HARTFORD, Conn. — Many concerned FOX61 viewers emailed and called the station on Friday asking if the “dirty” water spots on their parked cars were caused by the Ohio train derailment earlier this month.
The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) issued a statement early Friday afternoon debunking the concerns, saying that it has not seen “any evidence of air quality impacts to Connecticut” from the incident in Ohio, which also included a two-day controlled burn. The department said it made its determination based on the analysis of forward wind trajectories from the site of the derailment.
“(DEEP) has a statewide air quality monitoring network in place that constantly monitors the air we breathe and a practice of issuing air quality alerts if we have reason to believe our air quality will be impaired,” the department said. “We are aware of local reports from this morning regarding ‘sooty’ matter on parked cars and have not been able to determine any singular source, such as a forest fire, power plant, or transportation-related emissions, that would cause this.”
"The dust came up probably came up from the plains and with the rain events came up over the past days and it evaporated and landed on people’s cars,” Robert Hansen, an assistant professor of chemistry at Quinnipiac University, told FOX61.
Hansen said people shouldn't be concerned about it being from Ohio, noting that it would have been here already if it had come from there.
“I wouldn’t be any more concerned about that dust than any other garden variety dust that comes from soil,” he added.
Ryan Stauffer, a meteorologist with NASA who studies air pollution, said on Twitter that the current storm system coming through New England “kicked up and transported a huge amount of dust from Oklahoma earlier this week.”
“No cause for concern!” he wrote.
Officials said there had been reports of moderate amounts of fine particles in the air from air-quality monitors in the Northeast from Washington, D.C., through New Jersey, western New York Connecticut and Massachusetts.
The department said a cold front and rain Friday afternoon were expected to reduce those levels back into the “good” range.
A freight train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio near the Pennsylvania state line left a mangled and charred mass of boxcars and flames. The train was carrying a variety of products from Madison, Illinois to Conway, Pennsylvania.
The suspected cause of the derailment is a mechanical issue with a rail car axle.
The rail operator Norfolk Southern said 20 of the more than 100 cars were classified as carrying hazardous materials — defined as cargo that could pose any kind of danger “including flammables, combustibles, or environmental risks.”
Since the derailment, residents have complained about headaches and irritated eyes and finding their cars and lawns covered in soot. The hazardous chemicals that spilled from the train killed thousands of fish, and residents have talked about finding dying or sick pets and wildlife.
DEEP said that mid-level air flows – measured at an altitude of 1,500 feet - over the past day have predominantly followed the Interstate 95 corridor northeasterly into Connecticut.
Samaia Hernandez is a reporter for FOX61 News. She can be reached at shernandez@fox61.com. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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