Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #78: Ohio Chemical Spill Fall Out: How Far-Reaching Is it?

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Episode #78: Ohio Chemical Spill Fall Out: How Far-Reaching Is it? · Beyond Labels Premium

0:00
SPEAKER_01: On February 3rd, around 9 p.m., there was a train operated by Norfolk Southern Railway, and it derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, located right along the border of Pennsylvania, roughly an hour from Pittsburgh.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: The train cars were actually marked as non-hazardous.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: All right, even though the train carried about 150 cars, and 20 of them were actually carrying hazardous materials.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: 38 of the cars came off the track.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: 11 of those 38 were containing hazardous chemicals.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: There were various chemicals that were spilled as a result of the derailment.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: That is leading to concerns for air, surface water, soil, and groundwater contamination.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: In addition, because the solution that was crafted by officials was to burn the chemicals, now there's an additional concern over pollution covering a much wider area.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: It's also introducing a new concern regarding novel compounds that may have been produced.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: So at this point, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources has confirmed that there's almost 4,000 dead fish in waterways, also deceased what are called hellbender salamanders, which are an endangered species in the state.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: It didn't result in any immediate human fatalities, so no acute human fatalities, but residents have reported deaths in pets, chickens, and foxes.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to deal with a little bit of a current uh news topic, which is the train derailment in Ohio.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: We've gotten a couple of questions from listeners about that and want to address that uh as a current timely uh issue that's on everybody's mind, or certainly the people in Ohio.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: The first one comes from uh Paige Ruther, who uh says love to get your opinion on the severity of potential consequences.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh my family and I live three and a half hours directly west of directly west of East Palestine.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I think they do say at Palestine, uh not Palestine.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I I'm concerned as to how this will affect our water supply and air quality, uh let alone the folks who live nearer.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: Um so that's that's the first question.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: The second one, of course, is related uh and it comes from from Enalie who um who says she lives uh not not uh a few short hours south.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: So neither of these is right in that vicinity.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: They're they're they're hours away, uh like you know, a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty miles.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh we have several natural springs on our property, of which my husband and I and all our livestock use daily to drink.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: I know that our property is a ways away from the train incident, but I'm still concerned that our water may not be safe.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh do you have any insight on this?
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, and even if the quality of our soil after being exposed to rain potentially carrying particles of the burned off toxins.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: According to the news, the cleanup crews and train companies say everything's fine and not to worry, which makes me worry even more.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh Emily, you are a good beyond labels uh uh team player if that's the way you're thinking.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh any insight would be helpful.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for everything you do.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: So um neither one of these is right in the vicinity, but uh they are about 120, 130 miles away, I would assume, with three three hours.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: And uh so Cena, I'm I'm glad to hear what you've uh dug up here about the the chemicals and uh and and where we are in this train derailment.
3:54
SPEAKER_01: All right, thanks, Joel.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: So I want to do a quick recap of the event that happened, in case somebody hasn't heard.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: And then I want to go into the different chemicals that we know were released and chemicals that we are theorizing may have been released or created as novel compounds because of the burn uh that was implemented.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: Um, and talk about the impact that this might have, not only locally, but globally.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: All right, so we got a lot to cover, so let's jump in.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: So on February 3rd, around 9 p.m., there was a train operated by Norfolk Southern Railway, and it derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, uh located right along the border of Pennsylvania, roughly an hour from Pittsburgh.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: The train cars were actually marked as non-hazardous.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: All right, even though the train carried about 150 cars, and 20 of them were actually carrying hazardous materials.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: 38 of the cars came off the track.
4:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, 11 of those 38 were containing hazardous chemicals.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: There were various chemicals that were spilled as a result of the derailment.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: That is leading to concerns for air, surface water, soil, and groundwater contamination.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: In addition, because the solution that was crafted by officials was to burn the chemicals, now there's an additional concern over pollution covering a much wider area.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: It's also introducing a new concern regarding novel compounds that may have been produced.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: So at this point, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources has confirmed that there's um almost 4,000 dead fish in waterways, also deceased what are called hellbender salamanders, which are an endangered species in the state.
5:48
SPEAKER_01: It didn't result in any immediate human fatalities, so no acute human fatalities, but residents have reported deaths in pets, chickens, and foxes.
5:59
SPEAKER_01: So now, in terms of tracking the fallout, it's it's really important to understand how the water flows and how the air flows in that area.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: So, in that area of East Palestine, water flows from the east to the west, right?
