I'll probably be crapped on by some, but that's fine. This is an emotional thing so I get that some people are having a hard time staying calm when they're worried about themselves and their families.
Thankfully I live in an area that is basically geographically protected from all this, so the only thing I had to worry about was the wind, which is why I've been monitoring cloud and wind patterns obsessively the past few weeks. But that threat has long since passed (I'll get to that later). So since I can provide a moderately objective view on things, I decided to put my autism into overdrive and put in some extra effort. Mainly since I'm annoyed by everyone on here, truth social, twitter, etc. spreading these doomsday prophecies about the event.
Now let me preface with this. THIS WAS NOT ACCEPTABLE IN ANY WAY AND SOMEONE NEEDS TO SWING FROM A ROPE FOR IT. But it's not as bad as is being made out. It's bad, but not a doomsday scenario.
So let's start with the very first thing no one seems to understand. IT IS THE OHIO RIVER AND THE OHIO RIVER ALONE THAT IS CONTAMINATED.
All these maps you see on social media and on here, are water basin maps. That covered area (except for the Ohio River itself), is almost entirely tributaries. Tributaries are inside of drainage basins. Meaning they FEED INTO the river, and are safe from contamination from the Ohio River because it's impossible for the chemicals to flow back upstream due to gravity.
Case in point, this map:
https://files.catbox.moe/1k4obt.jpg
I drew over the river and tributaries brighter colors so you can more easily see them. But that map puts my first point into perspective. Literally 95% of the area everyone keeps saying holds 10% of the US population, or 74 Million People, or "the most fertile farmland in the country" is part of the tributary system and doesn't get water directly from the Ohio River itself.
So there's one point made. Let's get to point two. The Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River.
The Appalachians basically act as a giant barrier for this entire disaster. Case in point, this Map:
https://files.catbox.moe/jdq9nc.jpg
As we all know, water flows to lower elevations. Ergo this fear that everything is going to somehow spread beyond the Ohio River are looking at this wrong. It can't spread east very far since the Appalachian Mountains make that impossible. Instead we should worry more about what'll happen when it finally feeds into the Mississippi river. Because that's where this is heading.
Her's a map:
https://files.catbox.moe/8i4tfr.png
So as you can see, the Ohio River will eventually feed into the Mississippi. Which is where the real worry should be, but literally no one has mentioned this yet. Right now, the catastrophic damage is basically contained to East Palestine, with moderate damage being done to communities right on the the edge of the Ohio River in Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. But once it hits the Mississippi then it starts hitting Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi before finally being dumped into the gulf.
So if we can contain it before it hits the Mississippi then we can minimize the damage, which brings me into my next map and point. Dams:
https://files.catbox.moe/wkla5w.jpg
There are no less than 16 different dams we can use to at least slow down and control the spread of this along the Ohio river, upstream from East Palestine. So all is not lost yet, in that regards, but the fact this hasn't even been entertained yet shows that these evil pieces of crap are trying to make this worse than it has to be.
Finally, the groundwater, farmland, and rain. I know that outside of those immediately in harms way, this is everyone's biggest concern. So I present you with 2 maps, 2 scientific studies, a weather radar, and a distance calculator:
https://files.catbox.moe/05x3hr.jpg
https://files.catbox.moe/gpzo05.jpg
https://open.maricopa.edu/physicalgeology/chapter/14-2-groundwater-flow/
https://wellwater.oregonstate.edu/groundwater/understanding-groundwater/groundwater-movement
https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/national/wind-flow
Alright, now with all that available, let's discuss everyone's biggest concerns. The Ohio river runs across the southern border of Ohio, and more or less forms the border with West Virginia and Kentucky. Now at first it may seem like the elevation of ground water reservoirs in Ohio leads credence to the theory that Ohio groundwater is screwed, but that's not the case for multiple reasons.
First of all, notice how there seems to be deeper groundwater table on the southern and eastern part of the state where the Ohio River and more importantly, east palestine are. This is a good thing, as it means that to contaminate the ground water in the rest of the state outside of the immediate disaster area, it'd have to flow upwards, which again, the law of gravity prevents from happening.
And even if the water DOES somehow travel upwards, the scientific studies I provided both point out that it takes, years, sometimes decades or centuries, for groundwater to naturally travel more than a few miles. So the majority of the state is safe in the short-medium term. And hopefully we can clean this mess up completely before it even becomes a factor for most of the state.
Now let's look at the second map. The prime farmland map from Ohio Department of Agriculture. I admit, it's an older map, but I had a hard time finding one up to date, and it still proves my point regardless.
All the prime farmland in Ohio is near the great lakes in the north and northeast portion of the state. There is SOME farmland that will probably be affected by this, but overall, the Cornbelt is safe since it's both geographically separated, and the ground water contamination is far enough away from the disaster area and river that contamination would take literal decades or centuries from the groundwater, if it's even possible, which I don't believe it is.
