The derailment was pretty bad to the area around it, and I hadn't heard that the fire still hadn't been contained. I know that the police and news crews were keeping drone flights over the sight to see how things were progressing.

If Norfolk Southern was lying about whether or not it was safe to come back, they're sure as shit putting their own staff in danger because apparently they started running trains within 2-3 minutes of the all clear. You can actually see that the news crews themselves are standing next to the site, so if it's extremely dangerous, even the cowardly journalists aren't taking enough precautions.

I don't trust governments, but I do give some credence to small town governments because normally, if they are going to be corrupt assholes, they don't know how to do it well. This mayor seems to be genuinely out of his league with a disaster like this.

I wouldn't trust the idea that there's no problems with the chemicals seeping into the ground, which they seem to admit got into the waterways themselves. The town is apparently supplied with groundwater, rather than surface water, but I personally wouldn't trust the water supply for a minimum of five years, given how long certain chemicals can last in the ground, and how long it might take for people to notice problems. Especially since I'm not prepared to believe that surface water won't seep into the aquifer.

Frankly, it seems to me like they are trying to say that it's contaminated only within "safe" ranges, but if it were me in that town, I'd be cautious as fuck.

Norfolk Southern gave a press brief where they appear to be saying that if they didn't blow up the car, it would have been a much more serious explosion, which (frankly) isn't a completely unreasonable idea. The rep explained that the fire on one of these hazardous chemical cars was burning from a relief valve, which was good because it was burning off the chemical, and wasn't going to cause an explosion. Then the fire suddenly stopped, but the heat kept going up, which suggested a possible serious explosion was imminent because the relief valve failed. That's when they made the decision to make a controlled demolition.

controlled release by explosively breaching each car and having it burn off

Uh, that's the exact opposite of a "controlled release".

But people want it to be covered like Alex Jones instead of Walter Cronkite.