SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (AP) — Officials in Ohio say there is no public health risk after a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed. Between Dayton and Columbus, a company train derailed for the second time in a month in the state.
Norfolk Southern and Clark County officials say 28 of the southbound train’s 212 cars, including four empty tankers, derailed around 4:45 p.m. Saturday in Springfield Township near the business park and county fairgrounds. Springfield is 46 miles (74 kilometers) west of the state capital of Columbus.
As a precaution, residents within 1,000 feet (305 meters) were asked to shelter in place and responding firefighters dispatched a county hazmat team as a precaution, but officials said early Sunday morning that “there have been no injuries or public health risks. This time.”
Officials said a team from Norfolk Southern, the hazmat team and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency “each independently examined the accident site and determined there was no evidence of a spill at the site.”
Officials confirmed Sunday afternoon that no hazardous materials were involved in the derailment.
However, Norfolk Southern general manager Craig Barner said the train from Bellevue, Ohio, to Birmingham, Alabama, had two other cars carrying liquid propane and two more cars carrying ethanol. The rest of the train is made up of mixed cargo such as steel and finished automobiles, he said.
“A lot of the cars that actually derailed were empty box cars,” Barner said.
Barner said two of the four empty tanker cars that derailed were carrying diesel exhaust fluid and the other two contained residual amounts of an aqueous solution of polyacrylamide, an additive commonly used in wastewater treatment.
County officials said environmental officials have confirmed the derailment is not near a protected water source, meaning there is no risk to public water systems or private wells. Officials said the shelter-in-place order affected only four or five homes.
He said there was no injury to the public or the two-man crew of the train. The cause of the derailment remains under investigation and findings will be turned over to the Federal Railroad Administration, Barner said.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Saturday night that he had called President Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg “to offer assistance from the federal government.”
On February 3, 38 cars of a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed at East Palestine in northeastern Ohio, near Pennsylvania, and several of the train’s cars carrying hazardous materials burned..
Although no one was injured, neighbors in both states were affected. The crash prompted the evacuation of half of the town’s roughly 5,000 residents, an ongoing multi-state emergency response and lingering concerns among villagers. Long-term health effects.