6:14
SPEAKER_01: Because it's located on the west of the Appalachian Mountains.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: So most of the water will actually flow into the big rivers that end up forming the Mississippi River.
6:23
SPEAKER_01: There's two large rivers in the Pittsburgh area, and they merged into the Ohio River, which then flows along the border of multiple states, eventually joining with the Mississippi River and spilling into the Gulf of Mexico.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: So all of the areas that are touching that water supply are now potentially contaminated.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: Um the water in the Ohio River has already been deemed as being contaminated.
6:50
SPEAKER_01: Now, the division chief of the Ohio EPA says that the state agency is continuing to monitor a moving plume of contaminants in the Ohio River.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: But of course, she's saying, oh, there's no concern that the chemicals will make their way into the drinking water system that's connected to the Ohio River because the river is so big and it can self-filter.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: So it is true that we think the concentration of the toxins will decrease over distance, right?
7:19
SPEAKER_01: As the chemical plume of contaminants makes its way down the Ohio and eventually into the Gulf of Mexico, the concentration will decrease.
7:28
SPEAKER_01: So the closer that you are to the original site, the worse your situation.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, toxins have already been found in the soil in neighboring areas as well.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: All right.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: But we're going to get into more of the specific chemicals and the caveats in that statement in just a minute.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: So, in terms of tracking the fallout, like I said, you also have to know about the airflow.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: Because the air, the pollution that was, you know, hoisted up into the air from the burn can also pollute the soil and the water.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: So the air in that area, the air flows from west to east.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: It may go north and it may go south.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: It usually does not go um west, right?
8:09
SPEAKER_01: It usually goes in the eastern direction.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: So it's already been traveling through Pennsylvania and southeast towards the Virginia.
8:17
SPEAKER_01: So if you just take a step back and you know let that information alone absorb, you'll realize that with the airflow bringing the toxins to the east, north, and south, and the water bringing the toxins to the west and south, the fallout here is potentially enormous.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: Right?
8:35
SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's not just contained to that local area.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: This is something that um is very concerning to me, um, you know, not only for human health, but for our entire environment.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: At this point, the rail operator is being sued in a class action lawsuit.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: Their lawyers are saying that this was a wholly preventable catastrophe.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, the court filings allege that the company was responsible for exposing residents to cancer-causing chemicals, and the efforts to clean up this bill made the health impacts worse.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: And in these documents, these court documents, they're alleging that the derailment released over a million pounds of vinyl chloride into the environment.
9:23
SPEAKER_01: So over a million pounds.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: If you compare that to, like say in 2021, there were 38 facilities in the US that were emitting these vinyl chloride compounds that they were tracking.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: They only emitted around 430,000 pounds.
9:37
SPEAKER_01: So now we have in this one area dumped over a million pounds.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: So let's get into these specific chemicals that have been released so that people are aware of the potential consequences of this train development and subsequent burn.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: The EPA has listed, um is submitted a list of compounds that they've confirmed that were in these rail cars, and the manifest from the the train company has also been released, and I've looked at both and compared both.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about um a couple of, let's talk about, I'm gonna run you through a few of the most concerning ones.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: The one that's getting the most attention right now is the vinyl chloride.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: It's colorless, it's a flammable gas.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: It is a known carcinogen, which means it's known to cause cancer.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, it long-term exposure has been linked to liver, brain, and lung cancers, lymphoma, and leukemia.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: The short-term exposure leads to things like irritation of the eyes, nose, throats, throat, and lungs, headaches, dizziness, drowsiness, nausea, as well as tingling in the arms and legs, which tells you right there that it does affect the nervous system.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: Now, the EPI is saying that they've tested nearly 500 homes in the East Palestine area, and they did not detect vinyl chloride in the homes.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: But I am not surprised because vinyl chloride, once in the air, breaks down and dissipates in about a day and a half.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: So you wouldn't actually find it in the air.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: All right.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: So they're testing in the wrong location.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: It actually persists in the soil and the water.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: So vinyl chloride is highly mobile in soils and water and can persist for years in the groundwater.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: Once it's in the soil or once it's in the groundwild water, it is very difficult to clean up.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: Very difficult.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: And now there's a second problem.
11:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh, go ahead.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: Cena, let me interrupt you there for a minute just to make sure I'm because I'm not a chemist like you are.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: Vinyl chloride, uh, is it a is it a gas?
11:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's at ambient temperature, is it is it a gas?
11:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it is a flammable gas, but what they the way that they transport these things is they put them under high pressure.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they liquefy it by putting under high pressure.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: So when it was in the cargo train, it was liquid.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: All right.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: So so when uh so when you say it uh it it dissipates in the air in a couple of days, um the I'm trying to figure out how okay, so so a uh a gas a gas just doesn't continue in the air, it it breaks down into the soil.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: It will break down into other compounds that aren't as toxic.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: So when it's released in the air, when I say that you know it's it's only there for about a day and a half, it's because it's breaking down into other compounds that are less toxic.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: So the other compounds, the other compounds are like uh in other words, I'm just trying to think like a like a like a layman here.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's it would it's it like droplets then that hit the soil as it breaks down into other things.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: So think about think about steam.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: Steam is a gas.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: But when it uh when it condenses, it goes to the droplets, obviously, you know, uh as water.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: And so this vinyl chloride is similar in in the way it reacts.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: It it's a it's a gas, it dissipates, but then it then it uh uh uh goes back into a liquid form as it breaks down, and that's what's getting in the water in the soil.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: Well, it could go back into a it can go from the gaseous state, you know, because the pressure that's released, and it can remain as a gas.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: So it will break down to other compounds, it can remain in the gaseous state.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: So it's different than water.
13:39
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the idea is similar to what you're talking about.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: It's different than water, and that water stays the same, you know, whether it's the same structure, whether it's a gas or it's a liquid.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: But it can yes, if it rains, it can the the breakdown products of the vinyl chloride can be brought down to the surface.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: And and it's important, I think, to note that vinyl chloride is a precursor to make plastics and pesticides.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: Right.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: So as were most of these compounds that were on these trains, most of them were precursors for plastics and pesticides.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: All right.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: Um so so then what happened was once they decided to burn the you know, these liquids, these hazardous liquids, they created a secondary problem that could be worse than the first problem.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: So um as vinyl chloride burns, the gas can form byproducts like hydrogen chloride, uh, which dissolves, um, which when it's dissolved in water, it becomes hydrochloric acid, right?
14:48
SPEAKER_01: And we know hydrochloric acid is a very strong acid that will burn your skin.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, it also the vinyl chloride, when it's burned, it will form byproducts like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and alarmingly, traces of um phosgene.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: So one of the most concerning chemicals in question from this fallout is phosgine.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: It is very hazardous at even very low levels.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: It was actually used as the chemical weapon in World War I.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: It was a choking agent.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: So, of all the chemicals that were used in that war, phosgene was responsible for most of the death.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: It's highly corrosive to the lungs, like I said, at like fractions of a part per million.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: And it works in essence by preventing oxygen from getting into the blood and preventing carbon dioxide from leaving the blood.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: Um, again, it is also used to make plastics and pesticides.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: It's heavier than air.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: So it's not like it would just float away, you know, and you'll be free of it.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: It's found in likely low-lying areas.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: It degrades very, very slowly in air.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: So, unlike vinyl chloride itself, which degrades in air in about a day and a half, phosgene degrades very slowly.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: And when it's in the soil, it actually doesn't stick.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: It either evaporates into the air or it passes through the soil surface and contaminates the groundwater.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: Now we know that phosgene exposure has actually been reported to um to basically cause chronic bronchitis and emphysema.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: Right.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: And the CDC has their own fact sheet about this too, where you can look it up.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: Again, it's also used to make plastics and pesticides.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: So this is a very concerning one.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: Um now there's other compounds that were released as well.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: There's butylacrylate.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: Um there's this was found at multiple sites along the Ohio River already.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: And of course, the EPA saying, oh, it won't cause any risk.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not low enough levels.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, there's also ethylene glycol.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: This is a neurotoxin that can damage the liver and the kidney.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: Um there's isobutylene, uh, which can cause dizziness and drowsiness.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: It's also neurotoxin and asphyxiant.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: There's ethylhexal acrylate.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: This is a colorless liquid.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: It's used to make paints and plastics, cause uh causes repres respiratory issues, nausea, vomiting.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: It is the carcinogen.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: It leads to um aquatic death.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: It's been classified as a group 2B, possible carcinogen to humans.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then one of the one of the most concerning ones, these are the these are the last two I want to really talk about here.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: These are the most concerning ones, um, is dioxin.
