ENON VALLEY, Pa. — Even with the trees still barren, Pam Mibuck could picture how the seasons would unfold on the land her uncle bought decades ago: a field of sunflowers in the summer, fresh apples for the horses and pie in the fall, and a tranquil place for her sons to come home to no matter the time of year.
But when officials decided two weeks ago to burn off the toxic chemical cargo of a derailed freight train a few miles away, sending a huge plume of smoke to blanket her farm and many others along the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, the sense of safety Ms. Mibuck had long felt there was upended.
After the chemicals were released, Tina, the amiable white turkey that she bought less than a year ago for $3, was put on antibiotics for respiratory problems, and her chickens laid eggs with an unsettling purple hue, Ms. Mibuck said. Her son in California is urging her to move away, offering to build a barn on his land for her two horses, Samuel and Razor. And Ms. Mibuck, 54, who works as a custodian at a university, is seriously thinking about leaving the 14 acres that she considers a slice of heaven.