Tag: hazardous waste disposal

IAEA chief ‘completely convinced’ it’s safe to release treated Fukushima nuclear wastewater | CNN

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Japan’s plan to release treated radioactive water into the ocean is safe and there is no better option to deal with the massive buildup of wastewater collected since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog told CNN.

Japan will release the wastewater sometime this summer, a controversial move 12 years after the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown. Japanese authorities and the IAEA have insisted the plan follows international safety standards – the water will first be treated to remove the most harmful pollutants, and be released gradually over many years in highly diluted quantities.

But public anxiety remains high, including in nearby countries like South Korea, China and the Pacific Islands, which have voiced concern about potential harm to the environment or people’s health. On Friday, Chinese customs officials announced they would ban food imports from ten Japanese prefectures including Fukushima, and strengthen inspections to monitor for “radioactive substances, to ensure the safety of Japanese food imports to China.”

Speaking in an interview during a visit to Tokyo Friday, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said that while fears over the plan reflect a “very logical sense of uncertainty” that must be taken seriously, he is “completely convinced of the sound basis of our conclusions.”

“We have been looking at this basic policy for more than two years. We have been assessing it against … the most stringent standards that exist,” he said. “And we are quite certain of what we are saying, and the scheme we have proposed.”

Grossi told CNN he had met with Japanese fishing groups, local mayors and other communities affected by the 2011 disaster – and whose livelihoods may be hurt by the release – to listen to those concerns.

“My disposition … is one of listening, and explaining in a way that addresses all these concerns they have,” he said.

“When one visits Fukushima, it is quite impressive, I will even say ominous, to look at all these tanks, more than a million tons of water that contains radionuclides – imagining that this is going to be discharged into the ocean. So all sorts of fears kick in, and one has to take them seriously, to address and to explain.

“This is why I’m here, to listen to all those who in good faith have questions and criticism and question marks, and to address them.”

On Tuesday, Grossi formally presented the IAEA’s safety review to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The report found the wastewater release plan will have a “negligible” impact on people and the environment, adding that it was an “independent and transparent review,” not a recommendation or endorsement.

IAEA approves plan for Fukushima’s wastewater

Japanese authorities have said the release is necessary because they are running out of room to contain the contaminated water – and the move will allow the full decommissioning of the Fukushima plant.

The 2011 disaster caused the plant’s reactor cores to overheat and contaminate water within the facility with highly radioactive material. Since then, new water has been pumped in to cool fuel debris in the reactors. At the same time, ground and rainwater have leaked in, creating more radioactive wastewater that now needs to be stored and treated.

That wastewater now measures 1.32 million metric tons – enough to fill more than 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Japan has previously said there were “no other options” as space runs out – a sentiment Grossi echoed on Friday. When asked whether there were better alternatives to dispose of the wastewater, the IAEA chief answered succinctly: “No.”

It’s not that there are no other methods, he added – Japan had considered five total options, including hydrogen release, underground burial and vapor release, which would have seen wastewater boiled and released into the atmosphere.

But several of these options are “considered industrially immature,” said Grossi. For instance, vapor release can be more difficult to control due to environmental factors like wind and rain, which could bring the waste back to earth, he said. That left a controlled release of water into the sea – which, Japanese officials and some scientists point out, is frequently done at nuclear plants around the world, including those in the United States.

The IAEA will also remain on site for years to come, with a new permanent office set up in Fukushima to help monitor progress.

“We have the benefit of science,” Grossi said. “Either you have a certain radionuclide in a water sample or you don’t have it … it’s a measurable thing. We have the science, we have the laboratories … to ensure the credibility and the transparency of the process.”

CNN goes inside the Fukushima nuclear plant where wastewater is being treated

But some critics have cast doubt on the IAEA’s findings, with China recently arguing that the group’s assessment “is not proof of the legality and legitimacy” of the wastewater release.

Many countries have openly opposed the plan; Chinese officials have warned that it could cause “unpredictable harm,” and accused Japan of treating the ocean as a “sewer.” The Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum, an inter-governmental group of Pacific island nations that includes Australia and New Zealand, also published an op-ed in January voicing “grave concerns,” saying more data was needed.

And in South Korea, residents have taken to the streets to protest the plan. Many shoppers have stockpiled salt and seafood for fear these products will be contaminated once the wastewater is released – even though Seoul has already banned imports of seafood and food items from the Fukushima region.

International scientists have also expressed concern to CNN that there is insufficient evidence of long-term safety, arguing that the release could cause tritium – a radioactive hydrogen isotope that cannot be removed from the wastewater – to gradually build up in marine ecosystems and food chains, a process called bioaccumulation.

While Grossi said he takes these objections seriously, he added that he “cannot exclude” the possibility some are driven more by politics than science.

“We understand that there is a political environment … which is tense. Geopolitical divisions are very, very strong these days so we cannot exclude these things,” he said.

Grossi also denied media reports that the IAEA had shared a draft of its final report with the Japanese government ahead of its publication. “It’s absurd,” he said. “This is the DNA of the IAEA – to be the nuclear watchdog for nuclear operations, the nuclear watchdog for nuclear safety and security. When we come to a conclusion, it is our independent conclusion.”

