DEAR EDITOR:

We’ve all seen it: poking a stick in an East Palestine creek to see purple-blue slime surface. Shocking right? Not really.

It is a sad situation, the East Palestine train derailment and hazardous chemical release.

After the incident, locals and politicians point at suspected pollution of surrounding land and water, taking opportunities to show “they care.” It must take a disaster to identify something occurring for some time. It’s like the “frog in boiling water” scenario. Everything seems fine until it’s too late.

Different state agencies and universities have done environmental studies for years. Previously, very little enforcement supported such studies. Dating back to 1958, the University of Louisville and Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission would routinely collect and count fish species at a lock on the Monongahela River. The Ohio, Monongahela and Allegheny are the Pittsburgh’s three rivers. They share the same water distribution table, and sadly, the same water makeup and contaminants. Back then, fish species counts were done in an archaic manner. They filled a lock, injected cyanide into the water, waited for dead fish to float to the top and count. On one particular day, expecting hundreds of fish, they found just one! It resulted from industry that dotted the river banks, dumping contaminants into the river. There was no EPA nor Clean Water Act, then.

Today, thanks to EPA and industrial regulations, the Ohio River and its tributaries are a functioning ecosystem. But, even with mandates and river cleanups, tributaries aren’t perfect. As recently as 2015, the EPA named the Ohio River among our country’s most polluted, industrial-contaminated rivers — for the seventh year in a row. Sampling showed high concentration of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a “forever chemical.”

The Ohio, Monongahela and Allegheny rivers flow fast, and are somewhat capable of emptying (or transferring) some pollutants. Some 200,000 square miles, most running through areas where 25 million low-income residents reside, such as East Palestine, cleanup simply doesn’t occur. Mine drainage, agricultural runoff, sewage and stormwater pipes flow into nearby waterways.

Most of our nation’s waterways interconnect, dumping into oceans or Great Lakes. If the larger body of water is polluted, the small ones will be.

With the Ohio River’s pollution, it’s not surprising the East Palestine creek creates a psychedelic show when poked.

The problem was brought into the spotlight by the derailment. Let’s accept it so we can act on it.

Additionally, it’s interesting that the political group which is anti-regulatory, with no need for the government “to get involved,” now asks: “Where are the regulations; why wasn’t this prevented?”

God Bless America.

JOHN P. LESEGANICH SR.

Canfield