Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb said in a tweet Tuesday that he continues to object to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's decision to move hazardous waste from the Ohio train derailment to Indiana.
He also said there has been a "lack of communication" with him and other Indiana officials about this decision.
The federal agency announced Monday that a landfill in a small Indiana town less than 50 miles west of Indianapolis will receive some of the contaminated waste from the toxic train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio.
After concerns were raised on where the hazardous waste was going — towns in Michigan and Texas complained they didn't receive notice — the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency paused the shipments to provide some oversight to the disposal plan. The shipments resumed on Monday, and the agency announced some of it would be heading to Indiana.
The Indiana site in question: A landfill in Roachdale, a small town in Putnam County.
In his tweets, Holcomb said that he also learned "third-hand that materials may be transported to our state." He said that he directed the state's environmental director to reach out to the agency and he has requested to speak with an EPA official on the topic.
"I want to know exactly what precautions will be taken in the transport and disposition of the materials," Holcomb said in his tweets.
He said he believes that the hazardous waste materials should go to the nearest disposal facilities and not be moved "from the far eastern side of Ohio to the far western side of Indiana."
Ohio, Indiana receiving contaminated materials
EPA officials had previously said they approved shipments to two agency-certified sites in Ohio. On Monday, EPA Region 5 Administrator Debra Shore said an additional site in Ohio and one in Indiana had also been selected to receive contaminated soil and liquids from the train wreck.
Roachdale has a population of approximately 1,000 and spans an area of less than one square mile, according to town website. The community was named after Judge Roach, a railroad official, and is home to local businesses, a library, churches and an elementary school.
It is unclear at this time what type of waste — toxic soil or liquids — and in what amounts will be housed in the Roachdale landfill. IndyStar has reached out to the EPA for additional information.
The landfill itself is located about seven miles outside of the Indiana town.
Roachdale landfill is RCRA-certified
The landfill is operated by Heritage Environmental Services and is a RCRA-certified facility. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, or RCRA, is a law that governing the proper management of hazardous and non-hazardous solid waste.
On its website, Heritage said that it has roughly 14 million cubic yards of permitted landfill capacity, and added that its landfill is geologically isolated.
The EPA said it is now getting close to having enough certified facilities to take all the waste that was produced at the site of the Feb. 3 derailment in East Palestine. Several toxic chemicals, including vinyl chloride and others, were released into the nearby water, soil and air. Clean-up has been ongoing in the weeks since.
EPA Region 5 administrator Shore also said that she spoke with officials from both Ohio and Indiana regarding the hazardous waste shipments to their towns.
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