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Last year in East Palestine, Ohio, many homes smelled strange when state officials lifted evacuation orders for people living near railroad tracks and toxic spills.
It was a sickly-sweet smell, and it evoked comparisons to a thin, yet fruity, or pot-tinged pot mixed with old perfume.
To reassure residents, the train's operator, Norfolk Southern, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have offered to test indoor air for chemicals.
More than 600 households have been registered. What they didn't know was that the hand-held instruments used for testing couldn't detect one of the main chemicals in the train spill – butyl acrylate – at levels that could irritate the eyes, nose, throat and lungs.
Previous studies of people exposed to butyl acrylate have raised questions about the possible long-term health effects of short-term exposure.
“I'd say that's one of the most important mistakes associated with the response,” said Dr. Andrew Welton, an environmental engineer at Purdue University who conducted independent tests in East Palestine. “That's why a lot of people are exposed to chemicals when they come back.”
The EPA and Norfolk Southern contractor CTEH said they understood the limitations of the machines but did the home testing. Air test plan Prepared by CTEH. The presence of low levels of butyl acrylate was based on smell — even though residents were not told that the smell indicated exposure to the chemical, said an EPA official who answered questions on behalf of the agency. It has been named.
By the time the EPA instituted more sensitive testing and a lower standard for butyl acrylate, the indoor refinery was nearly complete. CTEH and the EPA said people inspecting their homes were not told about the changes to the air testing program and why they were made. They were not offered additional indoor air testing.
“I had no idea,” said David Cheek, who lives a quarter-mile from where the train crashed and caught fire.
Chick thinks that few people in the village know what happened, and that the confusing messages from the EPA may have fueled division and mistrust in the community. “If even 60% or 70% of people knew this, the dynamics around town would be completely different,” he said.
Butyl acrylate was one of the toxic chemicals released into the soil, air and local waterways after a Norfolk Southern train derailed and caught fire on February 3, 2023. It damages at least 11 cars. Handling hazardous materials according to EPA.
Two of the derailed cars contained approximately 386,000 pounds of acrylate, a strong-smelling, highly irritating chemical used in paint, coatings, sealants and sealants.
Many people are familiar with the odor attack of acrylates from nail salons, as some nail polish and nail products use them.
Two acrylates were found in East Palestine: butyl acrylate and ethylhexyl acrylate.
Floor Water test The Ohio EPA found sky-high levels of acrylates in local streams in the first few days after the derailment. According to recent testing, those levels have disappeared and are now undetectable, but the chemicals were still found in the sulfur run as late as March 2023.
It is unclear how much butyl acrylate people have been exposed to or for how long. Environmental health experts say individual sensitivities to chemicals vary widely due to a variety of factors, including age and underlying health conditions. In other words, different people react to chemicals at different levels.
EPA's ongoing investigation shows that people are not currently exposed to chemicals from degradation in their homes.
An independent air test conducted in September by the University of Kentucky and Wayne State University supports that. In 15 buildings where air monitors consistently showed high levels of volatile compounds, researchers attached air sampling badges that help absorb chemicals from the coal to determine exactly what caused the high readings.
Some homes had higher-than-expected levels of chemicals found in vehicle exhaust or in fluids used in dry cleaning.
In three buildings, researchers found traces of butyl acrylate. However, the levels are so low that researchers say they cannot rely on the numbers. They also noticed that butyl acrylate is found in many common products such as paints and varnishes. Because butyl acrylate, they say, is unstable in the environment, it is unlikely that the measurements were due to derailment.
But that doesn't mean people in East Palestine were never exposed to acrylates, said Dr. Erin Haynes, chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health at the University of Kentucky, who led the study.
In the first weeks after the spill, more than 90% of the 702 people in the area responded. Government health survey They reported having headaches and more than 70% reported coughing or burning eyes. There were nasal congestion, dizziness and difficulty breathing, as well as new or worsening mental health problems.
Health officials said the symptoms revealed by the study were consistent with known health problems from the chemicals on the train.
“Butyl acrylate is a hell of an irritant, in my limited experience with it,” said Dr. Allen Ducatman, a professor of occupational and environmental medicine at West Virginia University's School of Public Health and former director of environmental medicine services. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dukatman treated people exposed to butyl acrylate in 1998 in Bristol, West Virginia, after they collided with a logging truck carrying nearly 45,000 pounds of the chemical.
The crash closed the four-lane highway, forcing residents to evacuate for a half-mile, according to news reports and interviews with residents who remember the incident. About two dozen people have been treated for chemical exposures related to the spill. Six were hospitalized.
In the year In 2012, Ducatman co-wrote Case report In three people who suffered permanent damage from exposure. Outside of East Palestine, Ducatman believes, this small study is the only one in the U.S. that has documented health effects after a butyl acrylate spill.
“They came to us because they weren't getting better as fast as their doctors told them,” he said.
In one case, a college student who was stuck in the back of her car and sat in the smoke for half an hour came to Ducatman two weeks after the accident with a swollen face and a persistent cough. A visit to the emergency room.
“It was just a very hacking, dry, unpleasant cough. It was a very painful cough,” Dukatman said, adding that he and other physicians may find out when they encounter another person exposed to butyl acrylate. “We say, 'Well, there's another one.' Because you can hear them coming down the hall.
Another patient in the case report was a garbage worker who handled contaminated waste at the accident site for several days. He was diagnosed with chronic bronchitis.
The third patient was a first responder who helped evacuate residents in the area. Exposure to butyl acrylate irritates his airways, causing him to become irritated and have an asthma attack. Seven months after the accident, in addition to breathing problems, he complained of muscle pain and weakness and brain fog.
10 years after the accident, he was still taking medication for the asthma he didn't have before the spill.
Most of the people exposed to the chemical in West Virginia get better over time, Ducatman said, “for at least one of these patients, it was a life-changing event.”
In East Palestine, CTEH and EPA technicians came to homes with handheld devices that measure chemicals called volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. Butyl acrylate is a VOC.
Even as the domestic investigation began, EPA contacted scientists at the Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, or ATSDR, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to find out what the agency was calling. Low risk levels For butyl acrylate, according to the EPA official.
Low risk levels are the amount of a chemical that a person breathes, eats, or drinks in a day without experiencing health problems other than cancer. Exposure levels to chemicals that can cause cancer are generally low. Health experts say that There is not enough research To determine if butyl acrylate is a carcinogen.
In some cases, ATSDR has established minimum hazard levels for chemicals. According to the EPA, there were none for butyl acrylate, so the agency's experts set to work to create them.
“These standards are based on a rigorous review of the relevant scientific literature and subject matter expert input,” ATSDR said in an emailed response to questions.
ATSDR personnel had to act quickly as residents were eager to return home.
On February 7, they proposed a two-week action level for butyl acrylate of 3,300 parts per billion (ppb). The evacuation order was lifted on February 8, and housing trials began the same night.
In the year On February 9, after further research, ATSDR revised that number, advising that the two-week action level should be 66 times lower: 50 pp.
Parts per billion is a way scientists express the amount of a chemical in air or water. It's a small amount. Using Earth's population as an example, one part in a billion would be eight people on the entire planet. Therefore, ATSDR's preliminary action level for butyl acrylate, 3,300 ppb, would be about 26,400 people out of the entire Earth's population, while the proposed level of 50 ppb would be only 400 people out of that number.
ATSDR scientists are concerned about the effects of the butyl acrylate sensitizer, an EPA official said. Sensitizers sensitize our bodies so that future exposure to even small amounts can trigger an allergic reaction on the skin or respiratory tract.
ATSDR of…