COSHOCTON COUNTY, Ohio — Norfolk Southern’s train derailment from February has had a lasting effect on the community of East Palestine.
The clean-up of the area continues after toxic chemicals were found. The Environmental Protection Agency has been working to clean it up. Now, One of those ways is injecting waste into injection wells in Coshocton County that are already used for oil and brine.
Buckeye Brine is a waste management service. They have finalized an agreement with Norfolk Southern to remove the nonhazardous waste from East Palestine.
What You Need To Know
- Coshocton County Board of Commissioners alerted their community this week about the nonhazardous waste going into their community
- Buckeye Brine, a waste management company, has finalized an agreement with Norfolk Southern to remove the nonhazardous waste and use Coshocton County's injection wells for disposal.
- In nearly two weeks, the nonhazardous waste will make its way to the county.
In approximately two weeks, the plan is to accept nearly 12-truck-loads a day of wastewater from the train derailment site.
“The implications as far as something happening would affect millions of people,” said Mark Mills, Mayor of the City of Coshocton.
Mills says the county commissioners were told of the plan this Wednesday. In the press release, the county commissioners have expressed their dissatisfaction with the decision, and the impact it could potentially have on the community Mills has expressed his concern about the long-term effect on their drinking water.
“If you pump 500 million gallons of of anything into a layer or a pocket of earth, the ground shifts,” Mills said."The ground moves. You know, I don’t look at it as our generation’s problem, but in a hundred years we live in a community that has is still dealing with the mining strip mining issues from more than 100 years ago."
Buckeye Brine will treat the water with vinyl chloride to meet drinking water standards. It will also have to have full approval from the U.S. and Ohio environmental protection agencies. Dane Shryock, the chairman of the Coshocton County Board of Commissioner’s, said their county doesn’t have zoning regulations. And, when people find out this is happening, there are mixed feelings about what will happen to the environment.
“So, with no zoning, the board of county commissioners have very little, if any, ability to regulate this any more than we would have a restaurant wanted to put in that same location,” Shryock said.
Shryock says they are trying to educate Ohioans on what’s happening, and how the process could look.
“It is waste, and it has been treated,” Shrynock said. “It has run through a number of systems that can make it water quality standard with the chemicals that are involved in it. Also, we were told that the federal EPA and Ohio EPA are monitoring this situation, and have indicated and offered assurance to us that it is safe to transport, it is safe to inject into these wells.”
Meanwhile, Ohio’s Environmental Protection Agency issued this statement:
“The wastewater treatment system itself will not cause additional noise disruption in the community. There will be no impacts to air, surface water, or soil. The system is temporary, meant to be on site until no longer needed."
State Representative Jennifer Gross sent a letter to president Joe Biden to request more FEMA assistance to help with cleanup in East Palestine.