And more broadly, the future of nuclear as an alternative energy source relies on the success of the Fukushima release, he said. Though there has been heightened public alarm toward nuclear plants recently – for instance, regarding the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant in Ukraine – “the problem there is war, the problem is not nuclear energy,” Grossi said.

“If there was one lesson that came clearly after the Fukushima accident, it’s that the nuclear safety standards should be observed to the letter,” he added. “If you do that, the probability of having what happened in Fukushima is extremely low.”

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July 6, 2023
California man sentenced to over 6 years in prison for $8.7 million cow manure Ponzi scheme, US attorney’s office says | CNN Business

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A man from California who ran a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme where he claimed to turn cow manure into green energy has been sentenced to over six years in prison, the US attorney’s office for the Eastern District of California announced this week.

Ray Brewer, 66, stole over $8.7 million from investors, court records from between March 2014 and December 2019 showed.

Brewer’s scam involved convincing investors he could build anaerobic digesters – large machines that create methane through microorganisms breaking down biodegradable material – on dairies in several California and Idaho counties, the US attorney’s office said in a news release. This methane can “then be sold on the open market as green energy,” the release stated.

Brewer’s investors were meant to receive tax incentives and 66% of all net profits as part of the scheme, authorities said.

Brewer gave the investors tours of the dairies where he claimed he’d build the digester machines and “sent them forged lease agreements with the dairy owners,” according to the US attorney’s office release.

“He also sent the investors altered agreements with banks that made it appear as though he had obtained millions of dollars in loans to build the digesters,” the release said.

Wanting to appear as though he had secured revenue streams, Brewer also sent investors forged contracts with multinational companies, authorities said, and showed them fake photos of the digesters under construction.

After receiving investors’ funds, authorities said he transferred the money to bank accounts opened in the names of an alias, his relatives and different entities.

In some cases, Brewer offered refunds that came from “newly received money from other investors who had not authorized Brewer to use their money in this way,” the US attorney’s office said.

Brewer assumed a new identity and relocated to Montana after his investors became aware of his fraud, authorities said.

When he was arrested, Brewer attempted to trick authorities by telling him they had the wrong person.

He also told officers stories about being in the Navy and “how he once saved several soldiers during a fire by blocking the flames with his body so that they could escape” – tales he later admitted were lies “meant to curry favor with law enforcement,” the news release stated.

Some of Brewer’s purchases with the stolen money included two plots of land of 10 or more acres, a custom 3,700 square-foot home and new pickup trucks, according to authorities.

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July 1, 2023
‘A new era’: Germany quits nuclear power, closing its final three plants | CNN

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Germany’s final three nuclear power plants close their doors on Saturday, marking the end of the country’s nuclear era that has spanned more than six decades.

Nuclear power has long been contentious in Germany.

There are those who want to end reliance on a technology they view as unsustainable, dangerous and a distraction from speeding up renewable energy.

But for others, closing down nuclear plants is short-sighted. They see it as turning off the tap on a reliable source of low-carbon energy at a time when drastic cuts to planet-heating pollution are needed.

Even as these debates rumble on, and despite last-minute calls to keep the plants online amid an energy crisis, the German government has been steadfast.

“The position of the German government is clear: nuclear power is not green. Nor is it sustainable,” Steffi Lemke, Germany’s Federal Minister for the Environment and Consumer Protection and a Green Party member, told CNN.

“We are embarking on a new era of energy production,” she said.

The closure of the three plants – Emsland, Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim – represents the culmination of a plan set in motion more than 20 years ago. But its roots are even older.

In the 1970s, a strong anti-nuclear movement in Germany emerged. Disparate groups came together to protest new power plants, concerned about the risks posed by the technology and, for some, the link to nuclear weapons. The movement gave birth to the Green Party, which is now part of the governing coalition.

Nuclear accidents fueled the opposition: The partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania in 1979 and the 1986 catastrophe at Chernobyl that created a cloud of radioactive waste which reached parts of Germany.

In 2000, the German government pledged to phase out nuclear power and start shutting down plants. But when a new government came to power in 2009, it seemed – briefly – as if nuclear would get a reprieve as a bridging technology to help the country move to renewable energy.

Then Fukushima happened.

In March 2011, an earthquake and tsunami caused three reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to melt down. For many in Germany, Japan’s worst nuclear disaster was confirmation “that assurances that a nuclear accident of a large scale can’t happen are not credible,” Miranda Schreurs, professor of environment and climate policy at the Technical University of Munich, told CNN.

Three days later then-Chancellor Angela Merkel – a physicist who was previously pro-nuclear – made a speech called it an “inconceivable catastrophe for Japan” and a “turning point” for the world. She announced Germany would accelerate a nuclear phase-out, with older plants shuttered immediately.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, provided another plot twist.

Fearful of its energy security without Russian gas, the German government delayed its plan to close the final three plants in December 2022. Some urged a rethink.

But the government declined, agreeing to keep them running only until April 15.

For those in the anti-nuclear movement, it’s a moment of victory.

“It is a great achievement for millions of people who have been protesting nuclear in Germany and worldwide for decades,” Paul-Marie Manière, a spokesperson for Greenpeace, told CNN.