17:45
SPEAKER_01: So this is possibly next to phosgene, this is the possibly the biggest concern of contamination.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: It's highly toxic, it is a carcinogen, it's a persistent compound, it's released when polyvinyl chloride burns.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so this the dioxin, it's not like dioxin was carried on the uh on the cargo plane cargo itself.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: It was probably it was possibly released when the polyvinyl chloride was burning or some kind of polyvinyl was burning.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: So polyvinyl chloride is uh known as PVC.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: It was present in an estimated four of the cars that were originally on fire.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: And most of us know PVC is being used in like plumbing and pipes and flooring uh and healthcare settings.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: The most uh well-known example of a dioxin is actually agent orange, right?
18:42
SPEAKER_01: That was the herbicide that was used by the US military in the Vietnam War, and it largely contained dioxin.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: It's been linked with cancer, diabetes, birth defects, and other disabilities.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: And interestingly, some of the land that was sprayed with agent orange during the Vietnam War is still contaminated with dioxin.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: So when I say they're a persistent pollutant, um, I mean this is one of the most concerning pollutants that we know of, you know, man-made pollutants.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: It travels by wind and by water.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, it can accumulate in animals and from one species to the next and be passed through the food chain.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: It's estimated that the half-life of dioxin in the human body is somewhere between 11 and 15 years, but it's also been uh shown to be as high as 20 years.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: In the if if dioxin gets on like leaves or the surface soil, it's estimated to last um roughly one to three years.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: But if it's buried or it leaches under the surface or it gets into, let's say, the deep sediment of a river or another body of water, it can actually have a half-life of over 100 years.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: And when we're talking about like cleaning up toxic spills and you know, um compromised areas, we usually say it takes roughly 10 half-lives before we consider that chemical to be gone.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: So that means if the land is contaminated with dioxin, that land can be ruined from anywhere between 500 to 1,000 years potentially.
20:29
SPEAKER_01: So that's what I mean by this one is persistent, it's highly toxic and it is persistent.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: In fact, dioxins are so damaging that they're on the international dirty dozen list.
20:42
SPEAKER_01: Have you heard of that list, Joel?
20:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, I have, and you know, I'm thinking as you're talking that if I remember correctly, I'm a little older than you are.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh there was this uh, you know, huge um uh zone, you know, these uh I don't know what you call them, uh toxic sites around the country that were designated back, I don't know what, 30, 40 years ago.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: One was Love Canal up in New York, I think it was.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: And Love Canal, the whole thing there was dioxin.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: And um so um I'm I'm I'm digging back in my in my memory, but uh I I think I think I'm right on that.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: I I know that it was uh it was a a big one in that in that site.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's uh it's been a it's been around a while.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: Um you know this whole it's interesting that uh as you've gone through this, you know, it it uh thing you know things do dissipate in the environment.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean the farther away you get that it gets uh it gets less and less.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: But right there at ground zero, I mean there are that that town uh I mean there are stores and houses within a few feet of the of the railroad there.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so that's that's like ground zero for this thing.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And um and apparently the whole thing started from a bad bearing on one of the cars.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh the the bearing the bearing got hot, then it melted the you know, it melted the bearing, and then the car the car veered, and then you have this this pile up.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh it just reminds me of how you know how small small maintenance things can create can domino into great, great big uh issues.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, it it it does it does it does matter.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: It does matter, you know, uh how you how you take care of things.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: But go ahead.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, I interrupted.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: We've got you know, we've got another um another 10 minutes here.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: So let so yeah, take it take us to a take us to a place here.
22:47
unknown: Okay.
22:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let me wrap up on the chemicals and then we'll um dive into the next um area section of concern.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, so it's on that list of the dirty dozen list, um, which means that's how that's how concerning this is that the US and 90 other countries um and the European community actually signed a United Nations treaty in 2001, that's known as Stockholm Convention, where they agreed to reduce or eliminate production of these 12 key, quote, persistent organic pollutants.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: And one of those was dioxin.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: So the EPA wasn't testing for dioxins, um, but we know that like similar train developments, like the one in Germany in 2000, there were high levels of dioxins in the area from burning the polyvinyl chloride.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: So um they should be testing.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: If you're in that area and you want to test your own soil independently because you don't trust the EPA or that apparent third-party company they're using to test, then you want to make sure if it was me, I would make sure that I'm testing for dioxins.
23:58
SPEAKER_01: All right.
