Cleanup efforts continue nearly two weeks after a freight train derailed in Hyattsville, Maryland, frustrating residents who are demanding answers about the road closures and environmental impact.
“Clean up the damn mess,” resident Daniel Broder told News4. He says he speaks for a lot of his Hyattsville neighbors who have grown tired of the lack of information from rail service CSX about the derailment and the inconvenient road closures along Baltimore Avenue.
“It’s already tough to get through there with traffic and construction, this has had made it particularly bad,” Broder said. “Everybody's frustrated. I think everybody is particularly frustrated with CSX. Again, there's no excuse for that accident.”
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The derailment happened overnight on Saturday, Sept. 23 at about 1:39 a.m. near Baltimore Avenue, leaving railcars stuck on the road and scattering plastic pellets around the area, according to CSX.
An estimated 16 railcars and one locomotive went off the tracks, according to preliminary reports. An "unknown number" of plastic pellets were spread into the area surrounding the derailment. No one was injured.
A CSX environmental remediation crew is working to remove the pellets and the Environmental Protection Agency is looking at the impact on the environment, according to officials.
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Broder said he has serious questions about the plastic pellets.
“I do not know what those plastic pellets are made up of from a chemical perspective. And we don't know the extent of the spill at this point in time,” Broder said.
In a letter on the train repairs and environmental remediation, Hyattsville Mayor Robert Croslin wrote in part:
"I know everyone is concerned about a proper clean-up of the plastic pellets spilled by the derailed train cars. Please be assured this is a top priority for us."
At a Hyattsville City Council meeting Monday evening, officials said they're working with CSX, county and state environmental agencies to keep the pellets from reaching nearby waterways.
“We're also concerned about animals and just the fact that it's a pollutant in and of itself,” an official said during the meeting.
Hal Metzler, a director of the Hyattsville Public Works, said crews are making significant progress, repairing the tracks and getting traffic back to normal.
“CSX has a contractor that is here all the time to keep an eye on them and they will be vacuuming up all of the pellets as the cleanup progresses,” Metzler said.
According to the city of Hyattsville, closed roads along Baltimore Avenue are expected to reopen later this week. Meltzer said the cleanup could last weeks after the road reopens.
The damaged rail cars were cleared on Sunday evening after the derailment.
“I want to make sure, that no other community ends up like ours, or God forbid East Palestine, Ohio. We frankly got lucky that it was just plastic pellets and not a gas leak, oil or something else that’s a huge problem,” Broder said.
News4 reached out to CSX for an update. The cause of the derailment remains under investigation.
