Poison train disaster turns American town into plaything for outsiders

“We’ve been drinking bottled water for 20 years,” says Gary Mackell. “We live next door to a farmer who injects god knows what chemicals into his soil.”

A sign ‘H₂0′ points to the parking lot behind the tracks in East Palestine, Ohio. About ten men and women hand out packs of water bottles. They are among the large contingent of volunteers who have traveled to East Palestine in recent days to help residents in the aftermath of a major train accident that has led to toxic spills into the air and water – hence the water bottles.

Whether it was or will be an environmental catastrophe is still unclear two and a half weeks after the accident, and that’s what worries the residents of this town on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border the most. “We want to know where we stand, but no one has answers,” says Mackell. “They know, but they don’t want to say it,” says his wife Trudy.

On February 3, a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed just outside the town. The devastation has been captured on photos and video footage: dozens of tank wagons like a garland around the rails. At least one car burned long before the train passed through East Palestine. Immediately after the derailment, it was found that the carcinogenic vinyl chloride, building block for PVC, had escaped from a tank. Residents were advised to leave, especially after an explosion risk had been determined.

On February 6, it was decided to allow the five wagons with vinyl chloride to be emptied ‘in a controlled manner’ into a ditch. The gas was burned in it and a thick, black plume of smoke passed over the town. “The cloud was so thick that my son’s doorbell started ringing,” says Mackell.

Seventies Gary and Trudy Mackell are on their way to church with their friend Val Spann, bringing two packs of water bottles. As endless freight trains from the same Norfolk Southern company pass every 15 minutes, they list what has happened to the residents of East Palestine in the past two weeks.

A neighbor has lost four cows and got spots on his lungs. There are hardly any animals to be seen in the town. His brother owns ten rental houses and he is concerned about the income: who will want to live in East Palestine in the future? A friend of the Mackells was asleep when the plume of smoke passed over the town and is still unable to speak normally. Trudy is having trouble breathing. Yes, she had that before, years of working as a hairdresser affected her lungs, but after the accident it got much worse.

Conflicting messages

After the accident, the train company sent cleaning teams, which are still everywhere in East Palestine two weeks later: a group of employees of cleaning company HEPACO is standing by the creek in which they have placed absorbent sponges through which they flush water under pressure – the team leader refers for all questions to Norfolk South. A road sweeper drives with steel brushes over the access roads to the closed area. Air meters wrapped in plastic bags hang from the electricity poles.

Communication was unclear, with conflicting messages fueling mistrust among residents. After five days, water and air were declared clean and everyone was allowed to go home. But then came the announcement that those who get their water from their own well must continue to use bottled water for the time being.

Norfolk Southern failed to attend an information meeting last Wednesday, said to be out of concern for employee safety. The company has deposited $1 million in a fund for the town. Residents were offered $1,000 in compensation. The mayor expressed his dissatisfaction with Norfolk Southern’s position at the meeting. The inhabitants were loudly angry.

It took almost two weeks for a first nationwide driver to show up in East Palestine: Michael Regan of the federal environmental agency EPA, who reiterated that measurements show that water and air are safe. Opposition politicians in Washington, meanwhile, saw their chance and accused the media-savvy Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, of invisibility, and over his head they also tried to damage President Biden. “It’s very unwise for the government to leave things to Norfolk Southern,” says local Chevrolet dealer Tom Brittain, on whose property the water distribution takes place. “You never know which interest weighs more heavily for such a company, that of us residents or of their own company.”

Personal injury lawyers

For example, East Palestine has been taken over by outsiders in recent weeks. The volunteers, the cleaning crews, journalists and personal injury lawyers. Major law firms have sent lawyers from Rhode Island, New York and Washington to encourage residents to file damages claims. And next week more high visitors will arrive.

Erin Brockovich, immortalized as an environmental activist in the feature film of the same name (Oscar for Julia Roberts in the lead role), announced that she would come to East Palestine. She was on Twitter both critical of the Biden administration (“doing more than your predecessor is not enough”) and of the Republican governor who initially rejected federal aid.

Initially, Brockovich would come on Thursday, but on Sunday she announced that it will be a day later, “because the circus is coming to town”. That ‘circus’ is Donald Trump, who sees the anger of the residents as a good opportunity to underline his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election. It will be a home game for the presidential candidate on Thursday: he received almost three times as many votes as Joe Biden in this district in 2020. Democratic politicians tweet at the loudest that the EPA was cut off under President Trump.

Read also: Crucial environmental agency US is still ‘crippled’ after four years of Trump

Letter to the Philippians

In the First Church of Christ, a pastor in the early Sunday service reads from Paul’s letter to the Philippians: “Do not be anxious about anything, but ask God what you need and give thanks in all your prayers.” And he admonishes the small hundred churchgoers to “stick to the facts and not chase the hype.” In their benches, the faithful swallow a plastic cup in one gulp: red lemonade and a tiny wafer form a do-it-yourself communion.

Afterwards, the Mackells talk to Auxiliary Priest Ryan, who is pleased with Trudy Mackell’s fundraisers. Her thirteen-year-old grandson is terrified, she says. “He keeps asking: will I get cancer?” They are grateful for all the help that comes their way. The church phone is ringing red. “People call from Oregon and say, if you know someone who has to leave their home, we can accommodate someone here.” They laugh: Oregon is three time zones from East Palestine.

The melancholy horn of another train sounds from outside. Floods, wildfires, hurricanes and now this train crash: “God is rattling us,” says Trudy. “He wants us to pay attention.”

On Tuesday, Gary and Trudy Mackell go to a meeting with a lawyer. “He works with New York lawyers who specialize in train disasters,” says Gary. Do they hope to get more clarity about the facts and situation in court? No, says Trudy: “Our son says: you have to hit them in their wallets, that’s the only place where they feel something.”