Bloggers note: with transcript
VIDEO ...2,589,127 views Feb 14, 2023
Fears of a wider health and environmental disaster are growing, after a 150-car freight train operated by Norfolk Southern derailed and a so-called controlled burn released toxic chemicals last week in East Palestine, Ohio. Residents reported seeing a fireball and mushroom cloud of smoke fill the skyline. Data released by the Environmental Protection Agency shows the train contained more toxic and carcinogenic chemicals than initially reported, including phosgene, a poisonous gas that has been used as a chemical weapon in war. Officials lifted an evacuation order for residents last Wednesday, saying the air and water were safe, but residents have reported sore throats, burning eyes and respiratory problems, and wildlife has been found dead. Meanwhile, scrutiny has turned onto Norfolk Southern, which in recent years has challenged regulatory laws aimed at making the rail industry safer and made mass cuts to railroad staffing while spending billions on stock buybacks and executive compensation. We get an update from Emily Wright, community organizer based near the site of the derailment; Ross Grooters, a locomotive engineer and co-chair of Railroad Workers United; and Julia Rock, an investigative reporter with The Lever.
this is democracy Now
democracynow.org The War and Peace report I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez as we turn to Ohio where residents of East Palestine are living the real life version of the oscar-nominated Netflix movie some help make when they were extras in that film this is part of the trailer for White Noise about a suburban community that faces a so-called Airborne Toxic Event after a train wreck causes a chemical White Noise Stars Greta Gerwig and Adam Driver but in real life Palestine Ohio fears of a wider health and environmental disaster are growing after 150 car freight train operated by Norfolk Southern derailed and released toxic chemicals last week yes in the community of East Palestine near Ohio's border with Pennsylvania day to release by the Environmental Protection Agency shows the train contain more toxic and carcinogenic chemicals initially reported the EPA also said quote materials released during the derailment were observed and detected in samples from sulfur run Leslie run Bull Creek North Fork Little Beaver Creek and the Ohio River the Ohio Department of Natural Resources estimates The Spill killed more than 3 500 fish in surrounding waterways chickens have been found dead in their coops residents have reported sore throats burning eyes and respiratory problems a controlled burn of the chemicals following the derailment sent a mushroom cloud of smoke and fire into the air that contained the toxic chemicals surveillance footage also shows the Train on fire about 20 miles before it derailed with hazardous chemicals as it passed through Salem Ohio officials lifted an evacuation order for residents Wednesday saying the air and for more we're joined by three guests Ross gruders is with us locomotive engineer co-chair of railroad workers United Julia Rock joins us an investigative reporter with a lever who's been following the derailment in Ohio her pieces headlined there will be more derailments and rail companies block safety rules before Ohio derailment but we begin with Emily Wright a resident of Columbiana County in Ohio a few miles from the derailment an explosion site in East Palestine she's also the development director for River Valley organizing which is working with residents to call for Julia Emily can you describe the scene of what you're calling a chemically driven environmental nightmare what does it look like smell like describe what happened when the Train derailed and how you learned about how you had to protect good morning thanks for having me on um one of the the things that I really want people to know is that this event has kind of three parts so Friday night we had the derailment around 9pm in um residents that were right at the site you know were evacuated then the next day they evacuated more people on Saturday because it was still burning and at this time we didn't know what was on the cars we heard maybe it was Vinyl um it was 10 cars maybe it was five we really didn't have a great picture um of what was you know on the train so we were told that if you were with outside of that mile Zone you're okay I um I think on the tracks there's five miles in between where I'm at and where you know you should be okay and they kept saying the same thing over and over again on the media and in the press conferences there's no toxins in the air there's no toxins don't you know don't we had heard we got an alert on our phone that there had been an additional explosion and that the fire was out of control again which it never really was in control we have pictures and videos that time stamp clear through that show um and to just be aware like there was really no evacuation for us just people that were a little bit further out from the radius they were concerned on Monday morning that we were going to have an um I will give everybody you know this much that the explosion could have been so they announced everybody that they were going to do a controlled release and I am using air quotes when