For critics of Germany’s policy, however, it’s irrational to turn off a low-carbon source of energy as the impacts of the climate crisis intensify.

“We need to keep existing, safe nuclear reactors operating while simultaneously ramping up renewables as fast as possible,” Leah Stokes, a professor of climate and energy policy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told CNN.

The big risk, she said, is that fossil fuels fill the energy gap left by nuclear. Reductions in Germany’s nuclear energy since Fukushima have been primarily offset by increases in coal, according to research published last year.

Germany plans to replace the roughly 6% of electricity generated by the three nuclear plants with renewables, but also gas and coal.

More than 30% of Germany’s energy comes from coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels – and the government has made controversial decisions to turn to coal to help with energy security.

In January, protestors including Greta Thunberg converged on the west German village of Lützerath in an unsuccessful attempt to stop it being demolished to mine the coal underneath it.

“Building new coal capacity is the opposite of what we need,” said Stokes. Fossil fuels are a climate problem, but they’re also a health risk, she pointed out. Air pollution from fossil fuels is responsible for 8.7 million deaths a year, according to a recent analysis.

Veronika Grimm, one of Germany’s leading economists, told CNN that keeping nuclear power plants running for longer would have allowed Germany more time “to electrify extensively,” especially as renewable energy growth “remains sluggish.”

But supporters of the nuclear shutdown argue it will ultimately hasten the end of fossil fuels.

Germany has pledged to close its last coal-fired power station no later than 2038, with a 2030 deadline in some areas. It’s aiming for 80% of electricity to come from renewables by the end of this decade.

While more coal was added in the months following Fukushima, Schreurs said, nuclear shutdowns have seen a big push on clean energy. “That urgency and demand can be what it takes to push forward on the growth of renewables,” she said.

Representatives for Germany’s renewable energy industry said the shutdown will open the door for more investment into clean energy.

“Germany’s phase-out of nuclear power is a historic event and an overdue step in energy terms,” Simone Peter, president of the German Renewable Energy Federation (BEE), told CNN. “It is high time that we leave the nuclear age behind and consistently organize the renewable age.”

The impacts of nuclear power shouldn’t be overlooked either, Schreurs said, pointing to the carbon pollution created by uranium mining as well as the risk of health complications for miners. Plus, it creates a dependency on Russia, which supplies uranium for nuclear plants, she added.

Nuclear has also shown itself to have vulnerabilities to the climate crisis. France was forced to reduce nuclear power generation last year as the rivers used to cool reactors became too hot during Europe’s blistering heatwave.

Now Germany must work out what do with the deadly, high-level radioactive waste, which can remain dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years.

Currently, the nuclear waste is kept in interim storage next to the nuclear plants being decommissioned. But the search is on to find a permanent location where the waste can be stored safely for a million years.

The site needs to be deep – hundreds of meters underground. Only certain types of rock will do: Crystalline granite, rock salt or clay rock. It must be geologically stable with no risks of earthquakes or signs of underground rivers.

The process is likely to be fraught, complex and breathtakingly long – potentially lasting more than 100 years.

BGE, the Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal, estimates a final site won’t be chosen until between 2046 and 2064. After that, it will take decades more to build the repository, fill it with the waste and seal it.

Plenty of other countries are treading paths similar to Germany’s. Denmark passed a resolution in the 1980s not to construct nuclear power plants, Switzerland voted in 2017 to phase out nuclear power, Italy closed its last reactors in 1990 and Austria’s one nuclear plant has never been used.

But, in the context of the war in Ukraine, soaring energy prices and pressure to reduce carbon pollution, others still want nuclear in the mix.

The UK, in the process of building a nuclear power plant, said in its recent climate strategy that energy nuclear power has a “crucial” role in “creating secure, affordable and clean energy.”

France, which gets about 70% of its power from nuclear, is planning six new reactors, and Finland opened a new nuclear plant last year. Even Japan, still dealing with the aftermath of Fukushima, is considering restarting reactors.

The US, the world’s biggest nuclear power, is also investing in nuclear energy and, in March, started up a new nuclear reactor, Vogtle 3 in Georgia – the first in years.

But experts suggest this doesn’t mark the start of a nuclear ramp up. Vogtle 3 came online six years late and at a cost of $30 billion, twice the initial budget.

It encapsulates the big problem that afflicts the whole nuclear industry: making the economics add up. New plants are expensive and can take more than a decade to build. “Even the countries that are talking pro-nuclear are having big trouble developing nuclear power,” Schreurs said.

Many nuclear power plants in Europe, the US and elsewhere are aging – plants have an operating life of around 40 to 60 years. As Germany puts an end to its nuclear era, it’s coming up to crunch time for others, Schreurs said.

“There will be a moment of decision as to whether nuclear really has a future”

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April 14, 2023
As crews remove contaminated soil and liquid from Ohio toxic train wreck site, concerns emerge about where it’s going | CNN

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After a brief pause, shipments of contaminated liquid and soil from the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, have resumed after cross-country concerns about where the hazardous waste is going.

Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency previously said they have approved the shipment of contaminated waste to two EPA-certified sites in Ohio: Heritage Thermal Services in East Liverpool and Vickery Environmental in Vickery. Region 5 Administrator Debra Shore said Monday two more sites – one in Ohio and one in Indiana – will also receive waste from the derailment scene.

