The creeks around Eastern PalestineOhio, were so badly polluted by the disastrous effects of last year Norfolk Southern Derailment that some employees became ill during cleaning work.
Workers who reported headaches and nausea — while shooting compressed air into the creek bed, releasing chemicals from the sediment and water — were sent back to their hotels to rest, according to a report obtained by The Associated Press on their illnesses.
The findings were not made public last spring, despite residents’ concerns about the possible health effects exposure to the long list of chemicals that leaked and burned after the disaster. The workers’ symptoms, as described in the report, match what Centers for Disease Control and Prevention workers who went door to door in the city reported shortly after the Feb. 3, 2023, derailment.
Since then, some residents have also reported unexplained skin rashes, asthma and other breathing problems, and serious illnesses, including breast cancer in men.
Researchers are still trying to determine how many of those health problems can be linked to the derailment and how the disaster will affect the long-term health of residents in the area near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Many wonder whether there will be future cancer clusters, which of course won’t be clear for years.
In the meantime, residents have until August 22 to decide whether they want to accept the permit. up to $25,000 — as part of a $600 Million Class Action Suit Settlement with the railroad to compensate them for future health problems. However, accepting that money means giving up the right to sue later, when the cost of health insurance and the specific treatments needed become clearer.
Norfolk Southern spokesperson Heather Garcia said none of the workers who became ill during the cleanup “reported persistent or long-term symptoms.”
“The health and safety of our employees, contractors and community has been our top priority during the recovery in Eastern Palestine,” said Garcia.
Work on the creek cleanup continued, but nearly three weeks later another worker became ill. This time it was completely shut down. Although there have been other cleanup projects since then, they have stopped using high-pressure air knife tools.
Independent toxicologist George Thompson, who has been following the aftermath of the crash in Ohio, said the cleanup companies, overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency, should have known that the work they were doing would release chemicals from the sediment into the air and water. That was, in fact, what CTEH was monitoring as the project was underway. And with one of the main streams, Sulphur Run, running directly through the city and into culverts beneath homes and offices, Thompson said those chemicals could have seeped into buildings.
“You’re just spreading the chemicals around for exposure,” Thompson said. “And I just don’t think it was a deliberate decision to use air-knifing.”
Resident Jami Wallace said she lost her voice for two weeks after getting too close to one of the air knife machines that was parked in her driveway. She said when the machine was turned on, it felt like an invisible wall that gave off a sweet chemical smell, just like when the train derailed.
CTEH’s report was submitted to Unified Command, the group that oversees disaster response — which includes federal, state and local officials, along with Norfolk Southern — but no one has released it, despite significant public interest. CTEH’s chief toxicologist, Paul Nony, confirmed that the report was given to the command center and that officials there were alerted to the illnesses.
When CDC workers got sick – including with headaches and nausea – a heads rural.
Misti Allison, a resident of East Palestine, said not enough is being done to monitor the long-term health effects of the community, and this report substantiates their health concerns. She said this report should never have been hidden from the public.
“It’s absolutely outrageous and it shouldn’t be happening. I think any kind of information like this — like when the CDC workers came to the area and got sick — should be made public rather than covered up,” Allison said. “Especially when it comes to people’s health, nothing should be swept under the rug.”
The derailment in eastern Palestine that occurred on the night of February 3, 2023, was easily the worst rail disaster since a crude oil train leveled the small Canadian town of Lac Megantic, killing 47 people in 2013. It has led to a national reckoning over rail safety and calls for reform — though proposals for new industry regulations have been stuck in Congress.
Thirty-eight cars derailed, including 11 carrying hazardous materials such as butyl acrylate and vinyl chloride. A fire raged for days after the crash. Fearing that the five vinyl chloride cars would explode, officials at the time decided they unnecessarily blew it openand deliberately burned the toxic plastic ingredient.
That sent a huge plume of thick black smoke over the area. The NTSB determined that decision makers that day never received the key opinion — that the cars were unlikely to explode — from the chemical manufacturer.
The major freight railroads responded by pledging to install hundreds of additional detectors along the tracks across the country to help detect mechanical problems. They also rethought the way they respond to warnings and, even before warnings, the way they track rising temperatures caused by an overheated wheel bearing.
The completion of this summer the NTSB investigation The crash brought new hope that Congress could pass a rail safety bill, but little action has been taken beyond a House Hearing on this topic last month.
CTEH said its environmental testing around the creeks confirmed elevated levels of a range of chemicals in the air and sediment. However, the group found none of the two chemicals of most concern: vinyl chloride or butyl acrylate. Sediment testing at nine locations along the creeks where cleanup workers reported strong odors showed 37 different chemical compounds that were mostly hydrocarbons or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
That’s why CTEH said it was clear that some of the contamination in the creeks came from industries that operated in the area years before the 2023 derailment. Yet those compounds could also have come from chemicals burned after the train crash.
Nony, chief toxicologist at CTEH, said his company’s responsibility during the airstrike was primarily to monitor air quality.
The EPA has said it does not believe people are being exposed to toxic chemicals on an ongoing basis, as no concerning levels of the chemicals have been detected in air and water tests since evacuation orders were lifted.
In follow-up testing this year, the agency found small amounts of vinyl chloride and other chemicals at the crash site, but the agency said they did not pose a risk to human health because the amounts were small and the contaminated soil had been removed.
The overall clean-up efforts in Eastern Palestine are expected to be completed later this year.