tactic we can use is what we could is doing an evaluation is

[1:04:17] are we doing more harm than good and then that would turn into what we call a

[1:04:22] monitor natural attenuation of of the of the contamination so yeah so I mean

[1:04:28] that's why we're all there together all the heads stakeholders experts cleanup

[1:04:33] experts deciding what to do on site specific basis because there's areas LLY

[1:04:38] run where yeah we don't want to it's it's looking healthy we don't want to

[1:04:42] make it worse by doing some sort of you know aggressive removal tactic or

[1:04:47] something like that in the creek so yeah do you imagine that the reason that it

[1:04:53] bounced back so was because of cleanup efforts that might have washed out

[1:04:57] contaminants from before the derailment as well or is there some sort of

[1:05:02] explanation for that yeah I think there's a great explanation one mother

[1:05:07] nature's resilient and two in spite of everything that happened the creek

[1:05:12] viewed this as a spill this was an event that within a day or two was contained

[1:05:19] as far as the discharge so this was a discrete event and then the streams are

[1:05:25] able to respond to that and if we go back to the 80s where every day there

[1:05:29] were discharges from sulfur run from the Wastewater Plant pounding on that stream

[1:05:34] it never had the chance to recover so this was an event and it was able to

[1:05:40] recover and that's why it was contained and

[1:05:47] controlled anything else any other

[1:05:51] questions all right

[1:05:58] [Applause] right so Dr Ann Haynes Andy Bill uh your

[1:06:06] guys are tough acts to follow so I'm Chris huner I'm with norfol Southern uh

[1:06:10] railroad uh from the environmental en excuse me environmental operations um

[1:06:14] I'm leading the environmental cleanup here so I know there was a question you

[1:06:17] guys want to know you know next steps where we are and I was going to talk

[1:06:21] about that a little bit here um a lot of things are happening a lot of next steps

[1:06:25] are happening but uh what we're talking about right now is is a real positive

[1:06:28] one it's a real good one in the process and the progress of the site here um

[1:06:34] when the event happened you know we had the incident very early on we made the

[1:06:38] decision we are collecting all the water that's flowing across the site uh you

[1:06:42] know we had the spill it went downstream uh the areas that could have

[1:06:46] been affected we were handling all that water so anything that rained on our

[1:06:50] site the areas around our site we were collecting all that water water and

[1:06:54] managing it as we're managing that water because of the incident we were treating

[1:06:58] all that water as a hazardous waste it was a listed hazardous waste um so

[1:07:03] everything we collected regardless of whether it was impacted or not because

[1:07:07] we didn't know we're saying hey all this stuff's hazardous all right we're going

[1:07:10] to manage it that way and that we've been doing that since you know March

[1:07:13] last year so a long time now uh as our sites progressed along we've cleaned up

[1:07:18] a lot of areas most of the solow areas they're all dug out you know all the

[1:07:22] areas where we're expecting contamination we've dug all that out so

[1:07:25] we're not seeing areas where that storm water could flow into the ditches where

[1:07:29] we're collecting that water and have it come back is hazardous we're just not

[1:07:33] seeing that data so for the past five months or so the water that we collect

[1:07:38] and we analyze it all the time to know what we have here we're not seeing

[1:07:42] hazardous constituents in it um we've got over 80 sample results that from

[1:07:46] that data where we collect it and we're not seeing hazardous waste in that so we

[1:07:50] wouldn't classify that as a hazardous waste so all this this water we still

[1:07:54] collect we still manage you know it's in the Big Blue tanks it's the frag tanks

[1:07:58] down there um right now we're handling as hazardous waste or we're running it

[1:08:04] through that treatment plan up there once we treat it we test it again make

[1:08:08] sure that day that water is good if we feel that's comfortable we submit to

[1:08:12] oepa they review it you guys have a part of it too and say hey you know what we

[1:08:16] can based on what we've done we no longer need to manage this batch as a

[1:08:21] hazardous waste all right been doing that for a while the 5 months 80 tests

