EPA response to 2023 Ohio train derailment will be investigated by agency watchdog

Josh Funk, The associated PRess

The Environmental Protection Agency’s response to the disastrous 2023 East Palestine train derailment will be investigated after local residents of the small town on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border and Vice President JD Vance pressed for the review.

The Inspector General of the EPA announced the investigation Tuesday to assess the agency’s response to the worst rail disaster in more than a decade and the subsequent health and environmental concerns that have developed despite the EPA’s assurances to the public that no toxic levels of chemicals lingered in the community weeks and months later.

An assortment of chemicals spilled and caught fire after the failed bearing sent the Norfolk Southern train careening off the tracks late one Friday night in February 2023. Residents evacuated as officials decided three days later to blow open five rail cars and burn the vinyl chloride inside.

The National Transportation Safety Board determined the “vent and burn” move that generated a massive black plume of smoke and sent chemicals drifting across several states was unnecessary. But at the time, the officials in charge of the emergency response worried the tank cars might explode and do even more harm.

Jami Wallace and other East Palestine residents have been pushing for this investigation — much like they pressed the EPA initially to test for whether cancer-causing dioxins were released in their hometown — so she said “I’m going to cry” when she heard the news. Since the derailment, Wallace has kept track of more than 80 people who live in the area and have developed cancer, although it’s difficult to prove that every illness is directly linked to the derailment.

“It’s like we’ve had to push them along the way for every single thing they did, and then they didn’t even do it right,” said Wallace, who promised never to give up the fight. “We’re not going to stop when you poison our kids.”

The recent request from Vance and the head of the EPA helped get the investigation started. But multiple complaints from residents and whistleblowers have also been made in the years since the derailment.

The Inspector General’s office said this investigation will determine whether the EPA fulfilled its responsibilities and whether the EPA had “sufficient data to support the agency’s public communications” assuring residents they were safe to return home and live in the small town. Testing experts questioned whether the test data EPA shared with the public obscured the risks and whether the agency could determine just how dangerous it is to be exposed to this cocktail of chemicals. Health standards are generally based only on exposure to a single chemical.

Wallace said she’s not sure how much good might come out of this investigation, but it will continue to put a bit of light on the lingering concerns around East Palestine.

“If nothing else, at least we’re getting attention again,” Wallace said. “And people know that we’re here and that we are not OK.”

Norfolk Southern agreed to a $600 million class action settlement with residents, but that money has been largely tied up in the courts and questions about the initial settlement administrator mishandling the funds. A group of residents has also sued because they argue the class action attorneys misled them and pressured them into signing the deal.

A separate federal settlement that includes a $15 million fine for the railroad and $55 million to pay for decades of medical exams and groundwater testing has been under review for more than two years without a judge approving it.

Norfolk Southern is seeking to merge with Union Pacific and create the nation’s first transcontinental railroad. But that $85 billion deal still faces an extensive review by the Surface Transportation Board.

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