23:59
SPEAKER_01: The last um the last class of compounds that may have been released.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: So this is one that it's not listed in the manifest and it's not listed on the EPA's um list, but um these may have been released in the burn.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: These are PFAS, the per and and polyfluoroacolyl substances.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: These are known as forever toxins because they don't break down naturally.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, it takes a very long time for these to break down.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: They've been shown to remain in the environment in the body for many, many years.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: There's many health conditions related to these chemicals like kidney and testicular cancer, changes in liver enzymes and whatnot.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, the last I had had looked, the EPA had not started testing the water for PAFS, but they did say that they would start.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: So we'll keep an eye on that and see if they're following through with that.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, these forever chemicals are used to make um water, grease, and stain repellent coatings.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: So a water repellent coating, grease repelling repellent coating, and stain repellent coating.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: So think of things like coatings on carpets to make them stain resistant or on your clothing and shoes to make them water resistant.
25:18
SPEAKER_01: Um Teflon, right?
25:20
SPEAKER_01: Teflon cookware, Scotch Guard Stain Master.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: They're used in um some microwave popcorn bags, fast food wrappers can contain these forever toxins, personal care products.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: So, for instance, if you use Oral Bee, the glide floss, which is made by Gore-Tex, it is dental cloth that last time I checked was made with um one of these PFAS compounds.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: It's PTFE, um polytetra floral ethylene, which is one of these forever toxins.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: So you see, it's it's rampant.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: It's even in your floss, you're putting it right in your mouth.
25:57
SPEAKER_01: And the fact that the they are created to be water grease and stain repellents is why they are so difficult to remove from the body and from the environment because they don't really bond to anything, right?
26:12
SPEAKER_01: That's why your Teflon like stuff doesn't stick to your Teflon cookware because nothing is binding to it.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: Um, and as we know from like, if anyone's ever tried to detox the body, you know that's a critical component.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: You have to mobilize the toxins in your body like a heavy metal, then you have to bind it and then get rid of it, right?
26:31
SPEAKER_01: So binding is a critical step.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: These do not bind to two compounds, so they're hard to get rid of.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: And then, like I said, there's novel compounds that we don't even know what these are.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: We do know that, like from studies, for instance, from like wildfire smoke in California, there's new and dangerous compounds that are formed when fires burn into communities.
26:52
SPEAKER_01: But there's no way that the EPA can even test for these, and they're not testing for them, okay, first of all.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: But we don't even know what kind of novel compounds may form because nobody has ever had this type of spill happen before, right?
27:09
SPEAKER_01: And so this this is um this is my bottom line, and then let's get into like assessing blame a little bit.
27:15
SPEAKER_01: Um, my bottom line is, and I and I've discussed this in great length with my husband, who's a who has a PhD in chemical engineer, and in his dissertation work, he worked a lot with plastics and even Teflon-like compounds, you know.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: So this is more of his area than mine.
27:33
SPEAKER_01: But the bottom line is we've never seen a spill like this before of these particular substances spilled together, and we've never seen them lit on fire and exploded before.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: This is new.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: So anyone who comes along, like the EPA or their apparent third-party testing organization and says, Oh, everything's perfectly fine.
28:00
SPEAKER_01: You know, just come back into the area, drink the water or whatnot, it's perfectly safe.
28:05
SPEAKER_01: Either they're lying to you or it's gross incompetence, or a combination and um a lack of humility, right?
28:15
SPEAKER_01: Because nobody knows at this point.
28:18
SPEAKER_01: No one knows.
28:18
SPEAKER_01: I just went through the list of all these chemicals that were confirmed and then possible chemicals that were created.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: It sounds bad, especially when you look at the quantity that was released.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: And so nobody knows what is going to happen.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: Nobody knows the fallout.
28:34
SPEAKER_01: If we're lucky, this could be a big to-do about nothing, right?
28:38
SPEAKER_01: And nature can just clean this up for us, you know, quickly.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, if it's not nothing, this will eventually, right?
28:46
SPEAKER_01: These forever chemicals and stuff will eventually go throughout the globe, right?
28:51
SPEAKER_01: That's why we see some chemicals showing up in like polar bears and whatnot, because they do persist and they can travel some of these on the air and whatnot.
29:01
SPEAKER_01: So this could be a really big deal, and we could get lucky, and nature could take care of this for us, um, you know, filter it out and whatnot.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: Um, but the part, but but the bottom line is we don't know.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: If I lived in that area and I asked my husband, if we lived in that area, what would you do?
