Vickery site to store 94,000 gallons of liquid waste from E. Palestine

Oct 18, 2023

Editor's note: This story has been updated with new information from Gov. Mike DeWine on the amount of contaminated liquid waste stored in Vickery.

VICKERY − More than 94,000 gallons of contaminated liquid from the East Palestine train derailment site is being disposed of at Vickery Environmental Inc. in Sandusky County, Gov. Mike DeWine said Monday.

"Trucks are coming into the facility even as we speak," state Rep. Gary Click said Monday. The Republican representative said he lives 3 miles from the Vickery site. "I drive by it every day of my life," he said.

Click is calling for a public meeting "as soon as possible" at which representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Vickery facility can answer citizens' and the media's questions.

"Most people don't even know it's out there in our county," Click said. "My concern is to make sure it is safe and the situation is being handled responsibly. Basically I've been told that material that is even more hazardous [than the East Palestine waste] comes in every day and that the facility is equipped to handle it."

The Vickery site, which is in Townsend Township in Sandusky County, operates four Class I hazardous underground injection wells that are around 2,900 feet deep, according to a report by the Ohio EPA. Three other injection wells at the site have been plugged and abandoned.

Click said he has been keeping in touch with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, state Rep. Monica Robb Blasdel, who represents East Palestine, federal EPA officials, and Waste Management, which owns Vickery Environmental.

He said trucks carrying from 2,500 to 10,000 gallons each of contaminated liquid waste from East Palestine are arriving regularly at the Vickery site.

The Vickery facility has been used to store hazardous waste since 1976 and Waste Management has owned the injection wells since 1978, the Ohio EPA said. The wells are all around 2,900 feet in total depth.

The wells are used to dispose of liquid industrial wastes and hazardous wastes generated off-site by other companies, including waste pickle liquor from iron and steel production companies, incinerator scrubber water, and leachate recovered from other solid waste facilities, the Ohio EPA said in its report.

The Sandusky County Emergency Management Agency said in a statement Monday that "this is the type of work that Vickery does every day through their deep well injection process and is permitted and regulated by Ohio EPA."'

The EMA said that "in 1990 the US. EPA determined that injected waste will not migrate vertically out of the designated injection zone and not more than five miles laterally from the well in a period of 10,000 years."

The county EMA's statement said Vickery is receiving "approximately 3-4 loads per day of overflow water" and that "neither Sandusky County Public Health nor Sandusky County EMA have any concerns currently regarding the operations at Vickery Environmental."

DeWine said in a statement issued Monday evening that Norfolk Southern has resumed removing contaminated soil and liquid from the train derailment site after a one-day pause ordered by the U.S. EPA.

The statement said 1.8 million gallons of contaminated liquid have been collected from the immediate site of the East Palestine derailment. Of the contaminated liquid, 1.249 million gallons were hauled to Texas Molecular, a waste disposal facility in Texas, before the EPA's one-day ban.

"A smaller amount of waste has been directed to Vickery Environmental in Vickery, Ohio," DeWine said in the news release. His Monday statement said 94,372 gallons were disposed of at the Vickery facility. "This total includes liquid disposed of both before and after the U.S. EPA's pause on waste disposal," DeWine said.

Approximately 319,002 gallons were hauled to U.S. Ecology Romulus, and more contaminated liquid will be collected as the cleanup continues, DeWine said.

Click said he has concerns that the contaminated liquid waste is being stored within the Lake Erie Watershed, noting that Vickery is about 4 miles from Sandusky Bay.

"There are plenty of farmers in the area, and they and all citizens deserve to know if it is safe. We want it explained to us," he said.

The Ohio EPA held public hearings in March 2019, when Vickery Environmental applied to drill two new 2,900-foot-deep wells, the News-Messenger reported at the time.

The waste stream is injected into the Mount Simon Sandstone and is well below the area's underground source of drinking water, a geologist and EPA permit reviewer said at the time.

In addition to the contaminated liquid, DeWine said Norfolk Southern is bringing large dump trucks to move contaminated soil to U.S. Ecology Wayne Disposal, a licensed hazardous waste disposal facility in Michigan.

Vickery is an unincorporated community in Sandusky County about 12 miles northeast of Fremont, with a population of 149, according to U.S. census data.

Thirty-eight cars of a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed on Feb. 3 in East Palestine, some carrying hazardous materials that either burned and sent toxic chemicals airborne or leaked into the ground.

A demonstration is scheduled in Fremont at 4 p.m. Wednesday by People for Peace and Justice in Sandusky County. The protest will call for rail safety and accountability in the wake of the East Palestine derailment and will be held near the Norfolk Southern rail crossing at West State and Front streets.

"The train that derailed in East Palestine might have passed through Fremont or Sandusky on its eastward path that day. In fact, just last fall a Norfolk Southern train derailed in Sandusky spilling a large load of molten paraffin. Fremont, Sandusky, and any cities along a railroad line find themselves vulnerable in today's lax regulatory environment that privileges rail industry profits over the safety of our communities," the group said in a news release.

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