1970 LeRoy wreck and trichloroethylene spill

The newspaper says the EPA has no record of any fill from the derailment area being used for the school grounds. What is not mentioned is how long ago the school was built. Assuming the building has been there a while, for it to go from no problems to 14 problems in a couple months seems quite a stretch. Why no males? Why no teachers? Why not the guy who mows the lawn in summer? Who would sanction the use of contaminated soil for a school? Why after all this time does it suddenly pop up?

Other possibilities mentioned are natural gas wells on the property (which have been (GASP!!!) hydrofracked, also possible links to HPV shots, and just plain psychosomatic issues.

Obviously there is a problem of some sort. It's just amusing yet sad to see all those with an agenda coming out of the woodwork hoping this will in some manner support their particular cause.

Erin Brockovich is on the case: http://todayhealth.today.msnbc.msn.com/ ... -like-tics

Brockovich told USA TODAY that at the request of local residents, she is looking into a 1970 train accident that spilled cyanide and an industrial solvent called trichloroethene close to the site of the Le Roy, New York school.

I even saw a story that two girls from the Albany area - who just visted this area for a time over the summer - now have the same symptoms.

The article on The Blaze notes there is one boy with similar problems. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/mystery ... rockovich/

On the bright side, there is no one to sue - the Lehigh Valley hasn't existed as a corporate entity since Penn Central did away with it in the early 1980s, and what Penn Central itself became (an insurance company) has been merged out of existance as well.

Oh don't worry, as soon as it's figured out who has deep pockets the lawsuits will fly. The school district, the makers of some product, they'll figure out something.

Unfortunately those who have an agenda will forever use incidents such as the LV wreck to promote their cause. There is no doubt it WAS a bad situation and DID cause environmental damage. But the more attention and publicity they get, the more people are going to look for an angle. The uproar this is creating has gotten far ahead of the actual investigation and facts.

From the time the LV wreck happened it was known there were environmental issues. Over the years the impact grew and a lot of attention was focused on the effects and after-effects of the wreck. To believe that fill dirt contaminated in that wreck would be used to make a school, in sufficient quantity as to cause illness is so far fetched I don't believe it. To believe they can go years with no problems, and then in ONE year all these kids get sick from it (but no teachers or staff who have been in the same building year after year)....

I predict that when all the investigation is over it will turn out to be totally unrelated to the derailment, except for the conspiracy theorists who will insist some secret remnant of the LV clandestinely paid off someone to make it go away!

I was a bit perplexed in the fracking comment about the wells. When I read about hydrofracking it seems you send the sand and chemicals down and bust the shale up and you get some gas. But then you have to keep busting and sending stuff down to get more gas. I didn't think it was a one shot thing at a well where you bust it all with chemicals and then get un-interrupted gas.

The well shown the photo looks like the thousands of other small gas and oil wells in WNY, especially the Southern Tier WNY, that produce some small amount of gas. A driller drills a stand well and then hooks everything up.

Charles

The wreck/spill is now being blamed as a possible cause of neurological problems in at least 15 high school kids in LeRoy and famous environmental activist Erin Brockovich is getting involved.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/sto ... 52804710/1

I dated a girl from LeRoy once... I have a bit of a headache today and now I know why. I'm calling Cellino & Barnes.

How many of these kids got that vaccination for the HPV virus?

No, No, No, you have it all wrong, it's the Global Warming thats evaporating all that TCE up outta the ground I TELL YA, yep that's it for sure. Its warm in Leroy in the summer is it not, and some recently afflicted girls from Albany visited Leroy last summer right ? There you have it, proof positive............

Cheers, Kevin

BTW, that town in Ca (Hinkley, I think it was) where Brochovich (sp?) made her career has lo these 3 decades later shown NO STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT increase in cancers.....

Only a couple.

lvrr325 wrote:How many of these kids got that vaccination for the HPV virus?

Thanks to all for providing the various links. I can understand the community's concern for the health of its children and the tendency to grasp at straws in an effort to explain what is happening.

I don't know a lot about some of the claims that are being made but the one about the gas wells doesn't gee with reality for me. The wells in that area of NY are relatively shallow (1000 to 1500 ft), and vertically drilled into limestone and sandstone formations. Both formations are porous and rountinely do not need fracking except in the immediate area of the working point where heat fusion may occur. To my knowledge, only mechanical ( TNT) fracking has been used historically on vertical limestone/sandstone wells in NY and then only on a well-by-well as needed basis.

It also seems strange that two of the affected children have lived in the area for only a little over a year.

Poppyl

poppyl wrote:I can understand the community's concern for the health of its children and the tendency to grasp at straws in an effort to explain what is happening.

As a parent/grandparent I fully appreciate the community's concern for its childrens' health. But it grasping at straws is indeed what is going on here.

Case in point: Curiously omitted from news reports regarding toxicity of trichlorethylene (TCE) is the fact TCE was widely used a general anesthetic – especially in obstetrics – from the 1930’s thru the 1960’s. Literally millions of surgical patients inhaled extreme concentrations of TCE, apparently with no ill-effects later in life.

poppyl wrote:To my knowledge, only mechanical (TNT) fracking has been used historically on vertical limestone/sandstone wells in NY and then only on a well-by-well as needed basis.

That's my understanding too. A friend observed a gas well being fracked near his home in Caledonia some years ago - he described it as "dropping a stick of dynamite down the hole".

Yesterday's D&C article claimed the wells were hydrofracked. Not saying it's accurate but that's what was reported.

"The wells have undergone the controversial procedure known as hydraulic fracturing, state environmental officials said."

As for the LV wreck, who among those involved in the cleanup at the time could have predicted that 40 years later it would still be in the news!

That's interesting since the Marcellus shale is almost non-existant in that area and the Utica shale wasn't in play when the state imposed its horizontal drilling moratorium three years ago. I do know that several horizontal wells were drilled into very deep (7500 - 8000 ft) sandstone/limestone formations well east of there before the moratorium was imposed. Of those several, one was hydraulically fracked because of heat fusion near the end of the horizontal bore. The amount of chemicals and water involved in that fracking would fill a tank in the back of a pickup -- not even in the ballpark with the volume required to fracture shale.

I'll have to investigate this a little more.

Poppyl

Here they come!

http://www.hlntv.com/video/2012/01/28/e ... ?hpt=hp_t3