‘This story isn’t over’: Anniversary of East Palestine train crash brings little closure

It’s been a year since a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in the town of East Palestine, Ohio, prompting short-lived evacuations and far longer-lasting concerns about the crash’s potential impacts on the environment and the surrounding community.

Most of the national attention that followed the derailment has long since died down, but for residents of the area, closure remains elusive. While they’re thankful no one was injured or killed, they continue to worry about lingering contamination and how it could affect them. And they say state and local authorities have been cagey with answers about such potential ongoing threats, while major railroad safety legislation intended to prevent similar disasters has stalled in the Senate. 

The Norfolk Southern train that derailed on Feb. 3 included 20 cars carrying hazardous substances, including vinyl chloride, a toxic material used in the production of plastics. Local officials conducted a controlled burn days after the crash in hopes of avoiding an explosion, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began leading an ongoing cleanup effort later that month.

Misti Allison, an East Palestine resident who works with the group Moms Clean Air Force, said the news cycle moving on has created an impression that the situation is more resolved than it is. 

While the cleanup process is largely completed at ground zero for the crash site, she said, other potential byproducts are a continual concern in the town, and their impacts may not be apparent for months or years.

For example, she told The Hill, creek sediment sampling is still ongoing. Earlier in January, she added, a preliminary report indicated Sulphur Run, a creek that is a tributary for Leslie Run in East Palestine, remains contaminated.

“Those creeks, they run through businesses and right by houses all through town,” said Allison, who has contributed op-eds to The Hill.  

“So it’s not like it’s just an isolated event.”

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) told The Hill he’s heard similar concerns from constituents in the area. 

“People are still concerned about the cleanup efforts, making sure you actually clean up the community, they’re worried about the long-term health consequences,” Vance said.

Another common worry, he said, is the possible financial implications of the crash and the cleanup efforts. Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is requiring Norfolk Southern to cover cleanup costs, Vance said residents are also worried about medical costs, a potential drop in the value of their homes and the possibility of owing taxes on the assistance they’ve received due to “weird tax rules.” 

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) told The Hill a tax bill passed by the House Wednesday night contains a provision ensuring assistance is not taxed. “There’s a lot of things we continue to do, I keep listening,” said Brown, who said he has visited the town eight times since the crash.

Allison said the federal response over the past year has been “a little underwhelming,” noting that President Biden never issued an emergency declaration and saying Jim McPherson, the FEMA disaster recovery coordinator Biden appointed for the cleanup process, did not meet with residents beyond “cherry-picked” local leaders.

The Hill has reached out to FEMA for comment.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan defended the agency’s response on a call with reporters Wednesday, saying “we will not leave until this community is restored and made whole again and … we will not rest in our mission to hold Norfolk Southern accountable.”

Regan asserted on the call that the EPA has determined residents are not currently at risk from their soil, surface water or air. 

East Palestine sits near the Ohio-Pennsylvania line, and on the other side of the border, the situation has frustrated Pennsylvanians who feel their concerns are not taken as seriously as their Ohio neighbors’ are.

“I feel like we’re still in active danger [and] the danger’s going to get worse as some of this contaminated soil sediment moves around,” said Hilary Flint, a cancer survivor who lives in Eden Valley, Pa., about 4 miles from East Palestine. “I very much feel like this story isn’t done.”

Flint, a Moms Clean Air Force member who also serves as vice president of the Unity Council for the East Palestine Train Derailment, said state and local officials got off on the wrong foot with their communication strategy.

“They’ll say things like, ‘There is no soil contamination still in East Palestine, it’s all left East Palestine,’ but really, they just moved it over,” she said. “They’re very careful about their communication, it’s very broad and leaves out large pieces of the story I believe we as residents deserve to know.”

Flint said other locals had similar experiences, particularly on the Pennsylvania side of the state line. “Pennsylvania residents who don’t own a business or have a farm have been pretty much completely ignored,” she said.

A neighbor, she said, expressed concerns to Pennsylvania state Rep. Jim Marshall (R), who Flint said told her that “just because you saw a black cloud go over your head doesn’t mean you’re affected.” Marshall’s office has not responded to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, the White House confirmed Wednesday that Biden will visit the town for the crash’s anniversary after facing bipartisan criticism for failing to make an appearance in its aftermath last year. A White House official told reporters later that afternoon that it has not established a firm date for the visit. 

Vance called the move “too little, too late” and dismissed it as political theater. Brown, asked if Biden should have visited at the time, said “that’s his call.”

“My job is to continue to go there, continue to represent them, continue to listen to them,” Brown said. 

“What I predict is going to happen is that East Palestine is really going to be used for a political stunt by both parties. And that’s really not fair to all of the residents,” Allison said. “If anybody is going to come here, whether that’s from the Republican side, Democrat side, it doesn’t matter to me, if anybody’s going to come here. I don’t want it to be for a photo opportunity.”

She praised Vance and Brown for their responsiveness to East Palestine constituents. The two Ohio senators have united on the issue at a time when, in addition to their different party affiliations, they are in vastly different positions ahead of the 2024 election. Vance is a onetime critic turned outspoken ally of former President Trump, the likely GOP nominee, and has been named as a possible vice presidential contender. Brown, meanwhile, is facing what’s likely to be a grueling reelection bid as his state has grown steadily more Republican throughout his career in the Senate.

Despite this, the two came together to co-sponsor railway safety legislation that would require two crew members for trains like the one that derailed as well as safety improvements for cars carrying similar material. The bill has yet to come up for a vote in the Senate, but Brown and Vance have both expressed confidence it can pass with a filibuster-proof majority.

“The railroad lobby is unbelievable — they’ve dug in, they’ve had their way with Congress too often, their way with the regulators too often — we’ve got to push back on them and pass this bill,” Brown said. “This problem won’t be solved until the railroads back off and we pass this bill.” 

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also called on Congress to pass the bill on a call with reporters Wednesday, adding that the Transportation Department is developing a new rule to require railroads to require real-time electronic information to first responders. The transportation secretary also took aim at unnamed members of Congress who had “a lot to say” about the disaster in 2023 but have not gone on the record on their support for the bill.

The legislation aims to prevent another crash like that in East Palestine, or worse, from occurring in the future — a possibility advocates have warned of along much of the east coast of the U.S. A report earlier this week issued by the advocacy group Toxic Free Future indicated up to 36,000 pounds of vinyl chloride are being conveyed across a rail corridor from Texas to New Jersey at any given time. While the railroad industry has defended rail as the safest possible conveyance for such chemicals, groups like Toxic Free Future have called for vinyl chloride to be banned outright. The EPA is currently reviewing its safety as part of a multi-year process.

Locals say that amid the lingering uncertainties surrounding the health risks, there are still steps the federal government could take. In addition to a potential emergency declaration, Allison said, she remains hopeful for federal support from bodies like the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to analyze the situation. Flint, meanwhile, pointed to Section 1881a of the Affordable Care Act, which provides Medicare for life for communities affected by an environmental toxin.

As for the EPA, Flint said, “we’re going to continue to say we want comprehensive indoor air testing and we want to know the long-term plan for monitoring our wells.”

An official did not directly answer when asked on a press call whether a national emergency declaration is currently being discussed, saying only that the appropriate response remains under discussion.

“I will say that I do have a lot of hope,” Allison said. “I feel like everything in this type of disaster just takes longer than you would think it would.”