DeWine comments on viral social media posts showing ‘severely contaminated’ water at derailment site

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - FOX19 NOW’s Tricia Macke has been in East Palestine for several days talking with residents, and local and state officials about the situation following the Feb. 3 train derailment.

On Thursday, she went to a nearby creek to get an up-close look at the water. Disturbing it appeared to turn up an iridescent skim of chemical runoff from the derailment site.

Other social media posts showing the same phenomenon have since gone viral, fueling suspicions that official government assurances of the ground water’s safety in East Palestine are overstated, if not outright lies.

Not so, according to Gov. Mike DeWine.

DeWine clarified on Friday the video is of a section of Sulfur Run near the crash site that remains “severely contaminated.” He continued: “We knew this. We know it. It’s going to take a while to remediate this. It will be remediated, but it’s certainly a place to be avoided at this point.”

DeWine said Sulfur Run was dammed soon after the crash and that the contamination in that part of the creek does not contaminate any other water source. “It was kept there and on hold,” he said, adding clean water is being diverted around the contaminated section. “This allows clean water to bypass the area of the derailment and prevents clean water from picking up contaminants and carrying them into other waterways.”

The governor continued: “Remediation of the water in the direct area of the spill is going to take some time, just as it is taking some time to deal with the dirt. This is not a simple process. We’re encouraging people to continue to avoid that area.”

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