29:20
SPEAKER_01: And he said he would take the precautionary principle.
29:23
SPEAKER_01: He would not drink it, he would not swim in it, he wouldn't grow stuff in the land until time passes because nobody knows.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, I would have moved myself and my family and animals away from the area if I lived anywhere, you know, like within a hundred mile radius or whatnot, I would be moved away from it.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, but moving out toward the west, right?
29:46
SPEAKER_01: Not going toward the east where the airflow would go.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: Um but I also, I, as you know, Joel, I am probably more cautious than some people because I have been so sick before.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm not taking any chances.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: So um, so that's my stance.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: But but Donnie, who's a little more, you know, rational in terms of chemicals than me, he said he would at least not be drinking any of the water, swimming in it, going toward the water supplies, and he would get away if he was anywhere near where the air co air currents go over there on the um the east side, north or south, he would be getting away from that area.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh, well, you know, it it is interesting.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, all of us that have had even rudimentary amounts of chemistry know that chemical reactions, uh, chemical reactions are sometimes strange things.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: And so when you uh when you decide, well, let's just let's burn it to uh you know to get rid of it, what you're doing now is you know, think about your uh your 10th grade chemistry class where you you saw things change under a Bunsen burner, okay, uh in the lab, and you watch the transformation of different compounds, different things uh when you add heat to it.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: And so uh so I think it's important for everybody to understand that uh that if you're not testing for the secondary reaction or the the secondary products, uh you know, and and of course, you know, uh I've watched this live from the the chemical companies forever.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: They say, well, this this breaks down in the soil.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, uh it's a half-truth.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: Um it it it breaks down in the soil, but it breaks down into other compounds.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are there are things that are applied right now that when they break down, they make DDT.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: So DDT was outlawed, but there are now uh uh agriculture applied chemicals that that when they break down from their uh from their their whatever, their brand name, their their final concoction, and they start breaking down in the soil, they they break actually into as toxic or more toxic substances than the original uh uh brand was.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: So when the companies, when the industry says, oh, well, this you know, this breaks down in the soil, it's it's a half-truth.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Uh, yeah, it breaks down from you know from from the brand name, bicep or lasso or whatever, into uh, you know, into additional into additional compounds.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh the one thing I want people to understand is that uh that that there is a you know there is there is some safety in dilution.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean, you know, um and and so so dilution uh does uh uh make a difference.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: I I think the big deal is right there at ground zero, you know, where you have this this concentration of whatever all this was.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: And um and the second thing I'll say is as far as growing things, uh the beauty of uh uh of organic matter in the soil is that it does break things down.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: The fungi protozoa, I mean, my favorite story is the Lufki farm in Austria.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: And this is going back to Chernobyl.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: And when Chernobyl blew, that radioactive cloud came out across Belarus.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh um the radioactivity landed in the mammary glands of the dairy cows in Belarus, uh, and then went on over and finally kind of kind of dissipated over Austria, uh, especially over the truck farming region.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: So truck farming is is vegetables.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: And of course, being Austria, there's a lot of cabbage, a lot of leafy, you know, uh cabbage type stuff.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: And so uh so, of course, all the the crops, the standing crops were radioactive, and so they went, they destroyed all the crops, and they started checking the soil, and they found only one farm in that whole region had no radioactivity in the soil, and it was the Lufke farm in Austria.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: Why?