The move came after officials in Texas and Michigan complained they didn’t get any warning that waste from the toxic crash site would be shipped to their states for disposal. The EPA ordered the train’s operator, Norfolk Southern, to stop the shipments Friday so that it could review the company’s disposal plans.

Shore said she spoke with officials from Ohio and Indiana on Monday regarding the shipment of hazardous waste material to their towns.

Questions about the disposal of toxic waste from the February 3 derailment have added to the controversy surrounding the crash that has also left residents of the town worried about potential long-term health effects.

The mayor of East Liverpool, one of the Ohio towns set to incinerate the waste, expressed concerns about the process but said the EPA has assured him that everyone has been following necessary guidelines.

“We have a 2-year-old daughter and of course that’s a concern,” Mayor Gregory T. Bricker said. “But, again, I think this is a state-of-the-art facility that can handle this type of waste.”

So far, about 1.8 million gallons of liquid waste and 4,832 cubic yards of solid waste have been pulled from the derailment site, according to the office of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan is expected to make his third trip to East Palestine on Tuesday to mark the grand opening of a new community center, Shore said.

US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has given Norfolk Southern and other major rail companies a deadline of this week to say whether they will participate in the Confidential Close Call Reporting System – a voluntary program that allows workers to report safety hazards.

“This common-sense program encourages employees to report safety hazards, including conditions that could lead to derailments, by protecting these workers from reprisal when they come forward,” Buttigieg wrote in a Monday letter to Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw.

The transportation secretary said “not one major freight rail company participates” in the Confidential Close Call Reporting System, also known as C3RS.

“By refusing to take this commonsense step, you are sending an undesirable message about your level of commitment to the safety of your workers and the American communities where you operate,” Buttigieg wrote.

“I am asking you to join the C3RS program now, even as our Department proceeds to take appropriate steps toward making this program mandatory.”

Buttigieg first called for the change in a letter to railroads dated February 14, but is now going directly to rail CEOs and asking them to reply to the Department of Transportation “by the end of the week.”

After that, Buttigieg said, he will “present the public with a summary of which companies have agreed to this important safety measure and which have refused.”

The hazardous waste that has already been sent to Michigan and Texas is being processed, EPA regional administrator Debra Shore said Sunday.

About 2 million gallons of firefighting water from the train derailment site were expected to be disposed in Harris County, Texas, with about half a million gallons already there, the county’s chief executive said last week.

In Michigan, contaminated soil from the derailment site was taken to the US Ecology Wayne Disposal in Belleville, Michigan, US Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan said.

Vickery Environmental will process overflow water from the crash scene, according to the Sandusky County Emergency Management Agency.

The agency didn’t comment on how much water the facility has received so far, saying only that it has been receiving three to four loads per day, but according to Ohio officials, more than 94,000 gallons have been disposed of at the facility so far.

Until Friday, Norfolk Southern had been “solely responsible” for disposing of waste from the train derailment, but waste disposal plans “will be subject to federal EPA review and approval moving forward,” Shore said.

Every aspect of transporting and disposing of the hazardous waste “from the moment trucks and rail cars are loaded until the waste is safely disposed of” will be closely regulated and overseen by federal, state, and local governments, Shore said Sunday.

After speaking to residents in East Palestine, Shore said “we owe it to the people of East Palestine to move it out of the community as quickly as possible.”

“At the same time,” Shore added, “I know there are folks in other states who have concerns, legitimate concerns, about how this waste is being transported and how it will be disposed of. EPA will continue to work with our local, state, and federal partners to use our longstanding experience and expertise in these matters to ensure the health and safety, and support the East Palestine community and to hold Norfolk Southern accountable.”

The fiery derailment and subsequent intentional release of vinyl chloride from train cars left East Palestine residents with anxiety about the safety of their air and water. Some have reported rashes, headaches, nausea and bloody noses.

So far, tests of East Palestine’s public drinking have found “no indication of risk to East Palestine public water system customers” and “treated drinking water shows no detection of contaminants associated with the derailment,” the EPA said in a Sunday update.

And air quality tests inside 578 East Palestine homes detected no contaminants linked to the derailment, the EPA said.

But residents are still concerned, and federal teams are going door-to-door to conduct health surveys and provide informational flyers after President Joe Biden directed the move, a White House official told CNN.

And new wells will be drilled this week “to determine if ground water immediately below the derailment site is contaminated,” DeWine’s office announced Sunday.

Four wells have already been installed and up to three more will be drilled this week after the soil under the rails is completely excavated, officials said.

“These monitoring wells will also support a better understanding of the direction and rate of the ground water flow in the area,” DeWine’s office said.

As for the wreckage, all rail cars except the 11 held by investigators have been removed from the site of the derailment, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Anne Vogel said Sunday.

“This is so critically important to moving on to next steps. We can now excavate additional contaminated soil and began installing monitoring wells,” Vogel said.

The Ohio EPA will oversee the installation of water monitoring wells at the site of the derailment that will measure contaminant levels in the groundwater below.

While the crash was “100% preventable,” it appears the train’s crew didn’t do anything wrong leading up to the derailment, said Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board.

