East Palestine: Greatest ecological disaster in U.S. history?

By Patrice Lewis

I’ve been following the ecological disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, with horror. It fills me with absolute despair to think of the lives, livestock, and wildlife impacted by the poison, not to mention the potential contamination of the Ohio River, the Mississippi River and soil, water and airborne contamination in a dramatically wide radius around the accident site. There are reports of acid rain as far away as Durham, Canada, Boston, Massachusetts, Kentucky and Lafayette, Indiana.

Considering the major freak-out the government initiated over vaccines and masks, it is curiously silent on what is arguably the worst ecological disaster in our nation’s history. In fact, the Biden administration is suppressing vital information and doing its best to pretend the whole thing never happened. FEMA couldn’t even trouble itself to set up an information booth in the area until Trump announced a visit, after which the government organization hastily sent a few representatives, lest they look bad by comparison. (Hint: It didn’t help.)

Even our illustrious leader has chosen to ignore Ohio in favor of hobnobbing with Ukraine’s Zelensky in a trip abroad. Doesn’t that give you the warm fuzzies?

A woman in my writer’s circle posted the following: “I’m not sure if you’ve seen news about the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, OH, but this is my hometown. We have less than 5,000 people living here and this train wreck has been devastating to our town both environmentally and economically. My family lives 1.3 miles from the crash. One mile was the red zone for the worst of it. We’re still drinking bottled water and cooking with it as well. Fish are dying. People closer to the crash are getting sick. So scary. Erin Brockovich is even coming to town on Friday. My son-in-law has gotten together with a group here in town that does non-profit fundraisers for East Palestine to set up a GoFundMe in hopes of raising much needed monies. If you would be able to keep us in your prayers, that would be awesome. Shares of this link to your FB pages would be so greatly appreciated as well.”

My understanding is the people of East Palestine are furious at the government’s lack of response. Biden’s trip to Ukraine while ignoring Ohio is being called a slap in the face.

As for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg … well, his name is “mud” at the moment. His response (if it can be called that) to the disaster has been grimly comical and mostly involves finger-pointing. Not only did he attempt to blame the derailment and subsequent burning of the toxins on Trump, but he declined to even visit the site until weeks later (apparently he was waiting for “when the time is right” to see the damage). Buttigieg’s response to criticism of the government’s handling of the disaster? “Look, I was mayor of my hometown for eight years. We dealt with a lot of disasters.” Then, when confronted by a reporter in D.C., he blurted that he was “taking some personal time.”

Buttigieg’s reception in Ohio, to put it mildly, was not a warm one. If this disaster has done nothing else, it has exposed how incompetent he is.

While the government attempts to shift blame, the mainstream media are doing their best to ignore the event altogether. Why? What’s the motivation behind the attempt at secrecy? The only explanation I can think of is it reflects badly on their golden boy Biden.

Naturally, rumors are swirling about this event (compounded by the lack of factual info from the government), noting unusual coincidences and unlikely connections. But my concerns are for the long-term effect on not just the people involved, but the land in general. It’s the unknowns that are the most frightening of all.

Will the people closest to the epicenter develop cancer or other life-threatening health conditions down the line? At the moment, medical complications are just starting to manifest, but the long-term prognoses are anyone’s guess.

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How will this event impact future food availability and prices? Has the entire Ohio Valley – one of America’s most fertile breadbaskets – been nuked into sterility for the next few generations? In Ohio alone, there are about 75,000 farms, most of which are family-run. Will anyone be able to till the soil on those farms, or is it too poisonous? The drift zone (Ohio and Pennsylvania) went over the highest concentration of Amish farmers in America, renowned for their clean farming practices. What will happen to their soil?

What about tourism? That industry will literally die. No one wants to expose themselves to carcinogenic agents by visiting any tourist attraction in the region.

What about businesses, both large and small? What will happen to restaurants, hotels and motels, retail stores, manufacturing and everything else?

What about water? Cincinnati has already cut off drinking water from the Ohio River due to contamination. Will irrigation from the Ohio or Mississippi Rivers be outlawed? Imagine what that will do to farms. And what will happen when contaminated water flows into the Gulf of Mexico?

Will there be a forced relocation of people in the affected area? Frankly, I doubt it, because that would imply something truly cataclysmic happened, which clearly the government is loath to admit.

This accident (if it could be called that) impacts air, soil and water – the three things humans and animals need to survive. What will happen? No one knows. Speculation is running rampant, but no one truly knows.

Are we in for another Love Canal scandal, but on a scale unimaginable? For the political party (Democrats) that trumpets the importance of clean air and water, their response to this disaster makes a mockery of their concerns. Apparently, their worries over environmental issues are just virtue signaling.

We do know the EPA is going around asking residents to sign a paper to shield the EPA from liability. This is one of the lowest-of-the-low moves imaginable, courtesy of the government.

In short, this whole situation is tragic and heartbreaking and sickening (both literally and figuratively). We are witnessing the unfolding of something that will either blow over in a short period of time, or have a devastating impact on a significant sector of America. We don’t know yet.

What we DO know is the impact on human and animal misery is incalculable. Pray for the people affected.

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Patrice Lewis

Patrice Lewis is a WND editor and weekly columnist, and the author of "The Simplicity Primer: 365 Ideas for Making Life more Livable." Visit her blog at www.rural-revolution.com. Read more of Patrice Lewis's articles here.


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