33:49
SPEAKER_00: Because they had not been using chemical fertilizers and had been using compost and built up their organic matter.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Organic matter is like the alka seltzer, it's like the buffering of the of the soil.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: And it's a sponge, it's an absorptive, it's an ameliorating thing, and and uh and and it feeds the protozoa fungi and and and uh and and uh and microbes that that actually eat up stuff.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: There are there are ameliorating microbes, as you know, there are uh millions of ameliorating microbes for all sorts of bad things that happen.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: Um so so you know, their farm um uh was the only one that where they could go right back in and replant immediately because they had such a high organic matter.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: So um my my encouragement to people in the area, uh, because man, you know, I I my heart breaks for somebody that that has some land.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've got you know questions from listeners that have farmland and things, they're they're in business.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: Um my encouragement is that there is a lot of protection in organic matter.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're a if you're a chemical, a chemical corn farmer, uh, you know, you you you you might have more reason to worry.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: But if you're in a perennial pasture, rotated pasture, the kind of things that we talk about on this program uh in farming to build up your organic matter, like you know, on our farm, we've gone in from 1961, we averaged 1% organic matter.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: Today we average over 8% organic matter.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: That gives you a tremendous amount of protection.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: And so uh uh if you've been, you know, if you've got high organic matter in your garden, uh and and you've been doing you know good uh uh composting and carbon, carbon renewal, carbon again, think about filtration.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, carbon is uh is nature's you know big big filter.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: Um and and if you can get your hands on some biochar, uh, you know, that's good too.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: That that's a great detox detoxification uh program.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: Uh so you know, I I I um I would hate to tell people, no, you can't plant a garden.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: Just make sure that you get a lot of compost on there and organic matter.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and and and you can send soil a soil sample in to measure for you know for toxins.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: Might cost you, you know, a couple hundred bucks, but it would let you sleep well at night and um and and uh and proceed right in the epicenter of it, you know, within whatever, uh, you know, half a mile of the epicenter.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, that that's a little different story.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: But if you're you know, if you're out there a ways, I think there are a lot of things there there are things that you can do to protect yourself.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you you can put you you can put a lot of compost in and you can uh and you can really uh give yourself some protection for your own garden.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
36:54
SPEAKER_01: And um, I know we're almost out of time.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: I want to close on this that uh look two things.
37:01
SPEAKER_01: One is from you know, our friend Henry Rolland from Beyond Pesticides, and he brought up a good point.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was something I was wondering too.
37:11
SPEAKER_01: So as this was occurring and we learned that their contingent their plan was to burn it, my question was, well, why did they not have a contingency plan in the first place?
37:23
SPEAKER_01: Right?
37:24
SPEAKER_01: Like they didn't know what to do, you know, it was time sensitive.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: And so this was even like the governor said, they presented me with like two bad options, right?
37:33
SPEAKER_01: So why was there no contingency plan?
37:35
SPEAKER_01: And Henry Rowan um has brought up the point that let's say, you know, some many of these um compounds that were transported that are toxic, they're used in the production of pesticides.
37:47
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: So the EPA is the agency that's responsible for allowing pesticides to be used.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: And but they don't take into account the like when they're going through the approval process of whether or not a pesticide can be used, they don't actually take into account um what happens if there's a transportation accident, right?
38:07
SPEAKER_01: So many of us just think of, okay, pesticides are sprayed like on the crops, you know, and on the field.
38:14
SPEAKER_01: But we don't actually sit there and think about necessarily how do they get there, right?
38:19
SPEAKER_01: Like if it's a homeowner, they go to the like hardware store or whatnot and buy the Roundup or whatever, and that's how it gets there.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: But they have to be shipped places, right, to be to be made into the pesticide and then often shipped out to be brought to these large farms and you know, sold.
38:39
SPEAKER_01: So the EPA isn't actually taking any of that transportation into consideration when they're when they're going through this approval process, which as we can see now, that's a big deal.
38:52
SPEAKER_01: Like, I think that should be part of the consideration as to whether or not we should be approving certain pesticides to be used.
38:59
SPEAKER_01: Because I mean, look what happened now, right?
39:02
SPEAKER_01: I mean, so that you're supposed to have no um, it's called like unreasonable adverse effects of the pesticide.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: But they're not actually tracking the pesticides from cradle to grave, right?
39:18
SPEAKER_01: To make sure that whatever perceived benefits they're claiming outweighs these kinds of risks.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: So this is Cena, look, uh let's all let's all agree this is just another one of those externalized costs.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: It's just another one of those externalized costs.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: And the and uh you know, when you go to the grocery store and you, you know, you get that uh that cheap food, um the you know, the industry uh is not is not paying for all is not paying for all this.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: Goodness, the the the the industry should be paying.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh you and I, you know, we're pretty libertarian-minded.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: In my view, the industry should be paying for all of it, not the EPA.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, our taxes, so so so our ta your taxes and my taxes where where you and I go out of our way to not patronize things that use pesticides, our taxes are going to pay for the cleanup through the EPA of this thing that we uh that we uh do everything possible to uh to eliminate.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: And uh so I I you know when you talk about what's fair, uh it you know, it seems like it's not fair for you and I to pay our taxes uh to go to a cleanup of a thing that we do not patronize and actually abhor.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh so that those are the externalized costs that come with this food policy.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: You have one more point, Zina.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, and so along those lines, like I totally agree.