An NTSB preliminary report found one of the train’s cars carrying plastic pellets was heated by a hot axle that sparked the initial fire, Homendy said last week. Video of the train before the crash showed what appeared to be an overheated wheel bearing, the report said.

What caused the wheel bearing failure will be key to the investigation, Homendy added.

The investigation will also look into the train’s wheelset and the bearing, the designs of tank cars and railcars, the maintenance procedures and practices, as well as the damage from the derailment, the NTSB report said.

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February 27, 2023
Shipments of contaminated waste to resume from Ohio train derailment site | CNN

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The Environmental Protection Agency has approved resuming shipments of contaminated liquid and soil out of East Palestine, Ohio, where a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed earlier this month.

The EPA on Friday ordered the train’s operator, Norfolk Southern, to halt the shipments so that it could review the company’s plans for disposal, adding to the controversy surrounding the crash that has also left residents of the town worried about potential long-term health effects.

That’s as officials in Texas and Michigan complained they didn’t receive any warning that hazardous waste from the crash would be shipped into their jurisdictions for disposal.

Shipments now will be going to two EPA-certified facilities in Ohio, and Norfolk Southern will start shipments to these locations Monday, EPA regional administrator Debra Shore said at a news conference Sunday.

“Some of the liquid wastes will be sent to a facility in Vickery, Ohio, where it will be disposed of in an underground injection well,” Shore said. “Norfolk Southern will also beghin shipping solid waste to the Heritage Incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio.”

Until Friday, Norfolk Southern was “solely responsible” for disposing of waste from the train derailment, Shore said Saturday, but waste disposal plans “will be subject to EPA review and approval moving forward.”

All rail cars, except for those held by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), have been removed from the site of the derailment, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Director Anne Vogel said in an update Sunday.

The NTSB is currently holding 11 railcars as part of its investigation into the derailment, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement Sunday.

“This is so critically important to moving on to next steps. We can now excavate additional contaminated soil and began installing monitoring wells,” Vogel said. The Ohio EPA will oversee the installation of water monitoring wells at the site of the derailment that will measure contaminant levels in the groundwater below.

Every aspect of transporting and disposing of the hazardous waste material “from the moment trucks and rail cars are loaded until the waste is safely disposed of” will be closely regulated and overseen by federal, state, and local governments, Shore said Sunday.

Shore detailed the federal, state, and local compliance requirements expected from Norfolk Southern.

“These extensive requirements cover everything from waste labeling, packaging, and handling, as well as requirements for shipping documents that provide information about the wastes and where they’re going,” Shore said.

The hazardous waste material previously sent to facilities in Michigan and Texas is now being processed at those facilities, Shore said.

About 2 million gallons of firefighting water from the train derailment site were expected to be disposed in Harris County, Texas, with about half a million gallons already there, according to the county’s chief executive.

Also, contaminated soil from the derailment site was being taken to the US Ecology Wayne Disposal in Belleville, Michigan, US Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan said Friday.

The Michigan and Ohio facilities were, in fact, EPA approved sites, but they are not currently accepting any more shipments at this time, and the EPA is “exploring to see whether they have the capacity” to accept shipments in the future, Shore said.

A spokesperson Gov. DeWine told CNN the governor was not briefed on where in the country the shipments would be sent. But this is typical, as the train company is responsible for the transport of material and the EPA is responsible for regulating that transport, DeWine spokesman Daniel Tierney said Saturday.

The February 3 derailment of the Norfolk Southern train and subsequent intentional release of vinyl chloride it was hauling first forced East Palestine residents out of their homes, then left them with anxiety about health effects as reports of symptoms like rashes and headaches emerged after they returned.

Officials have repeatedly sought to assure residents that continued air and water monitoring has found no concerns. The EPA reported last week that they have conducted indoor air testing at a total of 574 homes and detected no contaminants associated with the derailment.

Federal teams in East Palestine have begun going door-to-door to check in with residents, conduct health surveys and provide informational flyers after President Joe Biden directed the move, a White House official told CNN.

Also, a 19-person scientific team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been collecting information from residents about symptoms they have experienced since the derailment, said Jill Shugart, a senior environmental health specialist for the CDC.

The EPA also installed “sentinel wells” near the city’s municipal well field to monitor contaminants in well water as part of the agency’s long-term early detection system “to protect the city for years to come,” Vogel, head of the Ohio EPA, said Saturday.

In a Saturday update on the removal of contaminated waste, DeWine said 20 truckloads of hazardous solid waste had been hauled away from the Ohio derailment site. Fifteen of those truckloads were disposed of at a licensed hazardous waste treatment and disposal facility in Michigan and five truckloads were returned to East Palestine.

About 102,000 gallons of liquid waste and 4,500 cubic yards of solid waste remained Saturday in storage on site in East Palestine – not including the five truckloads returned, according to DeWine. Additional solid and liquid wastes are being generated as the cleanup progresses, he added.

Dingell told CNN on Saturday that neither she nor Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer were aware of plans for toxic waste to be delivered to disposal sites in her district.

“I called everybody,” Dingell said. “Nobody had really been given a heads up that they were coming here.”

Across the country, Texas Chief Executive Lina Hidalgo expressed frustration that she first learned about the expected water shipments to her state from the news media – not from a government agency or Texas Molecular, the company hired to dispose of the water.

