Mobile mass spec provides new insight into pollutants released by East Palestine train derailment

Ever since a train carrying tonnes of industrial chemicals derailed in the Ohio town of East Palestine on 3 February  and began leaking its contents, there questions have been raised about the health effects of the disaster. In the aftermath of the incident, officials from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that air and water testing did not pick up chemicals  like vinyl chloride, which were carried on the ill-fated train cars, at levels that were a cause for concern. Now, months later, research is shedding new light on exactly what residents and emergency workers were exposed to.

The new analysis  by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Texas A&M University has found that some substances, including acrolein, reached levels that could be hazardous but the technology the EPA relied on wasn’t sensitive enough to pick that up. The team concludes that if ambient levels of these chemicals persisted they could pose health concerns.