EAST PALESTINE, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio village upended by a freight train derailment and the intentional burning of some of the hazardous chemicals on board has invited affected residents to a town hall meeting Wednesday evening to discuss lingering questions.
And there are still plenty — about the huge plumes of smoke, the persisting odors, the reports of sick or dead animals, the potential impact on drinking water, all the cleaning up. Even as school has resumed and trains are rolling by again, things aren’t the same.
In and around East Palestine, near the Pennsylvania state line, people are asking whether the air and water around them is safe for people, pets and livestock. They want assistance navigating the financial help the railroad offered hundreds of families who evacuated, and they want to know whether it will be held responsible for what happened.
Rail operator Norfolk Southern announced Tuesday that it is also creating a $1 million charitable fund to help the community of some 4,700 people while continuing remediation work, including removing spilled contaminants from the ground and streams and monitoring air quality.
“We will be judged by our actions,” Norfolk Southern President and CEO Alan Shaw said in a statement. “We are cleaning up the site in an environmentally responsible way, reimbursing residents affected by the derailment, and working with members of the community to identify what is needed to help East Palestine recover and thrive.”
No one was injured when about 50 cars derailed in a fiery, mangled mess on the outskirts of East Palestine on Feb. 3. As fears grew about a potential explosion, officials seeking to avoid an uncontrolled blast had the area evacuated and opted to release and burn toxic vinyl chloride from five rail cars, sending flames and black smoke billowing into the sky again.
A mechanical issue with a rail car axle has been identified as the suspected cause of the derailment, and the National Transportation Safety Board said it has video appearing to show a wheel bearing overheating just beforehand. The NTSB said it expects its preliminary report in about two weeks.
Misinformation and exaggerations spread online, and state and federal officials have repeatedly offered assurances that air monitoring hasn’t detected any remaining concerns. Even low levels of contaminants that aren’t considered hazardous can create lingering odors or symptoms such as headaches, Ohio’s health director said Tuesday.
Precautions also are being taken to ensure contaminants that reached the Ohio River don’t make it into drinking water.
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Looks like Buttigieg and his fort fumble crew of incompetent’s designs on getting him elected the first openly gay President just got derailed and burned up in flames, every bit as much as the train wreck his crew of malcontented misfits of oversight malfeasance did to our national transportation system. The only light at the end of the tunnel for them will be the burning pits they dug for their own flaming demise of hazardous politicking , and contaminated minds under the influence of mind poisoning indoctrinations. I still predict Joe will step down about two weeks before his term ends, if he lasts that long, to claim he created the first black Female President, for one more ideological win for his party, chosen over doing the right thing for THE PEOPLE, proving once again the party, not the people have the power to pick and choose the winners and losers, with actual governance results always coming in last.
Buttigieg is to Biden’s train wreck of a transportation department, What Brownie was to Bush’s response to Katrina. Promoting people not for what they know but who they know, works about as well as Liberal Colleges teaching our kids what to think, not how to think. It always ends up in a train wreck, or the Democrat party environmental version of the Niagara falls Community New York Love Canal, that turns your neighborhood into a mini Chernobyl, unfit to live in for decades. Don’t you just love secular socialism at work?
Getting the incompetent ( or order following planned actions) Obama CZARS out of the EPA would help also.
Where are all the GREEN PARTY folks, whining about all the ENVIRONMENTAL destruction this is causing?!
It is now perfectly safe to return home, and, by the way, the Camp Lejuene water was perfectly safe to drink
IF ITS Safe, send out everyone in the FDA TO DRINK DIRECTLY from the tap!
IF they do it, then i will trust them.