She added that although there’s no legal requirement for her office to be notified, “it doesn’t quite seem right.”

Hidalgo said Texas Molecular told her office Thursday that half a million gallons of the water was already in the county and the shipments began arriving around last Wednesday.

On Thursday, Texas Molecular told CNN it had been hired to dispose of potentially dangerous water from the Ohio train derailment. The company said they had experts with more than four decades of experience in managing water safely and that all shipments, so far, had come by truck for the entire trip.

Hidalgo’s office had been seeking information about the disposal, including the chemical composition of the firefighting water, the precautions that were being taken, and why Harris County was the chosen site, she said.

According to a Thursday news release from Ohio Emergency Management Agency, more than 1.7 million gallons of contaminated liquid had been removed from the immediate site of the derailment. Of that, more than 1.1 million gallons of “contaminated liquid” from East Palestine had been transported off-site, with the majority going to Texas Molecular and the rest going to a facility in Vickery, Ohio.

CNN asked the Ohio agency the location of the remaining 581,500 gallons which had been “removed” but not “hauled off-site” and has yet to receive a response.

Regarding the causes of the accident, a National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report found that one of the train’s cars carrying plastic pellets was heated by a hot axle that sparked the initial fire, said Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the safety board. So far, the investigation found the three crew members on board the train did not do anything wrong prior to the derailment, though the crash was “100% preventable,” she said.

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February 26, 2023
Ohio governor drinks the tap water as the EPA demands Norfolk Southern manage all cleanup of a toxic train wreck — or face consequences | CNN

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The US Environmental Protection Agency is ordering Norfolk Southern to handle and pay for all necessary cleanup after a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio.

The EPA announced its legally binding order Tuesday, 18 days after the freight train derailed. The disaster ignited a dayslong inferno, shot plumes of black smoke into the air and led to the intentional release of vinyl chloride to help avert a more catastrophic blast.

Some residents have reported health problems, and about 3,500 fish have died in Ohio waterways since the wreck.

“Norfolk Southern will pay for cleaning the mess that they created and the trauma that they inflicted on this community,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said Tuesday.

As part of the EPA’s legally binding order, Norfolk Southern will be required to:

• Identify and clean up any contaminated soil and water resources,

• Reimburse the EPA for cleaning services to be offered to residents and businesses to provide an additional layer of reassurance, which will be conducted by EPA staff and contractors,

• Attend and participate in public meetings at the EPA’s request and post information online, and

• Pay for the EPA’s costs for work performed under the order.

The order will take effect Thursday. The EPA said it will exercise its strongest authority against the train’s operator under CERCLA – the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act.

“In no way, shape or form will Norfolk Southern get off the hook for the mess that they created,” Regan said.

If the rail company fails to meet the demands, the EPA said it will immediately step in, conduct the necessary work and then seek to compel Norfolk Southern to pay triple the cost.

In response to the EPA’s announcement, Norfolk Southern said it has been working to clean up the site and will continue helping residents.

“We recognize that we have a responsibility, and we have committed to doing what’s right for the residents of East Palestine,” Norfolk Southern said in a statement to CNN.

“We have been paying for the clean-up activities to date and will continue to do so. We are committed to thoroughly and safely cleaning the site, and we are reimbursing residents for the disruption this has caused in their lives. We are investing in helping East Palestine thrive for the long-term, and we will continue to be in the community for as long as it takes. We are going to learn from this terrible accident and work with regulators and elected officials to improve railroad safety.”

Hours before the EPA’s announcement, Regan and Gov. Mike DeWine visited an East Palestine home and tried to reassure residents that the municipal water supply is safe.

They raised two glasses filled with water straight from the tap and toasted before drinking.

The municipal water supply comes from five wells deep underground that are encased in steel, state officials have said. But residents with private well water should get that water tested before using it, since that water may be sourced closer to the ground’s surface.

“State and local authorities will continue the water sampling efforts, and EPA will continue indoor air screenings to residents within the evacuation zone,” Regan said Tuesday.

But “I recognize that no matter how much data we collect or provide, it will not be enough to completely reassure everybody,” the EPA chief said.

“It may not be enough to restore the sense of safety and security that this community once had. But we’re going to work together, day by day, for as long as it takes to make sure that this community feels at home once again.”

The soil under the railroad track at the site of the wreck is still contaminated, and the tracks need to be lifted to remove that soil, the director of Ohio’s Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday.

The governor acknowledged residents’ concerns about the contaminated soil and said 4,588 cubic yards of soil and 1.1 million gallons of contaminated water have been removed from East Palestine.

“The railroad got the tracks back on and started running and the soil under the tracks had not been dealt with,” DeWine said. “The tracks will have to be taken up, and that soil will have to be removed.”

To address the growing reports of rashes, headaches, nausea and other symptoms in East Palestine, the state opened a new health clinic for residents.

The health clinic will have registered nurses, mental health specialists and – at times – a toxicologist, the Ohio Department of Health said.

Medical teams from the US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention and the US Department of Health are expected to arrive in the community as early as this week to help assess what dangers might remain.

Authorities have repeatedly assured residents that the air and municipal water supply in the town are safe. Crews have checked hundreds of homes and have not detected any dangerous levels of contaminants, the EPA said.

