Experts debunk social media posts about Ohio train pollution | CBC News

On a map shared widely on social media, a dark cloud originates from a point marking the town of East Palestine, Ohio, and appears to disperse over eastern Ontario and much of southern Quebec.

Images of the map spread quickly on TikTok and other social media platforms, accompanied by warnings that dangerous pollutants from the catastrophic Feb. 3 train derailment had blown across the border.

“We were told it was unlikely to [affect] Canada,” one reads. “But in reality that’s exactly where it went.”

In the aftermath of the derailment, these posts were collectively viewed millions of times.

The map was originally released shortly after the derailment by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency responsible for monitoring environmental and weather conditions.

According to a release from the agency, the map is designed to simulate the direction and dispersion of particles through the atmosphere.

Importantly, it does not show pollution levels near the ground where people live and breathe.

Contrary to widespread theories online, subject matter experts told CBC the map and other modelling tools like it help tell a clear story: the Ohio train derailment does not pose a threat to human health in Ontario or Quebec.

“There’s no risk here,” said Philip Jessop, a professor of green chemistry at Queen’s University. “I really believe the risk is insanely low.”

Jessop, who studies the environmental impact of industrial processes and products, said a harmful concentration of chemicals from the disaster simply would not have reached Ontario.

Harmful chemicals ‘not making it to Ontario’

Much of the safety concern on social media hinges on questions about specific chemicals released in the derailment.

The most problematic chemical involved was vinyl chloride, Jessop said.

Authorities in Ohio vented vinyl chloride from the tanker cars and burned it as it was released to avoid a larger, more dangerous explosion.

Burning vinyl chloride produces several byproducts, including hydrogen chloride and phosgene, according to the World Health Organization. The burn was also responsible for producing an enormous column of black smoke, visible for kilometres.

The only chemical involved that “even slightly, conceivably could be a risk” to people in Ontario and Quebec, Jessop said, is phosgene.

Phosgene is a colourless toxic gas that in high enough concentrations causes severe damage to the respiratory system, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The gas is poisonous enough that it was used as a chemical warfare agent in the First World War.

Jessop said by the time any phosgene released in Ohio were to have reached southern Ontario, it would have become diluted to well below the threshold where it’s dangerous.

To test the risk, Jessop created a “worst-case scenario” model that asked what would happen if the full volume of phosgene settled over a single location in southern Ontario. Even in this “highly improbable” scenario, he found it would cause no negative health effects for people who live there.

Real-world conditions were far from the worst case.

[Phosgene is] not making it to Ontario. It’s just not happening.– Philip Jessop, Queen’s University

“It has rained multiple times. It’s snowed multiple times. [There is] a giant lake, which is a giant sponge for collecting phosgene, that exists between Ohio and Ontario,” Jessop said. “It’s not making it to Ontario. It’s just not happening.”

Despite the favourable conditions, Jessop said he supports Environment Canada’s decision to monitor for any traces of the chemical as a precaution.

Relatively small amounts of another chemical, called dioxin, may have also been produced by the burning, Jessop said.

Although the compound is highly toxic, Jessop said it mainly poses a health threat by contaminating food close to where it’s released and is too heavy to have crossed the Great Lakes through the air.

‘1st TikTok disaster’

That the disaster drew such widespread attention is unsurprising, said Josh Greenberg, director of Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication.

“Those images really shape, in quite powerful ways, what public perceptions of risk are,” Greenberg said.

Some commentators have since branded the derailment the “first TikTok disaster,” Greenberg said.

TikTok, he said, played a key role in spreading misinformation and shaping risk perception in the fallout of the derailment.

Rather than a new phenomenon, TikTok likely represents an “extension” of existing problems found on other social media platforms, Greenberg added.

“Social media has kind of obliterated the distance between where an event takes place … and the opportunities for people to participate in the response to that event,” he said.

Many Ontarians participated.

TikTok videos posted in early to mid-February claim to show a variety of dangers, from polluted snow falling on northern Ontario to ice reflecting an oily sheen to animals disoriented from a supposed chemical exposure.

Greenberg said conspiracy theories often develop in an information “vacuum” created when clear and consistent official communication is absent.

Add visceral images that appear to contradict statements from authorities and it may become difficult for people to determine which information is accurate, he said.

“That is something I think that officials in the U.S. — but also in Canada — really need to pay closer attention to,” Greenberg said.

“You run the risk of responding in tone-deaf ways to what are very significant social and psychological effects.”

It took three weeks after the derailment and several days after receiving repeated questions from Radio-Canada about the health risk to Ontarians and Quebecers for Environment Canada to issue its first public statement about the misleading information on social media.

“We’re concerned misleading social media posts may be creating fear for people in Canada about potential environmental and health effects of the Feb. 3 Ohio train derailment in the U.S.,” the agency wrote.

“The Government of Canada has determined that there are no expected environmental or health risks for people in Canada.”

The department did not respond to questions from CBC about its communications strategy.

Jessop said, in his view, all public statements from the agency were “scientifically correct.”

“I don’t know what else they could say to convince the people that are naturally skeptic,” he said. “I don’t know that they could do any better.”