I say controlled so they were supposed to do um my daughter was going to be on the bus route at that time I already was experiencing symptoms of I have asthma so I was having shortness of breath and was concerned um you know from from that burn I already had irritation but when they did the release they were supposed to do it at 3 30 PM they announced on a huge um you know press conference Mike dewine was there all of a sudden they stopped the press conference they evacuated dewine I I um we work with a lot of um you know we're non-partisan non-profit so we work with um you know both sides of the aisle uh had you know got confirmation that he had been rushed out of there the media was given five minutes to get out that they were pretty sure an explosion was imminent so they did not do the burn at 3 30. I can't tell you why they did it the problem is we had forecasted high wind gusts up to 45 miles an hour we would get a lot of wind in our area the hills usually break it up but it was announced that it was going to be very windy so what they wanted to do was let it off earlier so the cloud would go I'm sorry one second my voice so the cloud would go straight up it wouldn't it wouldn't span out so they let it off late and then said the winds caught it it went over four counties um four to five counties in two states actually three because the panhandle of West Virginia was also affected so we have Ohio Pennsylvania West Virginia all affected by this huge mushroom cloud you've all seen the pictures I'm sure um we started in my home being just a few short miles away experiencing nausea um sorry to be explicit but diarrhea my father has bilateral asbestosis from working in the mill so these industries um killing us in one more than one way um and he could not breathe well and I wanted to evacuate we had family that was telling us to come but then there was this massive shelter in place ordered blood down do not be out if you don't have to shelter in place in the we're hearing on a press conference and on the news this is out of an extreme there's no toxins there's no toxins there's no toxins there's no toxins that's all we kept hearing um but the only thing I really want to highlight and I'm sorry if I'm going on too much is what we found out through the org we've been on the ground talking with people we're actually investing our offices are in East Liverpool Ohio which is just a little bit south of East Palestine but we have a lot of members of our org that live like me in and around East policy so we've invested in the community and are bringing on a couple organizers that are right outside beside the front door of the derailment um you know to work with people from day one we've been fed what wasn't the truth and now we find out what this EPA report that what over ten thousand gallons of oil went into the ground that the vinyl chloride was like double what we thought and there was diphylene glycol and there's other um Norfolk Southern from what the EPA says did not report this to the EPA in a timely manner so we know this is I'd like to uh Emily if I can I'd like to bring in raw scooters as a locomotive engineer and co-chair of railroad workers United uh Ross your reaction to this derailment and fire uh also this this report that the fire had actually started before the derailment uh what is the normal procedure that is supposed to occur in situations like this and and what your assessment of this crisis is yeah thank you Juan none of this really comes as a surprise there's deep um you talk about the normal response to an event like this this isn't a normal event and we really haven't seen anything like it in in the United States and probably not something like it since uh 2013 uh as you know when uh we had the Quebec train derailment and explosion in lochmagantique there are deep systemic problems with the freight railroads right now and those need to be addressed for us to have some sort of a normal response to and until we get at those those root causes of the safety issues in the freight rail system in this country it's not a matter of if these events are going to uh disrupt and and really uh just what the people of East Palestine are going through is just it's that's going to occur again it's just a matter of of when and where and what are some of the things that well at the root of it all is is really cut backs to to Staffing you have companies that are are making obscene and they're doing so by uh adopting operating policies uh there there's a whole system for this called Precision scheduled railroading that is just designed to maximize profits and what that means is you're you're cutting to the Bone the amount of people doing the job so you have fewer people doing a lot more work faster um you have across the board cutbacks on on the maintenance of cars on the maintenance of locomotives on the maintenance of track this is critical and those things are are being done uh in many cases by skeleton Crews or or outsourced to subcontractors and then you have increasingly long and heavy trains like the one we saw here where these trains have a greater propensity to derail they're they're going to derail more frequently because they are uh and and then lastly you have the railroads themselves who are fighting any kind of