Still, life in East Palestine has been uprooted as residents question the findings and wonder whether it’s really safe to drink the water or breathe the air.

“It will be important to monitor people’s health and the environment around the train derailment for some time to come since health impacts may not emerge until later,” said Dr. Erin Haynes, an environmental health scientist at the University of Kentucky.

“We should never say we’re done looking at this community for potential exposures and health impacts.”

Some waterways were contaminated after the crash, killing an estimated 3,500 fish. But officials have said they believe those contaminants have been contained.

Norfolk Southern installed booms and dams to restrict the flow of contaminated water from Sulphur Run and Leslie Run – two streams where fish were found dead, the EPA said.

“The spill did flow to the Ohio River during that initial slug, but the Ohio River is very large, and it’s a water body that’s able to dilute the pollutants pretty quickly,” Ohio Environmental Protection Agency official Tiffani Kavalec said last week.

Kavalec said the agency is pretty confident that the “low levels” of contaminants that remain are not getting passed on to water customers.

A series of pumps have been placed upstream to reroute Sulphur Run around the derailment site, Norfolk Southern said Monday.

“Environmental teams are treating the impacted portions of Sulphur Run with booms, aeration, and carbon filtration units,” Norfolk Southern added. “Those teams are also working with stream experts to collect soil and groundwater samples to develop a comprehensive plan to address any contamination that remains in the stream banks and sediment.”

Water intakes from the Ohio River that were shut off Sunday “as a precautionary measure” were reopened after sampling found “no detections of the specific chemicals from the train derailment,” the Greater Cincinnati Water Works and Northern Kentucky Water District said Monday.

A third utility provider – Maysville utility in Kentucky – announced that it temporarily shut off water intakes from the Ohio River on Saturday, when the toxic chemicals released into the river from the derailment were expected to arrive at the water treatment intake in Kentucky, utility general manager Mark Julian said.

Water measurements have been below the level of concern, Julian said, and Maysville took precautionary measures in temporarily shutting down their Ohio River intake valve due to the public concern.

“The takeaway is that anyone along the Ohio River where the contaminants made their way can breathe a sigh of relief,” he said.

Meanwhile, the majority of the hazardous rail cars remain at the crash site as investigators continue to probe the wreck. But about 15,000 pounds of contaminated soil and 1.1 million gallons of contaminated water have been removed from the scene, Norfolk Southern announced Monday.

The contaminated soil became a point of contention last week after a public document sent to the EPA on February 10 did not list soil removal among completed cleanup activities. It is not yet known what significance or impact the soil that was not removed before the railroad reopened on February 8 will have had on the surrounding areas.

As skepticism spreads about the safety of the air and water, some local businesses say they’ve seen fewer customers.

“Everybody’s afraid … They don’t want to come in and drink the water,” Teresa Sprowls, a restaurant owner in East Palestine, told CNN affiliate WOIO.

A stylist at a hair salon told WOIO there’s no doubt the salon lost business and that customers may be worried about what may be in the water washing their hair.

“I know a lot of our businesses are already suffering greatly because people don’t want to come here,” local greenhouse owner Dianna Elzer told CNN affiliate WPXI.

Her husband, Donald Elzer, echoed her concerns, saying, “It’s devastating. The longer it goes on, the worse it gets.”

Dianna Elzer also worried about longer-term economic impacts to the community.

“Our property values – who is going to want to buy a house here now?” she told WPXI. “It’s going to be a long struggle to get back to where we were.”

As residents call for accountability from both Norfolk Southern and government officials, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said he plans to visit East Palestine “when the time is right” – but did not announce a date.

He did announce Monday new efforts by the Department of Transportation to improve rail safety.

“We are accelerating and augmenting our ongoing lines of effort on rail regulation and inspection here at the US DOT, including further regulation on high hazard flammable trains and electronically controlled pneumatic brakes – rules that were clawed back under the previous administration – to the full extent of that we are allowed to under current law, and we will continue using resources from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to fund projects that improve rail safety,” Buttigieg said.

A DOT news release said the agency will continue to press for the “Train Crew Staffing Rule,” which would require a minimum of two crew members during most railroad operations. Norfolk Southern has opposed the proposed rule.

Norfolk Southern has committed millions of dollars’ worth of financial assistance to East Palestine, including $3.4 million in direct financial assistance to families and a $1 million community assistance fund, among other aid, the company said.

Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw posted an open letter telling East Palestine residents, “I hear you” and “we are here and will stay here for as long as it takes to ensure your safety and to help East Palestine recover and thrive.”

“Together with local health officials,” Shaw said, “we have implemented a comprehensive testing program to ensure the safety of East Palestine’s water, air, and soil.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the first name of Ohio Environmental Protection Agency official Tiffani Kavalec.

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February 21, 2023
Two very different points of view on nuclear energy in the US | CNN Politics

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Two distinct and unrelated stories this week convinced me it was a good moment to look at nuclear power in the US.

Those developments, which might give anyone pause about the future of nuclear power, are counteracted by other headlines.

