Residents of East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a train derailment of cars filled with toxic chemicals, have started to refer to their town of 4,700 as “The New Love Canal.” That Niagra Falls neighborhood has been the poster child for uninhabitable housing since the 1970s. Given what happened in East Palestine, it appears that history may be repeating itself.
It’s been clear since the derailment happened on February 3 that the Biden administration has been uninterested in doing much of anything to help. Yes, they sent the EPA, and Mayor Pete showed up in a really super cool pair of dress boots.But beyond that, what has the Biden administration done?
They’re going to hold Norfolk Southern Railroad responsible. But what about the sudden and unexplained illnesses cropping up in residents exposed to the toxic stew that federal officials are telling them not to worry about?
Evacuation orders were lifted on February 8, but many locals say they got unexplained rashes and sore throats when they returned home. The creeks that dot the town still ripple with the telltale rainbow color of contamination if you throw a rock in them.
An independent analysis by Texas A & M University of Environmental Protection Agency data, released Friday, found nine air pollutants at levels that could raise long-term health concerns in and around East Palestine, apparently contradicting statements by state and federal regulators that the air there is safe.
“My fiancé was so sick that I almost took him to the hospital,” Jami Cozza, a lifelong East Palestinian, told the Post. Her 91-year-old grandmother tried to clean the chemical residue off her furnishings. She finally gave up and moved into a motel.
Wade Lovett’s been having trouble breathing since the Feb. 3 disaster. He lost his job because his doctor still hasn’t cleared him and the company he works for fired him.
“Doctors say I definitely have the chemicals in me but there’s no one in town who can run the toxicological tests to find out which ones they are,” Lovett, 40, an auto detailer, said in an extremely high-pitched voice. “My voice sounds like Mickey Mouse. My normal voice is low. It’s hard to breathe, especially at night. My chest hurts so much at night I feel like I’m drowning. I cough up phlegm a lot. I lost my job because the doctor won’t release me to go to work.”
At issue was the “controlled burn” from one rail car that had sprung a leak after the accident. The railroad was very careful to get all the proper signoffs from state and federal officials — including Republican Governor Mike DeWine. But was it really necessary? Lawyers for the townspeople don’t think so.
“The company’s decision was very suspicious,” Rene Rocha of the Morgan & Morgan law firm and one of the lead attorneys on the class-action case told the Post. “Norfolk Southern discharged more vinyl chloride into a small area in eastern Ohio in a day than the entire industries combined of America discharge in a year.”
Residents are fearful of returning home, and why shouldn’t they be? Contaminated soil and water were being removed from the town and dumped in Michigan and Texas. The only problem was that neither state was informed of the dumping.
Ooops.
“Everyone wants this contamination gone from the community,” the EPA’s Region 5 administrator, Debra Shore, said, according to the Associated Press. “They don’t want the worry, and they don’t want the smell, and we owe it to the people of East Palestine to move it out of the community as quickly as possible.”
Maybe you should have told Texas and Michigan that they were going to be responsible for the “worry” and the “smell.”
Officials in Michigan and Texas last week pushed back against the plan by the company to relocate some of the waste to areas in their states. Now, any relocation of the waste will have to go through the EPA for approval.
“EPA will ensure that all waste is disposed of in a safe and lawful manner at EPA-certified facilities to prevent further release of hazardous substances and impacts to communities,” Shore said.
Norfolk Southern is responsible for the accident. But everything else is the responsibility of the incompetent EPA and the Biden administration. More than three weeks after the derailment, the residents of East Palestine are still looking for answers and most of all guidance on how to protect their health and bring a sense of normalcy back to their town.
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