I’ve long been of the opinion that people that are charged with protecting the environment, and therefore people’s safety, are ill-equipped for the job.
This view is the result of several interactions I have had with the EPA in Australia. I have yet to actually meet a scientist of any sort. It appears to me to be staffed wholly by lawyers and ex- law enforcement people. In many cases the environmental regulations bear little semblance to reality, and industries are forced to comply with regulations that are wholly unrealistic.
And it appears that things are no better in the USA. Recently we saw a train crash with a massive release of vinyl chloride. The “authorities” took the decision to ignite it. I’ll explain the logic behind decision and the reason why it was very poor decision.
Vinyl chloride is a gas at room temperature. That is, if it was contained in rail cars that ruptured it would very quickly evaporate. The problem, potentially, that this could cause is that the gas cloud is heavier than air, and it would therefore essentially sit on the ground. This is a substantial explosion risk. Therefore, they decided to ignite it to mitigate the chance of explosion later on.
There are two things wrong with this approach.
1. Igniting it is initiating the explosion anyway. That is, it is doing the very thing that they fear. People were evacuated before the ignition, so why not evacuate them anyway and just leave it. Either the gas cloud will be dispersed eventually by the wind, or it would find an ignition source and explode, in which case you are no worse off. If everyone had been evacuated, and all ignition sources (such as electricity) shut down, this was an entirely realistic approach.
2. Igniting the gas produced, amongst other things, phosgene. This is a deadly gas that is much more deadly than the vinyl chloride. The worst thing you could say at about vinyl chloride is that it is carcinogenic. But the worst thing you could say about phosgene is that it is highly toxic and can kill very quickly.
And phosgene, like any chlorinated compound, is not biodegradable. So the phosgene that has now impregnated the soil and water in East Palestine will stay there essentially forever.
I can only conclude that the authorities in America know as little about chemistry as the EPA in Australia. I feel for the residents of East Palestine. Their town has now been irreversibly poisoned, and I wouldn’t go there for quids.
No. UV light from the sun wouldn’t convert the vinyl chloride into phosgene
Are you correct? Wouldn’t ultraviolet light convert vinyl chloride into phosgene anyway? Phosgene is said to break down in the atmosphere but it takes weeks to do so. By igniting the vinyl choride, most of it, probably just about all of it will rise in the atmosphere and very little go into the soil.