A video showing Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) poking the bottom of a creek bed in East Palestine, Ohio, and causing chemicals to bubble up to the surface has ended up gathering multiple millions of views as the nation finally becomes aware of an increasingly worried about the fallout from the recent derailment of a Norfolk Southern train.
Both state and local authorities have previously evacuated all residents in a one-mile radius of the crash site and first started a controlled burn of the corrosive industrial chemicals present on the vehicles to reduce the overall risk of an explosion, which could have resulted in shrapnel flying across the entire small town. Vinyl chloride, which is a carcinogenic material that is used to make PVC, was released from a total of five train cars this past week in the form of giant plumes of acrid smoke which could be seen from both eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.
As seen in a video posted by Vance himself late last week, the recently elected lawmakers stood near a small creek located in East Palestine. Beyond the “dead worms and dead fish” he saw in the water, Vance made use of a long stick to scrape the bottom of the creek which kicked up bubbling chemicals and created an oily multicolored sheen across the top of the water.
“This is disgusting,” he stated. “The fact that these chemicals are still seeping in the ground is an insult to the people who live in East Palestine. Do not forget these people.”
Visited a local creek in East Palestine today. These waterways are still very polluted. It’s time for Norfolk Southern to finish the cleanup. Check this video out: pic.twitter.com/4lsHBmrMJj
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) February 16, 2023
This bit of video was taken in the wake of both state and federal officials claiming numerous times that the water in the small Ohio town was currently clean and potable. The EPA explained that “test results from the village’s municipal well sampling showed no water quality concerns,” while the state Governor Mike DeWine (R-OH) stated that the tests carried out by the EPA of Ohio found “no detection of contaminants in raw water from the five wells that feed into East Palestine’s municipal water system.” He went on to add that the agency is quite “confident that the municipal water is safe to drink.”
Tricia Macke, an anchor for Fox 19, issued a video in the same vein in which she toss a rock out into a creek and it caused chemicals to bubble up to the surface. “Would you stay here? Would you drink that water?” she asked. “Would you bathe your kids when it’s bubbling up and looking like an oil slick?”
You cannot deny – that water is not clean. @FOX19 pic.twitter.com/HjPFEtwijZ
— Tricia Macke (@FOX19Tricia) February 16, 2023
