Anyone hear about some sort of rail incident that spilled a few gallons of 'stuff' a week or so ago?

A few of you may have heard that some sort of railroad mishap happened in some little town in Ohio, a mile from the Pennsylvania line.  If you're like most Americans you didn't pay much attention because the New York Times and WaPo and CNN and MSNBC and the alphabet networks (ABCCBSNBC) didn't seem to think it was a big deal, and the biden regime totally ignored it, and that goofy gay Petey Buttigeig--who heads the Transportation Department when he's not on maternity leave--didn't mention it, so you understandably didn't think it wasn't important.

See, bad things only make national news if they happen in New York, northern Virginia (cuz the DC suburbs) or California.  The Media claims anything else is "local interest only."

What happened was, 20 "tank cars" of a 140-car train derailed.  

Now: you should probably know that the biggest gasoline-hauling semi-trailer you've ever seen held maybe 10,000 gallons.  A tank car holds about 31,000 gallons.  So 20 tank cars would carry as much liquid as 60 big semi's, or about--well that's already way too much math for a news story, but our supercomputer says it's north of 600,000 gallons of "stuff."

Oh, you'd like a bit more detail on "stuff"?  Yeah, well...they've admitted to about five chemicals so far, two of which are vinyl chloride and butyl acrylate.  Those are bad--very flammable and cancer-causing, but I'd be equally concerned about the stuff they didn't disclose--cuz if the other chemicals had been harmless--say whiskey or perfume--the Powers would have led the list with those, and thrown in the two mentioned earlier at the end of the list where fewer people would have noticed.. 

So...several of these tank cars were punctured in the wreck, and those leaking chemicals caught fire.  Those fires heated other cars that were intact, raising their internal pressure.  And here's where the DOT and EPA start really amping up the lying:  They claimed that unless they took fast action, the intact cars could blow up, "sending deadly shrapnel a mile away."

Problem with that is, by RULE every tank car must be equipped with a pressure-relief valve that's there precisely to keep the things from blowing up due to pressure.  The lie about "blowing up," and "shrapnel" was to get the rubes--that's us--to support what the railroad wanted to do, which was...they poked holes in the intact tank cars and drained something over 500,000 gallons of highly flammable, toxic chemicals into a ditch, and...lit it on fire.

The real reason they did that was to make most of the toxic liquids vanish, which would reduce the amount of contamination of surface water.  It was merely fortunate chance that the burn would also reduce the amount of waste the railroad would have to pay to clean up.  That's normally done by dumping tons of tiny clay pellets--like kitty litter--on the stuff, soaking it up.  And in this case it would have taken thousands of tons of the stuff.

Once the clay has soaked up the liquids it's scooped up with front-loaders, dumped in big dump-trucks and hauled away, all at an enormous cost. 

Now, you never heard this next part from either the EPA, DOT or any branch of gruberment, but...when vinyl chloride burns, it makes a gas called phosgene, which was a deadly poison used in WW1.  

"Wait...say WHAT?"

And if that wasn't enough, burning could cause the other unknown chemicals to combine to make all manner of strange toxic products, because burning chemicals can cause them to react with each other in unexpected ways.

Of course the EPA and DOT wanted the problem to disappear as fast as possible, so burning the stuff was a quick "fix".  But the federal agencies wanted the governors of both Ohio and downwind Pennsylvania to sign off on the proposal so if there were complaints, the feds would be able to say "Hey, wasn't OUR idea."  

So on February 14, Ohio's Repub governor Mike DeWine revealed that both he and Pennsylvania Dem governor Josh Shapiro had signed off on the decision to conduct what the feds told them would be a "controlled release" of the chemicals from the wreck.

Here's Shapiro: ""The vinyl chloride contents of five rail cars are currently unstable and could potentially explode, resulting in deadly shrapnel and toxic fumes," Shapiro said. "As Governor DeWine and officials in Ohio just announced, to alleviate the risk of uncontrollable shrapnel Norfolk Southern Railroad is planning a controlled release of the vinyl chloride."

Toxic fumes, ya say?  Ya mean like those huge, billowing black clouds of toxic fumes produced by the uncontrolled burn?  Yeah.  "See, doze weren't toxic.  Oh sure, lotsa chickens and birds and house pets died, but doze not toxic!  Jus' coincidcence."

They think you're stupid.  And they KNOW you won't defy 'em.  Cuz if you object, duh FBI be breakin' down yo' door at the crack of dawn tomorrow.  You "domestic violent extremist."

DeWine later said there were no good options, and that "We then made the decision to go ahead with the second option, which was to control release."

Ah, a "control release," y'say?  Hmmm...that seems odd, since once they lit the thing, there was no control whatsoever.  Literally.  They couldn't stop it or slow it or anything.  "Control" was a lie, spread by the Media to fool the rubes, to give someone cover to do what they wanted to all along.

And now that it's a done deal, I guarantee you won't be able to find ANYONE at EPA or DOT who will admit to agreeing to it.  Every official will be pointing at some other agency.  Or the two shmuck governors they convinced to sign off on the thing. 

DeWine said that when it became clear that an explosion could occur, he spoke with railroad representatives, bringing Shapiro into the conversation of the next steps and weighing the risks of leaving the train to explode, or setting the chemicals on fire.

Stop.  DeWine doesn't know fuck-all about tank cars or vinyl chloride--nor should he.  So where did he get the notion that there was a non-negligible risk that the tank cars might explode?

From railroad execs, totally supported by morons in the EPA and DOT.

Now: There may well be a good reason for creating a vast cloud of toxic combustion products, by burning 500,000 gallons of toxic chemicals (I'll assume 100,000 or so had already burned in the wreck).  But the line about "Oooooh!  We GOTS to do dis cuz if we don't, duh cars are gonne blow up and shoot shrapnel fo' a MILE!"  

That claim was utter horseshit, due to the pressure-relief valves in EVERY tank car.  And one thing you should all know by now is, if duh gruberment is spewing horseshit, they're doing something they KNOW is very, very bad.

Here's DeWine again: "The concern was that this would be... what was described as a catastrophic explosion of the car, which would result in shrapnel going out up to... close to a mile. We also looked at what the danger was from a controlled release which is what the railroad felt should be done."

And Shapiro again: "The... contents of five rail cars are currently unstable and could potentially explode, resulting in deadly shrapnel and toxic fumes.  To alleviate the risk of uncontrollable shrapnel, Norfolk Southern is planning a controlled release of the vinyl chloride."

"Is planning"?  Sounds like the burn was the railroad's idea, and that it's already set in concrete.  Hmmm...

And...it sounds like they're reading from a script, eh?  Who do ya think wrote that script?

Now: Had either governor refused to sign off on the burn, the feds would probably have overridden the governors and burned the stuff anyway.  And you're like, "Wait, can some dipshit federal employee ORDER something dangerous to be done in a state, over the objections of the governor?

Ah, I see you just arrived on this planet.  Do enjoy your stay.  But be sure to avoid toxic clouds.

I just wanted to show y'all, for the thousandth time, what corrupt morons are ruling you.