Regulation uh whether it be uh Train control systems that help uh manage the signal system or or the lobbying efforts that we saw to kill electronic braking uh which can make for for safer operations and a quicker stop should a derailment like this occur you know we're going to go to Julia rock in a minute the reporter is covering this for the lever but I wanted to give um Emily 30 seconds as you sit there sometimes coughing dealing what you're dealing with and by the way can only say I think about one his reporting after 9 11. you're talking about the EPA at the time Christine Todd Whitman the former um saying that after 9 11 attacks the air was fine and Juan's reporting lead exposing the LIE of that to the Daily News winning a Pulitzer Prize so Emily your last 30 seconds on Democracy Now right now what do you think is most important for people to understand okay the most important thing is that this is not a conspiracy theory this is standard operating procedure for Norfolk they have 70 million in safety violations since 2000 and they have 21 million in environmental just an um 25 million Americans live on an oil Train Blast Zone 25 million Americans This is in the poorest parts of America going from Conway Illinois to Pennsylvania cutting through Appalachia you know they continue to do you know safety issues lower safety concerns not worry about us because we are the people that historically cannot fight back so what we're going to do with River Valley organizing is we're going to offer Free Soil and Water Testing to people so we can actually figure out what's going on we have the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Kentucky on board to do long-range studies because after the immediate aftermath these people are are going to need people to advocate for and um you know 10 seconds I have several family members that have cancer or asthma or COPD from these industries and it's we really need them to stop killing us and we told them 10 years ago we told the EPA that bomb trains this was going to happen we had several collaborative organizations appeal to the EPA and it happened Emily we clearly are going to come back to you in these coming days because there's so much to talk about Emily Wright with River Valley organizing right next to East Palestine in Ohio Ross in 30 seconds can um joint effort by the Republicans and the Democrats the bill that was signed off on by Biden the law prohibiting a rail strike and imposing a deal rejected by over half the unionized railroad um and then we're going to go to Julia yeah thank you Amy uh railroad workers have been fighting uh through the the contract negotiation process uh for relief from the conditions uh which are are very stressful and and very demanding and have been exacerbated by Precision scheduled railroading in the in the corporate greed uh we've been trying to get relief from that that would certainly help us in in uh responding to and better managing uh our jobs to ensure that this doesn't happen but this isn't going to be solved by one labor contract it is systemic and it it needs some regulation it needs Regulators to step in and correct this or or we're going to continue to see things like what happened in Ohio a yeah I'd like to bring in Julia Rock the investigative reporter with the lever who's been following the derailment in um Julia talk about this issue of the of the railroad company's uh convincing government officials to repeal break yes so this is uh a story about the Obama Administration attempting to require trains carrying hazardous materials as well as crude oil um to install much better braking systems on the trains electronically controlled brakes rather than the air brake systems currently used on trains designed during the Civil War era which stopped trains one car at a time and first the railroad industry fought the Obama rules they lobbied really hard um they argued it would be terrible for business it would it would negatively impact the fluidity of the nation's rail system and then when Trump uh came into office they turned around and pushed for Trump to repeal the break rules that the Obama administration had enacted which he did so we're talking about rules that went back to the Civil War they haven't so the the breaks currently on uh America's freight trains uh are air brakes which uh function by stopping train cars one at a time uh using pressure that travels along a pipe along um and and that is a brake system that astounding you have 10 seconds for final comment about what people should understand about East Palestine right so yeah this is the result of efforts by the railroad industry to ensure that they do not have to retrofit trains carrying hazardous materials and crude well we want to thank you so much for being with us Julia Rock of the lever Ross gruders locomotive engineer and co-chair of railroad workers United and Emily Wright of River Valley organizing that does it for our show democracy Now is produced with Renee Feltz Mike Burke Dina Guster Messiah Rhodes nermaine Shea Maria tarasena Tammy warrenoff Tarina nadura Sam alcotte Maria Studio John Hamilton Robbie Karen honey Masood and Sanji Lopez our executive director is Julie Crosby happy birthday Brendan Allen I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez ..
