The sight of the train wreckage in East Palestine is not on the Ohio River as depicted above. That's actually a good thing. East Palestine is 40 miles outside of Pittsburgh and 15 miles north of the river. Vinyl chloride boils at 8 degrees Fahrenheit. This means it is turning into a gaseous state. Most of it was burned in the conflagration. Burning vinyl chloride would disassociate it into H2, C, and HCL and moisture in the air would create hydrochloric acid. Phosphene (COCl2) is another gas that's created from burning chemicals like this. This is obviously horrifying.
It's not ever a good situation for "accidents" like this to occur. I'd be really concerned with the people living down wind from this. Someone should post the wind direction and speed from the February 3rd event and after to see where this toxic cloud went. Pittsburgh is SW of East Palestine. I suspect the wind direction this time of year would make Pittsburgh a candidate to be in its path down wind.
Had this been a liquid toxic spill the ramifications to the water shed and the Ohio River would be in much greater jeopardy.
There were however other chemicals being transported and spilled. I don't know the quantities of these that were released into the environment. The vast amount of reporting in the news seems to be focused on vinyl chloride as being by far the largest factor. These other chemicals were all liquids, which could run off into the Ohio River basin contaminating the waters. The chemicals reported are Butyl acrylate has a 103 degree flash point. , Ethylhexyl acrylate has a 180 degree flash point , and Ethylene glycol monobutyl 143 degrees flash point. The question is how much of these were burned up in the fire?
East Palestine and the train wreckage is not on the Ohio River as depicted. It is 40 miles outside of Pittsburgh and 15 miles north of the river. Vinyl chloride boils at 8 degrees Fahrenheit. This means it is turning into a gaseous state. Most all of the vinyl chloride was burned in the conflagration. Burning it would disassociate it into H2, C, and HCL and moisture in the air would create hydrochloric acid. Phosphene (COCl2) is another gas that's created from burning chemicals like this.
It's not ever a good situation for "accidents" like this to occur. I'd be really concerned with the people living down wind from this. Someone should post the wind direction and speed from the February 3rd event..... Pittsburgh is SW of East Palestine. I suspect the wind direction this time of year would make Pittsburgh a candidate to be in its path down wind.
Had this been a liquid toxic spill the ramifications to the water shed and the Ohio River would be in much greater jeopardy.
There were however other chemicals being transported and spilled. I don't know the quantities of these that were released into the environment. The vast amount of reporting in the news seems to be focused on vinyl chloride as being by far the largest factor. These other chemicals were all liquids, which could run off into the Ohio River basin contaminating the waters. The chemicals reported are Butyl acrylate has a 103 degree flash point. , Ethylhexyl acrylate has a 180 degree flash point , and Ethylene glycol monobutyl 143 degrees flash point. The question is how much of these were burned up in the fire?