[1:08:25] we've been doing that long enough that we are no longer seeing anything that

[1:08:30] indicates this the hazard is waste so we're about to we're not quite there yet

[1:08:34] but it's going to happen pretty soon we're in the process of working with the

[1:08:37] agencies develop our plan develop our system of how we're going to start

[1:08:42] managing the water that we collect as a non-hazardous waste we're still going to

[1:08:46] take it off site there may be occasional hazards waste shipments based on Decon

[1:08:51] water and things like that with the RS we're still going to handle all this

[1:08:54] water take it off site to a licensed disposal facility you know for approval

[1:08:58] for disposal but um it won't be a non-h has waste so soon we're hoping uh we'll

[1:09:05] still collect a batch of water we'll still test it to confirm it's going to

[1:09:09] be non-hazardous we're not going to presume anything we'll collect it and

[1:09:13] presume or Begg your pardon we'll collect it test it demonstrates

[1:09:17] non-hazardous go to the regulator say hey here's our package here's our data

[1:09:20] that confirms it's not hazardous and then be able to ship that to a

[1:09:24] non-hazardous facility what this does for us is um there's a lot of benefits

[1:09:30] here uh it's it speeds up the process of removal and managing waste on the site

[1:09:36] because right now if we have to treat it or handle it manage as hazardous wasted

[1:09:40] limits where we can go with it um if we can get this in a point where we're

[1:09:46] handling everything is nonhazardous it opens up other disposal facilities which

[1:09:50] are all licensed permited in Ohio and in other states that they can handle as

[1:09:54] material so we can get things out of the site faster that helps shrink the site

[1:09:58] we can get things more back to normal um if we can handle it as a non-hazardous

[1:10:04] waste it is less trucks that we need to run on the north side of the site up by

[1:10:09] you know Brave Industries and Martin we can get all these trucks will go out uh

[1:10:12] from the south side of our site and just go out on the highway they don't go

[1:10:15] through town we can get them to a disposal facility uh so we're not

[1:10:19] driving past people's homes with you know with hazardous waste trucks um if

[1:10:24] it's non-hazardous we can have more trucks available to us uh we can have

[1:10:28] more drivers available to us and again more disposal facilities that are

[1:10:32] available to us to get the materials out and the goal with all this again is all

[1:10:36] the water that we collect we still have to manage and we're still disposing

[1:10:40] right now you know we're it's in the process you know we're hoping we evolve

[1:10:42] to other stages but that's where we are now um that helps us shrink our storage

[1:10:47] what we have on site um you know with that storage you know we can have less

[1:10:51] storage tanks we can start shrinking the auxiliary facility so we can break

[1:10:54] things in shrink the site get the site get the village and Community back to

[1:10:58] where it was before so that's kind of where we are in our progress on the

[1:11:02] handling of water so I know I talk quickly I'm not excited at just you know

[1:11:06] talking about it uh and I said a lot questions comments anything you guys

[1:11:13] want to hear more about yes sir you was saying about the excavation out at the

[1:11:18] accident site being complete um was there

[1:11:24] like what was the indications of um pollute uh pollution prior

[1:11:32] to the accident I mean was you guys cleaning up because I know that area I

[1:11:37] believe once was a a heavy equipment um Boneyard and stuff was you guys finding

[1:11:45] stuff I'm sure that had nothing to do with the accident can you do you know

[1:11:50] any of that you know it's you know we do know there's an industrial history from

[1:11:54] you know from the village from the town you know we're

[1:12:07] seeing to but you know anything related to anything we saw related to the

[1:12:12] derailment based on you know the chemicals that we're looking for the

[1:12:15] constituents if we see saw that we dug that that out until we reached uh the uh

[1:12:22] you know the cleanup requirements that were laid out in all our

[1:12:29] plans anything else thank you sir that was easy all right thank you

[1:12:36] [Applause] guys

Health and Safety Updates Presented at Village Council Meeting

Transcript