Columbus Feb. 16 (US): Hundreds of residents of the Ohio town angry as a train derailed and toxic chemicals spilled packed into a high school gym on Wednesday, searching for answers to the health risks they face.
Looking angry and tired, East Palestine Mayor Trent Conway said at town hall on Wednesday that he wanted to help provide some reassurance to the 4,700 citizens of his town and hold those responsible for the train derailment to account, Reuters reported.
“We want our citizens to feel safe in their homes,” Conway said as the meeting began. “I need help. I’m not ready for that. But I’m not leaving, I’m not going anywhere.”
Conway said Norfolk Southern, which operated the toxin-laden train that derailed on Feb. 3 in eastern Palestine, has been working closely with him. “They destroyed our town, and they’re going to fix it,” Conway said.
Addressing the nationals seated in the stands, Conway spoke through a bull’s horn as he trotted across the gymnasium floor.
South Norfolk officials did not attend the meeting, saying they feared violence.
“After consulting with community leaders, we have become increasingly concerned about the heightened material threat to our employees and community members around this event caused by the increased potential for third party involvement,” the company said in an emailed statement.
The derailment of a Norfolk Southern train operated by the Norfolk Railway caused a fire that sent a cloud of smoke over eastern Palestine. Thousands of residents were forced to evacuate. After railroad crews drained and burned a toxic chemical from five tank cars, the residents were allowed to go home on February 8.
Experts said much is still unknown about the risks to residents from the toxic spills. Many in the area complained of headaches and irritated eyes, and noted that chickens, fish and other wild animals had died. Despite this, state health officials have insisted to residents that East Palestine is a safe place to live.
Eric Olson, chief strategic director for health and food at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit group focused on the environment and public health, said the unknown risks from the drift greatly outweigh the reassurances officials have given about safety.
“It’s clear that this drink is very toxic in terms of chemicals,” Olson said. “And I haven’t seen any public accounting of how many pounds or gallons of any of these chemicals have been released.”
The air and water testing done so far appears limited, Olson said, and “it’s not all that reassuring.”
He said more needs to be understood about how soil and groundwater were contaminated from this spill, which he said poses a greater long-term risk than air pollution.
Ohio officials said a plume of pollution in the Ohio River is moving at about one mile per hour. But they say cities in the plume’s path can turn off their drinking water intakes while they float. They have also said that tests of the drinking water did not raise concerns and that treating the natural water would remove any small amounts of contaminants that may be present.
It could take months or years before the full extent of the damage becomes known, said Gerald Pogue, a toxicologist and former founding member of the Chemical Safety Council, an independent federal agency that investigates industrial chemical accidents.
“This is a terrible tragedy in the state of Ohio, and it is deeply distressing to see so many lives at stake,” Bogey said. “There is a long challenge for everyone in how to discern risks that are unknown at this moment in time.”
An underground plume of pollution could eventually contaminate drinking water and even irrigation wells that farmers would pump and spread to crops, Bogey and Olson said.
A train of three locomotives and 150 freight cars was heading from Illinois to Pennsylvania when it derailed. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said 20 of the cars were carrying hazardous materials, including 10 that derailed.
The NTSB said a total of 38 cars left the tracks and that the ensuing fire damaged 12. The NTSB did not comment on the cause of the derailment.
Railway union officials said they had warned such an accident could happen because the rail cost cut had compromised safety measures. But Norfolk Southern said its record was “moving towards safer”.
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