Residents of East Palestine, Ohio continue to worry about the health of their community after a Norfolk Southern train derailment. The train was carrying toxic chemicals and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources says more than 45,000 Animals have died as a result of the derailment. Residents are concerned that chemicals that leaked from the train and that entered the atmosphere as a result of a derailment related fire have made their land and their water unsafe. Ohio authorities though say East Palestine water is safe to drink. news coverage of the crisis is the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories.
+Full Transcript
Rosemary Pennington
Residents of East Palestine, Ohio continue to worry about the health of their community after a Norfolk Southern train derailment. The train was carrying toxic chemicals and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources says more than 45,000 Animals have died as a result of the derailment. Residents are concerned that chemicals that leaked from the train and that entered the atmosphere as a result of a derailment related fire have made their land and their water unsafe. Ohio authorities, though, say East Palestine’s water is safe to drink. News coverage of the crisis is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories where we explore the statistics behind the stories and the stories behind the statistics. I'm Rosemary Pennington. Stats and Stories is a production of Miami University's Department of Statistics and media, journalism and film, as well as the American Statistical Association. Joining me as regular panelist, John Bailer, emeritus professor of statistics at Miami University. Today, we're trying something new, John and I read a lot of news, and we're going to unpack some of what we've been saying in the coverage of East Palestine. So John, we were just talking about this earlier before the show started. I wonder, you know, as the stats guy sort of what's sticking out for you in this coverage is sort of related to numbers.
John Bailer
Well, thanks, Rosemary. I mean, I guess there are numbers, just throughout all dimensions of the story. And one of the things that struck me is just how many different dimensions of this story there were to try to understand, you know, at minimum, there's an aspect of rail safety. Right. There's the second component, which is if they're carrying goods that are potentially contaminants of the environment, how might a derailment and unplanned release end up impacting the environment, people in the environment ecosystems? A third dimension is once you start looking at the impact, how do you monitor and evaluate when it's safe to return when you're back to kind of prior to derailment circumstances. And lastly, there's this other dimension of thinking about kind of responsibility, right? And what's, you know, how do you think about the kind of financial obligation and commitment? And then maybe as a related dimension, you know, where does the government fall in this in terms of regulations, whether it's at the environment or rail safety level.
Rosemary Pennington
So when I was working in eastern Ohio, years and years ago, one of the stories we covered pretty closely was Ciate, contamination coming from Parkersburg related to the DuPont plant. And a continual story was about the monitoring of Ciate. And sort of the measurement to figure out like, what is safe for human consumption? And what's not? And I wonder in relation to East Palestine, like how do people go into a situation like this and begin measuring the levels of pollutants and the impact? And how do you figure out what is a safe level of a contaminant for human beings to consume?
John Bailer
Oh, boy, you know, we were just a little question, we were talking about this being a short story. So one aspect to thinking about risk is what kind of data do you use, and there can be, there can be studies of humans, and oftentimes, it's, it's, these will be occupational studies, because the levels tend to be somewhat higher. And as such, there's, there's more likely to see some adverse outcome being observed. They may be animal studies, where they're mammalian models, perhaps that have been exposed to a gradient of concentrations of some potential hazard, and then looking at the responses within them. Now, one of the challenges is that those studies and you know, an occupational exposure might be over a working lifetime, or, you know, and environmental exposure, you know, this is just a, well, a single event that has occurred in this community that's had tremendous impact, potentially. But yet, what's the relevance of some of these numbers that are derived from maybe a lifetime Rodon study or a worker study of occupational exposure? And how does that apply in the circumstance where maybe you have multiple days of exposure and a relatively higher level of this hazard? This is not an this is not an easy question. This is a question that relates to the assessment of risk. But then there's also this the subsequent question, which is the management of risk, and it was interesting that the city of Cincinnati closed, its their the intake from the Ohio River, you know, just because they're, you know, they wanted to make a decision that was going to be as conservative as possible in terms of protecting human health.
