[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