The Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer will remain safe and unaffected by the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio on February 3, 2023.The Ohio River Basin contains many watersheds as depicted in the image of the Ohio River Basin produced by ORSANCO. 

The Ohio River Basin shows the navigation of the Ohio River and all of its tributaries. These tributaries start in a multitude of different watersheds. Each watershed is depicted by a different color on the Ohio River Basin map. The Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer is in the dark green watershed area on the map. East Palestine is shown by the star in the upper right hand of the map which is in the purple watershed. As you can see there are several watersheds between the green and the purple watershed areas on the map. The only waterway connecting between the green watershed and the purple is the Ohio River. The Ohio River is located at the bottom of the green watershed and its tributary is the Great Miami River. Because the Great Miami is a tributary that means water is flowing downstream into the Ohio. In almost no circumstances will the water ever flow upstream from the Ohio River into the Great Miami which means that any contaminants flowing down the Ohio River will not reach or impact the Great Miami River. The Great Miami River plays a main role in replenishing our aquifer and since it remains unaffected so does the Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer our source of drinking water.

The second map published by MCD is a close up of the Great Miami River Watershed (the dark green area on the larger map) and the buried valley aquifer. 

Important definitions:

Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer: glacial deposit of sand and gravel with water contained in the spaces available for pumping

Watershed: an area that contains rivers and streams that all drain into a single larger body of water

Tributary: a river or stream flowing into a larger river or lake

River Basin: contains all watersheds and tributaries that flow into a singular river