Rosemary Pennington
In the aftermath, in that first week after this derailment and the fire, because they were not there was not just a fire, because the train derailed, but also the fire that they burned purposely to burn off those chemicals. There was so much on social media of people, you know, going to creeks and showing water that seemed contaminated. And then, you know, people showing images of, you know, dead fish floating by, or stories about people going into their backyards and chickens being dead. And so that you have that sort of very visceral evidence for people in their lived lives. And then you have people like these authorities in Ohio, who are saying, the water is safe to drink, you know, and then there was that show of Dewine, and Mike DeWine, the governor, and someone else sort of drinking some water to kind of model that. And I wonder, you know, for people who are, you know, attempting to make sense of their experience of this, and also reading the coverage and seeing these things like, how are people navigate this space where you know, you physically your eyes may be showing you one thing, but the thing that the officials want you to trust is the thing that you can't see, like, how do you, you know, what suggestions do you have for people as they sort of read stories about that? Or is there maybe a journalist trying to write stories about the reality there?
John Bailer
If I think about it, there's a question of, okay, so you can identify what the chemicals are. I mean, they know what's in the cars, right? There have been studies of such chemicals and their various things ranging from the National Toxicology Program to the International Agency for Research and Cancer, which is a whole thing that will talk about whether or not these chemicals are carcinogens. But there's, there's an issue that you're describing, which is one of inflammation. Yeah. You know, so. So it may be that, yeah, from the perspective of causing cancer, that maybe it's at a level that one would not have concern. But that doesn't mean there might not be an inflammatory response that you know, your eyes might be irritated. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I've not studied these particular chemicals in any detail. I found it pretty interesting, as I've looked through the just papers, both locally, nationally, and internationally how this is being covered, you know, that, you know, one one headline that was on the front page of I think this was USA Today, recently was cloud of mixed messages hangs over Ohio disaster. So as you've looked at this and think about it from a journalistic perspective, you know, what, what kind of framing Have you seen of the story that's being told here?
Rosemary Pennington
Yeah, you know, I think it's, it's really interesting, in that one of the things that came up right, early was, you know, there were some people who are saying this isn't being covered at all. And it was being covered a lot by local journalists. Right. And so I think that's something we need to acknowledge that if maybe people didn't see it in the New York Times, or CBS News right away that there were a lot of local journalists on the ground covering that. But I do think there's this tension in how it gets framed locally in the local conversations that are happening, which would have been very much about Is it safe for you to return? What could be long term effects? Why shouldn't you worry, right? Because there's a lot of conversation about how these are not the Forever chemicals that the train was carrying, and trying to figure out what that means. But then there's also the issue that journalists are coming in from outside and they're very much focused on this being in East Palestine, and focused on the geographic region. But we're not talking about this like the Norfolk Southern train derailment, right? We're talking about it as the East Palestine train derailment. Right. So when BP, you know, had that horrific spill in the Gulf, we talked about it as the BP oil spill. And here, I think that for me, as someone who does framing theory as a, you know, in my life outside of stats and stories, right, there's life outside of stats, and there is for some of you live and breathe it all the time. But I think that framing of this is a local crisis, which does put the sort of emphasis on the local experience versus this is something that was caused by a corporation, right, Norfolk Southern. And it seems like more and more stories are coming out that there were some problems with the train or problems with safety checks, right. And so I think the interesting thing, and I think the tension for me right now is some of that early coverage that was hypercritical has sort of dissipated a little bit as we talk about the experience of these residents. And as a journalist, it's always this tension of like, how do you cover both? Well, right, like, we can't lose sight that it seems like something. There were some problems in the safety checks for that train. While we're also talking about, is it safe for these people to live in this community? And I think for me, that's one of the things it is like, I think that that USA Today headline is right. It's a mixed messaging in different kinds of ways. Right. And then there was another story just before you hop back in that I was reading where he had a story about, you know, Dewine and I think it might have been an EPA official who was drinking water in an East Palestine home, saying that the levels were Fine. And then I was reading another news story before we came in to prepare for this where it said, some people are saying, Actually, we don't know if the levels are fine yet. And so I think that is a constant struggle with journalists, especially in a breaking news environment, if you want to inform people, but so much is still at play. It can be really difficult to figure out, like how to responsibly report the situation.
