United States Environmental Protection Agency
Region IV
POLLUTION REPORT

Subject: 

For a description of the incident and previous actions taken, please see previous POLREPs.

The following actions have taken place during this reporting period:

At approximately 15:45 on 1/17/07, CSX began the controlled burn of the butadiene from the three disabled railcars.  The burn was done one car at a time and monitored very closely by local fire department.  Air monitoring support was conducted by EPA and CSX’s contractor CTEH in the areas in areas surrounding the burn site. The action level of for butadiene is 1 ppm.  Any reading measured above this action level would require verification of the air monitoring event.  To the time of this report, no elevated levels above this threshold have been measured on any AreaRae’s or by any RAT teams except for one small spike at the burn zone when the wind caused the plume to shift for a brief period.  At this time CSX has finished burning off two of the cars and is burning off the last one.  This one will require additional time because it is resting on its side and will require a righting operation to flare off some of the product.  In addition, the cyclohexane car continues to burn as the remaining product left fuels the blaze.

Once the flaring operations began, calls from concerned residents started to come into the Bullit County EOC.  EPA coordinated with the EOC to follow up on the calls with air monitoring.  Responding to these calls occurred primarily during the night operations.  Also, during the night air monitoring operations were conducted at all schools in the area in preparation for students returning on 1/18/07.  None of the schools had elevated levels for particulates nor VOCs.

ASPECT conducted two over-flights of the scene on 1/17/07.  The first occurred during the morning and the other occurred after the flaring operations began.  The data obtained from the over-flights suggested that the readings were within the action levels but suggested that air monitoring continue at the burn location.

The final thing that occurred on 1/17/07 was that Region 4 personnel transitioned with Region 5 personnel at the Site.

The following activities are planned during the next reporting period:

Once the controlled burn is completed from the butadiene cars, CSX plans to move them into an open field and vapor flare the remaining contents.  Also, they have taken a full inventory of the remaining hazardous materials cars and are formulating a strategy for wrecking them.

EPA will continue to provide air monitoring support and oversight while all burning operations are taking place.  It is likely that once the main butadiene burn is complete, the density of air monitoring will lessen.  EPA is also working, in conjunction with CTEH, on how to provide air monitoring support in the case of the evacuation being lifted.

Current Resources:

   5  EPA
   1  ERT
   1  ATSDR
   1  NDT
   3  USCG-GST
   4  REAC
   11 START