40:50
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't Henry Rowland brought up a great point about the you know deficiencies, the loopholes, if you will, in the government approval process for pesticides.
41:00
SPEAKER_01: I, like you, don't want to give any more power to the EPA, nor would I trust them, right?
41:05
SPEAKER_01: If they took a if they took on the role of, okay, now we're gonna assess the risk of transportation accidents with hazardous chemicals, right?
41:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't want them to do that.
41:14
SPEAKER_01: I think it was a good point.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: But my point is more to yours when you're talking about who to blame, right?
41:19
SPEAKER_01: They're pointing fingers at the railroad company, they're pointing fingers at the EPA, and they all have a role in it.
41:26
SPEAKER_01: But ultimately, why are the train cars carrying those chemicals?
41:31
SPEAKER_01: Right?
41:31
SPEAKER_01: Who is actually demanding the use of those chemicals?
41:34
SPEAKER_01: And they would not be carrying those chemicals if the consumers weren't buying products made from those chemicals or you know, so because so my whole point is don't don't just blame the railroad company and the EPA, right?
41:52
SPEAKER_01: Also look to yourself.
41:54
SPEAKER_01: How am I a part of this problem?
41:57
SPEAKER_01: Right?
41:57
SPEAKER_01: So am I buying uh conventional food?
42:01
SPEAKER_01: Am I buying, for instance, um plastics?
42:05
SPEAKER_01: Because, like we said, these compounds aren't just part of pesticides, they are going into making plastic.
42:12
SPEAKER_01: So, how much plastic are you actually buying?
42:14
SPEAKER_01: Are you buying um clothes that are water resistant?
42:19
SPEAKER_01: Right?
42:19
SPEAKER_01: Do you use Teflon cookware?
42:21
SPEAKER_01: Are you do you buy microwave popcorn?
42:24
SPEAKER_01: Check your personal care products, make sure they don't have any of those PFASs in them.
42:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, are you getting fast food that's in wrappers?
42:32
SPEAKER_01: So it's not just, am I not consuming food that had pesticides sprayed on it?
42:39
SPEAKER_01: It's really an opportunity to take a step back and look at your whole life.
42:45
SPEAKER_01: And it how are you, what are you saying with your dollar?
42:50
SPEAKER_01: Right?
42:50
SPEAKER_01: That is that is the bottom line for these companies, is the dollar.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: So what how are you really speaking with your dollar, not just in your food supply, but in the other areas of your life, right?
43:02
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, these things, these things exist and are transported because we patronize them.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's the bottom line.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and you know, I'm not I'm not ready to give up PVC pipe.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty cool.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, you know, our houses are full of it.
43:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but but um there there's one thing to to have large quantities of it, and another thing to have very low quantities of it.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's our point here is that uh that ultimately the responsibility lies with us with what we're patronizing, and um and and to start taking personal responsibility for the volume of things uh that are out there.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: So thanks.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, yeah.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks.
43:46
SPEAKER_01: One more interesting comment, just real quick.
43:49
SPEAKER_01: So when you look at the manifest of what was um carried in in these big cargo trains, um not only would you have all these hazarded, hazardous chemicals, but guess what else was carried in one of the cars?
44:04
SPEAKER_01: Food.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh, food, okay.
44:07
SPEAKER_01: They had vegetables in there and uh and a type of wheat.
44:11
SPEAKER_01: Like, and I'm like, I not that they were mixed together in the same cargo, but still just the thought.
44:18
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't want my food being transported on a you know in this long train uh that has you know multiple, like 20 cars or something of hazardous carcinogenic compounds.
44:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's crazy the things we do.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: So so now now so now we're back with know your farmer, know your food, shorten your change of custody and uh and and and uh and and go beyond labels.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh this this brings up uh people are always asking me, well, you know, where can I get your stuff in the supermarket?
44:50
SPEAKER_00: And uh you and I both pretty much our response is uh well why go to the supermarket?
44:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh do everything you can to go outside that, you know, outside that sphere and um and and take charge of your own your own thing.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Tina, for this analysis.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: It's um it's great to have a uh a chemistry guru on the uh right here to go through this with us.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh it is it it is it is uh uh it is serious, but it's not the end of the world, and there are good things that you can do.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: So um uh uh be aware, uh, but also take heart.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: And thank you for joining us on Beyond Labels.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: We'll see you again next week.