EAST PALESTINE, Ohio (WKBN) – Cleanup continues in East Palestine. It’s a long slow process.
Purdue University has sent researchers to monitor and report on the conditions.

Six months after the train derailment in Columbiana County, researchers are still concerned. Dr. Andrew Whelton initially went in to look at private drinking water wells. He has sent researchers to the village six times. They’ve found contamination hasn’t been contained.

“The health risks question still remains in East Palestine and the surrounding area,” Whelton said. “We also saw that people were being exposed to the chemicals in their homes as well as from those aerators, those water fountains that they set up along the creeks.

Indoor air quality has been a big concern since the train left the tracks. Whelton says contamination decreases because of airing the buildings out, but there’s no understanding of how much contamination remains in buildings. He suggests better air testing and a more thorough approach.

“What I would like to see is that part of this entire disaster to be resolved in the way that’s done is just decontaminate the buildings so that people can have peace of mind and move on,” Whelton said.

In addition to the tests Purdue has done on air, water and soil, they’ve also tested bee hives around East Palestine. They were undamaged, and they’re safe.

“We have completed the honey testing, and we did not find contamination of VOCs in the honey,” Whelton said.

VOCs are volatile organic compounds, basically chemicals. Neither the hives nor honey had damage, even from smoke in the chemical plume.
So the bee hives are safe and the honey is too.
You can read the Purdue findings. I’ve put a link inside this story on the WKBN app and website.