PORTLAND, Maine — Many Mainers are concerned after seeing “dirty rain” hit the state on Friday.
Thankfully, the phenomenon is likely being caused by a dust storm from Texas and Oklahoma.
This is good news to anyone worrying that the particles may be coming from the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
In fact, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection says the state probably won’t be affected by the disaster in Ohio.
Maine DEP Division Director Andrew Johnson says tests have shown that vinyl chloride is not present in the lower region of Maine’s atmosphere.
The state has also collected samples by a manual method, and the results of those tests should be expected by next week.
“We are not seeing anything that suggests that we had any impacts,” Johnson said. “There could have been particulate material that came down with precipitation, but the window for that would have already come and gone.”