It’s about time: Ohio is suing Norfolk Southern over the toxic train derailment that’s left the residents of East Palestine paralyzed with fear. The safety of the drinking water has been called into question, as residents have noticed scores of dead fish and livestock in the immediate area. Locals are experiencing health issues, and workers at the crash site are also falling ill with nausea and migraines. To further complicate matters, crash site laborers weren’t given enough personal protective gear and had little to no training regarding these clean-up efforts. Rubber gloves were reportedly in short supply (via WaPo):
Ohio is suing Norfolk Southern after one of the railroad’s trains that was carrying toxic chemicals derailed, leading to an environmental disaster.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) announced the lawsuit in a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
A Norfolk Southern train was carrying hazardous chemicals such as vinyl chloride and butyl acrylate when it derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 3. The cars caught fire and surrounding residents were forced to evacuate. Authorities released a toxic plume of chemicals three days later to avoid a potential explosion.
The Environmental Protection Agency is enforcing Norfolk Southern’s cleanup and is monitoring the effects of the derailment and chemical release.
Tensions have boiled over as residents hurled their anger and frustration at Norfolk Southern’s representative at a recent town hall event while others were calling for a total evacuation of the town. These people have nowhere to go. And the only option to facilitate that move—a buyout of local properties—isn’t being considered. However, Biden is willing to give the fat cat bankers at Silicon Valley Bank, which recently collapsed, a soft bailout on deposit securities.
Top Biden officials took nearly a month to do much of anything regarding this devolving environmental fiasco in Ohio. It took Biden two weeks to recognize it as a disaster worthy of federal relief funds, blocking past efforts to get FEMA resources out there. And it took almost three weeks for Pete Buttigieg to get out there and showcase the latest in Brooks Brothers’ disaster gear to locals, and he hasn’t done much since. It took him even longer to recognize that East Palestine was a pressing domestic crisis. It's the blind leading the blind in Washington under Biden.
Let’s hope something positive comes out of the lawsuit.