A controlled burn of five derailed tank cars in last year’s train crash in East Palestine, Ohio, could have been avoided, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) testified at a Senate hearing on March 6.
NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy was responding to questions from Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio ), in which she said the controlled burn, which unleashed a plume of toxic chemicals, was based on incorrect information.
Ms. Homendy said contractors employed by the Norfolk Southern railway company “lacked the scientific background” to determine the necessity of a vent-and-burn in order to prevent a chemical reaction that could cause the cars to explode.
She added that allowing the tank cars time to cool down would have proven more feasible at the time.
“They were provided incomplete information to make a decision,” Ms. Homendy said. “There was another option: let it cool down.”
Since the investigation into the disaster commenced last year, questions have been raised on whether other measures could have been applied to avoid an extensive cleanup operation and health concerns among residents of the small Ohio town. The NTSB has released an array of documents since then that questioned whether the vent-and-burn was the appropriate course of action.
At the time of the incident, Republican state Gov. Mike DeWine, fire chief Keith Drabick, and other officials were informed that they had to make an on-the-spot decision in less than 15 minutes in order to avoid a likely and potentially catastrophic explosion, which led to the fire chief giving the go-ahead to conduct the vent-and-burn on the vinyl chloride-carrying cars, in what he called a blindsided decision.
Ms. Homendy further testified that Norfolk Southern’s contractors were informed by experts from the OxyVinyls chemical shipping company that a chemical reaction in the cars was unlikely but that the decision was made without their presence or apparent input.
“They were not given full information because no one was told OxyVinyls was on scene. They were left out of the room,” she said.
Mr. Vance weighed in on Ms. Homendy’s testimony after the hearing, saying that it raised some questions about whether the railway company or its contractors made their recommendation in order to avoid further delays, as the vent-and-burn cleared the way for other trains to pass not long after the incident.
The senator, however, made his statements in the absence of criticism towards the officials and said it only served to determine whether the officials lacked complete information on the day in question.
Mr. DeWine told the Washington Post that he was not given any indication on alternative options at the time, which led him to make his decision. The governor said that he was in no position to question whether any facts he was given at the time had merit.
“You have to go with the facts you have at the time. I’m in no position to judge the merit of what these people are now saying, but what I can tell you is that they had plenty of opportunity to raise their hand and come up with a different scenario and different options, and nobody did,” he told the Washington Post in an interview before the hearing.
The vent-and-burn decision has long been controversial and has prompted responses from other government officials, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, after the incident.
In a letter to Norfolk Southern President Alan Shaw, Mr. Shapiro stated that the railway “failed to explore all potential courses of action, including some that may have kept the rail line closed longer but could have resulted in a safer overall approach for first responders, residents and the environment,” as reported by the Washington Post.
‘Only Safe Option’
Norfolk Southern and its contractors, however, pushed back on the allegation, saying that the vent-and-burn was the only safe option. The company later issued a statement defending the course of action taken by the incident commander.
“The successful controlled release prevented a potentially catastrophic uncontrolled explosion that could have caused significant damage for the community. To date, continuous environmental testing in coordination with and alongside U.S. and Ohio EPA has shown the air and drinking water in the community are safe,” according to a spokesman for the company.
Norfolk Southern primarily relied on feedback from two specialized contractors on the scene at the time of the incident.
Specialized Professional Services Inc. (SPSI) and Specialized Response Solutions (SRS), both of which specialize in transferring hazardous chemicals and industrial firefighting, advised burning off the cars based on their assessment that a chemical reaction, known as polymerization, could lead to a catastrophic explosion of the tank.
The contractors dismissed other options, such as transferring the chemicals, drilling into the tanks to relieve the pressure, or re-railing the tank cars with the chemicals still on board, as unsafe and unfeasible.
“Based on what we were seeing — excessive heat, high temperatures, unable to get good pressures on the cars — we had to make a judgment call that a reaction, a polymerization potential was extremely elevated,” said one SRS official, according to the NTSB report, as per the Washington Post.
The vent-and-burn procedure works in a way whereby the tank car is punctured at two points, allowing the materials to leak out as they are burned. Ms. Homendy said, however, that by the time the procedure was put in motion, the tank car displaying high temperatures had begun cooling down and stabilizing.
Meanwhile, SPSI and SRS contractors reportedly ignored input from officials at OxyVinyls, the company shipping the chemicals, who said that polymerization was unlikely due to the temperatures of the cars not being high enough for this to be the case.
“If the vent and burn option was pursued, the technical manager expressed concern to SPSI about the potential for a vapor cloud explosion, and the major combustion byproduct being toxic and corrosive hydrogen chloride,” the report said.
15 Minutes to Decide
In a subsequent meeting on Feb. 6, 2023, Mr. DeWine, Mr. Shapiro, and other officials were informed via phone by the contractors that vent-and-burn was the only viable option due to the high risk of explosion. Moreover, this applied to all five cars due to an increased risk of pressure in the other cars.
Mr. DeWine and the incident commander were then asked to join Norfolk Southern officials in a smaller group in a separate room, where Mr. DeWine was told by the SPSI president and the SRS project manager that a decision needed to be made within less than 15 minutes, as the operation needed to commence before sunset.
Believing this to be the only way to prevent a greater calamity, and with no apparent reason to doubt the contractors’ recommendation, the officials agreed to the burning-off procedure after requesting it was relayed to them one more time, according to the report.
Mr. DeWine further stated that the discussion on how to proceed went on for hours before it was disclosed that an imminent decision was necessary.
“If there were experts on the scene that day who knew all this information, they did not get that information to the people making the decisions,” Mr. DeWine said.
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) released a statement following the disclosure of the information at the Senate hearing, expressing outrage at the situation.
“This is outrageous. This explosion – which devasted so many – was unnecessary. The people of East Palestine are still living with the consequences of this toxic burn. This is more proof that Norfolk Southern put profits over safety & cannot be trusted,” he wrote in the press release.
Federal guidelines state that vent-and-burns should be used only as a last resort and only if materials transfer cannot be facilitated through other means.
A vote on railway safety legislation, sponsored by Senators Vance and Brown, is currently still pending.
The final report by the NTSB is set to be concluded on June 25 during a meeting in the Ohio community.