The opening of a new nuclear plant in Georgia, for example, will bring carbon emission-free energy at exactly the time worldwide temperature records drive home the reality of climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

Germany made the decision to decommission all of its nuclear plants after disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima. The last nuclear reactor there was taken offline earlier this year, a decision some might have regretted after Germany’s access to Russian natural gas was threatened by the war in Ukraine.

Next door, France is the worldwide nuclear leader. Most of its electricity is generated by nuclear power.

Russia, while it has been ostracized from the world economy in almost every way since its invasion of Ukraine, remains a major player in nuclear power. It enriches and sells uranium through its state-controlled nuclear energy company, Rosatom, which builds and operates plants around the world, according to a March report from CNN’s Clare Sebastian that explains why the West has largely left Russia’s nuclear power industry alone.

But it is China that is moving the quickest toward nuclear power production, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

As of 2022, about 18% of US electricity is generated by nuclear power, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Most large US nuclear reactors are old – averaging 40 years or more.

In addition to the Georgia reactor coming online, a new reactor began operating in Tennessee in 2016. But otherwise, the US nuclear power portfolio is old, and much of it is in need of improvement.

For an idea of the money and corruption that can revolve around energy production, look at the sentencing last week of Ohio’s former House Speaker Larry Householder to 20 years in prison for his involvement in a bribery scheme meant to get the utility company FirstEnergy Corp. a billion-dollar taxpayer bailout for two nuclear plants.

The bipartisan infrastructure law signed by President Joe Biden in 2021 included a $6 billion program to provide grants to nuclear reactor owners or operators and stave off closing them.

More than a dozen reactors have closed early in the US over the past decade, according to the Department of Energy. At least one reactor, the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California, will be kept open after a more than $1 billion grant.

Nuclear power – and how aggressively the US and other countries should be pursuing it – is a topic that splits scientists as well.

I talked to one nuclear expert who said the US should be slow and methodical about nuclear power and another who argued there are multiple, public misperceptions about nuclear power that should be corrected.

The more circumspect voice is Rodney Ewing, a Stanford University professor and expert on nuclear waste who was chairman of a federal review of nuclear waste procedures. I was put in touch with him by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which aims to “reduce man-made threats to our existence.”

Despite his decades spent focused on nuclear issues, he said something I found remarkable:

“I don’t have yet, although I’ve tried for years, a well-formed position for or against nuclear energy,” Ewing said.

“Too often in the enthusiasm for nuclear energy, a carbon-free source of energy – and in the present situation of the issue of climate change, really a very important existential crisis – it’s easy to say, well, we’ll solve the problems later.”

He said the issues with nuclear energy – from the potential for disaster to the issue of how to store nuclear waste – should be compared with the potential for renewable alternatives like solar and wind energy.

The University of Illinois energy professor, David Ruzic – who has a lively YouTube channel, “Illinois EnergyProf,” with multiple videos meant to dispel concerns about nuclear energy – has a much more positive view of nuclear energy’s future.

Illinois, by the way, generates more nuclear power than any other state. Lawmakers there recently voted to lift a moratorium on new reactor construction that was in place until the federal government can develop a technology for disposing of nuclear waste. That new policy must still be signed by the state’s governor.

Ruzic argues nuclear waste takes up such little space it should simply be encased in yards of solid concrete and kept at the site of nuclear reactors. The concrete, he argued, can be repaired every 70 years or so as it degrades.

“Over the 60 years we’ve been doing this commercially, we have learned so much about how to do it extremely safely and very well,” Ruzic said, arguing that the new plant in Georgia would not be affected by an earthquake and tidal wave in the way that Fukushima was, because the new reactor in Georgia is cooled by air in case of an emergency.

He argued that even in Fukushima, it’s important to note that there were no deaths associated with the radiation due to the failure of the plant, although many thousands were evacuated.

Any concern you can find to raise about nuclear power, Ruzic has a ready answer. He said no one should worry about the radioactive water Japan plans to release into the ocean from Fukushima because there is a level of radioactivity in everything already.

“You are adding something trivial and inconsequential, which will be diluted even more,” Ruzic said.

Even the Russia-Ukraine standoff over the Zaporizhzhia plant does not concern Ruzic; the biggest threat he sees, assuming it is not targeted by bunker-busting bombs, is that the plant ceases making electricity – not that it could turn into another Chernobyl.

“It’s really unfortunate that it’s in the middle of a war zone. But it’s also really unfortunate that chemical plants or coal plants or other plants are in the middle of a war zone as well,” he argued.

Both professors brought up the push toward small, modular nuclear technology for which there are numerous companies speculating there will be a major market. That market could grow exponentially if the government decides to put a tax on carbon emissions to account for the harm they cause.

Ewing argued there is not a clear US national energy strategy, and that means numerous state and federal agencies and private companies are searching, often at odds with each other, for something new. The expense and difficulty of developing nuclear technology will be a roadblock. The new Georgia plant took more than a decade to build and came in over budget.

Ruzic said that after the initial capital expenditure, the relative low cost of fuel for nuclear plants makes them a good, long-term investment.

When I came back to Ewing about his comment that he has no clear preference for or against nuclear energy, he said the broad question overlooks too much.

“The nuclear landscape is, from a technical and social point of view, complicated enough that broad general positions really don’t serve us very well,” he said.

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April 12, 2021