Officials within the state of Ohio have elected to slam a lawsuit against the railway titan Norfolk Southern via the federal court system as of this past Tuesday because of the recent train derailment disaster that took place in East Palestine and the chemical fallout that the event caused.
Residents of the tiny town situated solidly in the rust belt are still dealing with extreme issues after multiple weeks. Both state and local officials have previously pulled out all citizens that lived within a mile of the crash site and started to kick off a controlled burn of chemicals on the train cars as a means to drop the risk of a chemical controller. The suit, claims that Norfolk Southern should be held as the financially liable party for the derailment.
“Ohio shouldn’t have to bear the tremendous financial burden of Norfolk Southern’s glaring negligence,” explained Attorney General Dave Yost (R-OH) in a release. “The fallout from this highly preventable incident may continue for years to come, and there’s still so much we don’t know about the long-term effects on our air, water and soil.”
The train was carrying a batch of vinyl chloride, a well-known and highly carcinogenic compound utilized in the making of PVC piping was leaked and then subsequently lit on fire from a total of five train cars in the form of giant acrid plumes of dark smoke that could be seen from as far as western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. Analysts out of Texas A&M University and Carnegie Mellon University have stated that a total of 9 out of the 50 chemicals that the EPA stated were on board the crashed train now show a much higher concentration than normal in East Palestine, even in the wake of both federal and state officials claiming that the states water and air supplies were normal and safe.
Additionally, the EPA has pushed for Norfolk Southern to carry out tests for DIoxins, a category of pollutants that can spawn due to the burning of vinyl chloride and can end up binding to the very soil for multiple decades.
The suit further stated that the rates for accidents attributed to Norfolk Southern have risen by almost double over the past ten years and the company has been involved with at least 20 chemical releases since 2015. Officials therefore have sounded the call to demand reimbursement for all response costs “incurred and to be incurred” in the wake of the disaster.
“The state of Ohio is the owner in trust of public lands, waters, and resources within its political boundaries and has a duty to protect and preserve those natural resources,” the lawsuit went on. “Ohio brings this action to redress the derailment and the resulting contamination of Ohio’s natural resources, which has caused significant damage and poses a significant ongoing threat to Ohio’s natural resources and the citizens of Ohio.”
The teams of federal investigators have preliminarily found that the cause of the derailment was a malfunctioning rail axle. “Surveillance video from a residence showed what appears to be a wheel bearing in the final stage of overheat failure moments before the derailment,” the NTSB stated as part of a press release. “The wheelset from the suspected railcar has been collected as evidence for metallurgical examination.”