Finally, the weather radar and distance calculator. The doom cloud is everyone's next biggest concern, and I can safely say, it's already floating over the Atlantic and has probably been dispersed over the ocean. Clouds travel anywhere from 30-100 miles per hour in a straight line depending on the type of cloud, and the furthest land point the doom cloud would have effected based on wind patterns was DC.
DC is roughly 370 Miles from East Palestine, so at the lowest possible travel speed it would have taken 13 days to reach the atlantic. The derailment occured 14 days ago today. And keep in mind, this is at THE LOWEST POSSIBLE SPEED. It's entirely possible that the cloud traveled faster and ended up in the atlantic earlier.
Likewise, I've been monitoring rain patterns over the areas that the doom cloud would have traveled over, and from what I can tell, there was almost no rainfall on land, outside of a few small storms in Pennsylvania. And it's debatable whether they were even doom cloud rain or not, since I have no means of confirming or denying it.
But regardless, the amount of rainfall in the doom cloud path, was negligible, and if it WAS doom cloud rain, the amount that fell was so insignificant that it's debatable if it would have a long term effect on the local land and wildlife. Keep in mind, these same chemicals were spilled in New Jersey in smaller amounts, and the long term effects were basically non-existent.
So in conclusion, yes this is bad. Yes it's horrible people are suffering. It will probably effect a few 100K people. But this is NOT the apocalyptic, end of the world scenario it's being made out to be. Millions of people are not going to die from chemical poisoning. The second largest break basket in the United States is not now barren land. And half the groundwater in the Eastern US is not now unsafe.
Also, as a sidenote, I'm sorry for using Maricopa University and University of Oregon studies as a reference, but I it's all I could find on short notice, and I have other things I have to do IRL. I just didn't want to start making claims without anything to back it up.
EDIT: I found a few NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Maps from February 7th and 8th that show the Doom cloud and it's trajectory, that further support my point on the doom cloud. Though I will admit, it spread further north than what I was expecting when I was tracking it. All the way into Maine and Canada. So there may have been more rain from it than I originally estimated. It's something for fellow pedes to look into. Though I still don't think that it would be enough to hurt anything long term even if it did rain since it would have been heavily diluted at that point.
If anything, this just means we should be more concerned about about the North East than the South East, since it's more likely they will be effected medium to long term than the Ohio and Mississippi river basin.
Just a minor correction for point 4. A "boiling point" is the condition when a liquid's vapor pressure is equal to the ambient pressure (sea level standard). Evaporation takes place all the time. We have all seen puddles of rainwater evaporate and go away. Has the temperature ever been 212 deg F? Never. We would be dead if that were so, and there would be no natural evaporation.
A boiling point of 82 deg F is a volatile chemical that will evaporate quickly. We're all familiar with acetone and how quickly it evaporates? It has a boiling point of 133 deg F, far higher than 82 deg F. The left-over volatiles will all evaporate.
As for point 5 (toxicity), you have to be careful what you are citing. The mean lethal concentration for phosgene (a vinyl chloride combustion product) in air is 500 ppm. The recommended exposure limit is 0.1 ppm. It is probably unlikely that anyone will suffer death from direct exposure. Dilution makes all the difference.
Not a chemistry expert, so I'll concede to the obvious chem major lol. But in my mind, that just makes my point even more true, even if it wasn't in the way I originally thought. Water dilution is one thing, but air dilution......well, there's a reason hydrogen is literally the most abundant element on earth. There's so much volume in the open atmosphere, that it's virtually impossible to die from air based toxin exposure unless your on ground zero to a gas bomb or toxic fume fire, in which case I guess East Palestine is screwed and those people need to do everything in their power to get justice.
And if I'm understanding you right, you're saying the Vinyl Chloride gas isn't as toxic as we've been thinking it was, and you need roughly 5,000 times more than we've been quoting for it to effect you in gaseous form? Or am I misunderstanding whta you've said? Cause if that's right, then this is a whole lot less of a problem than I thought outside of ground zero, and possibly some of the areas the doom cloud was in.
It's the old story that the dose makes the poison. We ingest things commonly that do not kill us---but could at the wrong dose. Oxygen, for example. Breathing pure oxygen at sea level pressure can kill us. Salt is another example. We would die from drinking salt water. Water is another example. We would die from drinking too much (dilution of the nerve electrolytes).
Same thing in reverse for poisonous substances. At a low enough level, they can be innocuous. The poison gases used in World War I were only left to dissipate in air, but they did not last very long at all. The poor biosphere may munch on them. UV light may break them down. I'm not a toxicologist, but the answer is to read up on the subject and pay attention. (Don't always trust your nose. It takes 4 times the lethal level before you can smell phosgene. And one of the first signs of hydrogen sulfide poisoning---rotten egg smell---is the disabling of the sense of smell.)