John Bailer
I really liked the point you made about, you know, kind of the coverage and service of local concern, versus that audience is maybe not the audience that the national papers are targeting. Right, you know, that or international for that matter made? It's a, it's a bigger story to say, maybe trains aren't safe, you know, anywhere. That's a huge story, or that there's been attempts to make them safer and temps have pushed back there's lobbying against this. There's these other stories that there's political hate, and he made you know that. And that's, that's difficult, it's difficult to think about how this, how does the importance of who you're thinking of as your reader affect kind of how you think the stories have been framed and told, right?
Rosemary Pennington
And I think, too, social media has made this even trickier because, you know, when I was in journalism school, so much of the discussion of who your audience is, was very locally focused. So when I worked it all up in Athens, Ohio, which was where we were recovering the CA contamination coming out of Parkersburg in West Virginia, our audience was very much like that local, eastern Ohio, Western West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky kind of audience, social media opens it up to that it's not just those people reading your stories. And so even local news outlets kind of struggle with that. But the New York Times does have a different audience. And the BBC News has a different audience, we were just looking at a story that was talking about old NARS figures on how many animals died, right. And so they're very much focused on those bigger questions that are going to probably lead to bigger stories about environmental safety in the United States, rights and train safety in the United States. And I'm assuming for the BBC, it'll be a comparison of train safety in the US and train safety in the UK and Europe more broadly. So the scope of your story does change. And that is a continual struggle, but it's also a problem for those local news outlets who know others are going to read it too.
John Bailer
Yeah. So you know, I think about is you're, you're saying that I found myself saying, oh, okay, so So in essence, when if the reporting and the the way the story is being told, is for the people who are directly impacted by this exposure to, you know, the the potential health hazards associated with the hazard exposure, associated with this derailment, that's a very different audience than than saying, you know, this broader audience who doesn't have kind of a stake in someone moving in or out other than kind of at an abstract level of, you know, what has led to this this derailment? You know, is it, you know, are the trains, or the trains getting longer, because there's not as much staffing, or the trains, you know, or systems not being updated because of cost? I mean, it really is a very different nature of conversation that comes up.
Rosemary Pennington
As we were wrapping up, John, I wonder, you know, again, from that statistical perspective, what you're going to be kind of keeping an eye on, and what you think we should keep an eye on as this coverage unfolds?
John Bailer
I've been impressed by the breadth of scope and coverage of this. I mean, I, when I tend to think of this from kind of the risk assessment risk estimation framework. So when they say that the water is safe to drink, the question is from a saint, you know, how are they sampling? Where are they sampling? And, you know, what are they looking for, as part of the sampling? When they say that it's safe? What outcomes are being avoided at this current new level of when they talk about this chemical? Are they talking about something? What's its fate and its transport? You know, so if it's, if you're burning some of this, and it's being the prevailing winds are taking it further east? You know, are there additional, you know, kind of adverse outcomes one might anticipate, I, you know, I'm very interested in kind of just seeing more data on rail safety, you know, I'd be interested in seeing information related to risks of derailment associated with with kind of the length of trains, what are some of the the early causes that might lead to something like this happening in the future? And then ultimately, will there be kind of a will and action to intervene to try to to address this if there is the kind of probability of this adverse outcome is quite high? So it seems like you know, this story has been going on for weeks now, and I don't anticipate it going away, and I hope it doesn't go away. I mean, I think that you know, You don't want something like this where there is this incredible degree of contamination to a community. You don't want it to be lost in terms of being, you know, let's move on to the next story.
Rosemary Pennington
Yeah. And I think that's always a tension around news coverage of something that's breaking is how do you sustain it?
John Bailer
You put it on Stats and Stories. That's part of it.
Rosemary Pennington
Oh, forever, the salesman. I think that is probably enough for us today. If you appreciated this chat, and it's something you'd like to hear more of, please let us know and we'll try it again. Stats and Stories is a partnership between Miami University’s Departments of Statistics, and Media, Journalism and Film, and the American Statistical Association. You can follow us on Twitter, Apple podcasts, or other places you can find podcasts. If you’d like to share your thoughts on the program send your email to statsandstories@miamioh.edu or check us out at statsandstories.net, and be sure to listen for future editions of Stats and Stories, where we discuss the statistics behind the stories and the stories behind the statistics.