Norfolk Southern’s Regional Manager of Environmental Operations gave East Palestine Village Council and residents an update on Monday regarding the clean-up of chemicals spilled during last year’s train derailment. (Photo by Stephanie Elverd)

EAST PALESTINE — Nearly two years after the Norfolk Southern train derailment and subsequent release of chemicals in East Palestine, soil at and around the crash site continues to show the presence of derailment-related compounds, the railroad’s regional manager of environmental operations told village council on Monday.

Chris Hunsicker, who has been overseeing remediation efforts, reported that exceedances of vinyl chloride, benzene, trimethylbenzene and 2-butoxyethanol have been detected through confirmatory sampling — often referred to an Appendix E or a “double-check” to confirm all contamination has been removed — which is now 95% complete.

“We are not saying it’s perfect. Nobody is saying that, but we are getting toward the end of the process,” Hunsicker said. “There is going to be more trucks, more soil and more excavation over the next few months. That is going to happen, but it’s not going to the level we had last year when we were digging stuff out. We still have work to do and soil is still going to be coming out of the ground.”

Eric Pohl, On-Scene Coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), accompanied Hunsicker and added, “the investigation work is still underway but we are hoping to have it completed here in the next two weeks and hopefully we will have a really good picture of what’s left.”

Exceedances have been found between the tracks east of the derailment site, near CSI, Tank Farm 3 at the beginning of the E.J. Bognar property, in the wetland area north of the site, an area below the previously excavated site and another area south of the tracks that Hunsicker called a “con-cluster.”

Hunsicker said all areas of identified-contamination will be dug out and that soil will be trucked off site in the coming weeks.

It’s been over a year since the EPA and Norfolk Southern both announced that the “last load of contaminated soil” had been removed from the site. Both celebrated that milestone in back-to-back press conferences in late October of 2023. Since then, what has been referred to as “pockets of contamination” has been found at the site and more dirt trucked out.

When asked by councilwoman Jess Rocco if the detections were found in areas already excavated, Hunsicker said no.

“These are areas that have not been addressed. These are areas we’ve done some investigation around before,” he said. “Fortunately we are not seeing the contaminants in the water so they are not going anywhere, but we are still seeing them in soil above screening levels that we use to address this. These are areas that were not previously dug out.”

Hunsicker also explained that while benzene has been detected in the area between the tracks, there is no cause for concern that the soil beneath the rails remains contaminated. He also dismissed rumors that East Taggart may have to be closed again, insisting the goal is to completely open the main artery between the village and Pennsylvania with no impediments whatsoever.

“We are not seeing any reason to close Taggart nor are we seeing any indication that there are impacts under the tracks,” Hunsicker said. “We are still looking at things, still doing an investigation but we are not seeing anything now that says ‘we have to pull up tracks.'”

Approximately 1,900 linear feet of track was removed and restored and the 4-foot ballast excavated down to clean dirt and rebuilt for the south tracks in April of 2023. Work then moved to the north tracks and was repeated. The process included excavating the contaminated soil and digging down until a “safe” sample was obtained. All of the ballast was removed from beneath the track and one foot of glacial till (the soil beneath the ballast) scraped off the top.

That same process was used when excavating the entire derailment site which was separated in grids. Split samples were taken at depths of 0-2 inches, 12 inches and 24 inches (by hand and with a geoprobe), packaged and shipped off to onsite and offsite laboratories for testing and review by both the federal and state EPA and Norfolk Southern contractors. If any exceedances were detected, work in the grid continued.

Pohl explained similar steps are being used during the confirmatory sampling.

“The process is what we’ve basically done the last year and a half,” Pohl said. “It’s where you are going essentially every 25 feet drilling a hole and pulling out a sample of soil from different depths down and sending those to the laboratory and seeing what chemicals are there. Not just the soil but the groundwater and the sediment as well.”

Hunsicker said that in order to address contaminants in wetlands, pumps have been put in place at Stateline Lake to redirect clean water around the swampy area and help dry it out a bit.

As far as stream work, more water is needed. Creek cleanup is currently suspended due to dry conditions. Hunsicker said that work is in the assessment phase and sediment and water sampling continues but assessing remaining sheen is going to require rainfall and higher water levels to complete.

The removal of sheet piling – installed to contain groundwater and prevent the spread of contamination — is ongoing. Sheet piling on railroad property along the tracks will be left in place and pounded down.

Hunsicker is hoping all remediation work will be completed by the end of the first quarter of next year, barring unforeseen setbacks.

“We think we got a pretty good handle on where things are,” he said. “We feel pretty confident about that, but if we get somewhere and realize ‘hey there’s a finger of something that is going somewhere we didn’t anticipate’ that could be a challenge, but we feel pretty good about that timeline. It may go longer if we run into challenges with construction, operations and weather.”

selverd@mojonews.com