CARLISLE, Iowa — Editor's note: The above video is from Monday.
A week after 20 train cars derailed near Carlisle, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is still cleaning up the surrounding environment.
Bill Gibbons, an environmental specialist with the DNR, said the organization is still in the process of removing cars and figuring out how to best access part of the area.
One of the derailed cars was carrying about 30,000 gallons of corn syrup that leaked and soaked into the ground. Gibbons said the DNR will likely have to remove trees and other vegetation to get to that area.
"As far as any environmental impact the corn syrup has soaked into the soil, and for right now is not causing any problems," Gibbons.
Polyethylene pellets from one of the train cars also slid down the riverbank and leaked pellets into the river. Those pellets are not hazardous, the DNR said, but they still want to recover as many as possible, which could take some time because they got "quite a ways" downstream.
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