Thread by @emeriticus

I interviewed East Palestine locals, contacted a controversial firm that Norfolk Southern hired to conduct testing, and examined how corporate lobbying and politics connect to put American communities on a collision course with disaster. open.substack.com/pub/contra/p/t… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

I also created a timeline of the crash.

The train derailed on Feb. 3, but it broke down at least once on the night of Feb. 1. It was hauling 151 cars, measuring 9,300 feet long, and weighing 18,000 tons.

Employees familiar with the Feb. 1 incident said there were concerns about the train's massive size. They spoke to CBS News anonymously about the matter for fear of retaliation from Norfolk Southern. cbsnews.com/news/ohio-trai….

Two days after the breakdown, at 8:12 p.m. on Feb. 3, a camera at the Butech Bliss manufacturing facility in Salem, Ohio, captured sparks or flames flashing underneath the ill-fated train about 20 miles from where it would derail.

The National Transportation Safety Board said that the crew was not notified by an alarm about an axle issue until the train passed a sensor just east of East Palestine, not far from where it ultimately derailed. ntsb.gov/investigations…

Shortly after it passed through Salem, the train derailed in East Palestine, near a Marathon Fuel gas station and behind a home heating oil supplier. A couple of teenagers leaving a high school basketball game saw an explosion and called the police.

The cars that derailed carried hazardous chemicals, including vinyl chloride, a toxic and flammable chemical used to make polyvinyl chloride or PVC that is extremely carcinogenic. Five of the cars that derailed contained a combined 115,580 gallons of vinyl chloride.

Mayor Trent Conaway was at the crash site within minutes. He said there were "some small explosions" at the scene. Emergency crews initially struggled because the trucks pumping water used by firefighters froze in the cold Ohio night. cbsnews.com/news/ohio-trai…

On Feb. 4, Conaway issued an emergency declaration. At first, the plan was to let the train burn and clear the site after Norfolk Southern deemed it safe. But by Sunday night on Feb. 5, Gov. Mike DeWine urged hundreds of people to evacuate immediately.

Then came the controlled burn on Feb. 6 when the chemical tanks threatened to explode.

Emergency crews dug trenches around the cars into which the vinyl chloride was poured and ignited with flares, unleashing a toxic mass that mushroomed toward the sky from the pits.

In a letter sent to DeWine on March 1, a union rep for the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees said emergency workers weren't given proper protective equipment and suffered migraines and nausea for days after. What he wrote is damning if even half accurate.

"I am writing to share with you the level of disregard that Norfolk Southern has for the safety of the railroad’s Workers, its track structure, and East Palestine and other American communities where NS operates."
ntsb.gov/investigations…

There's also controversy over how contaminated soil was handled.

A local who works with soil told me: "There was no removal of the contaminated soil. The tanks were pushed to the side, tracks were put in, and trains were running the day the evacuation order was lifted."

Mayor Conaway said the same thing: as soon as the mandatory evacuation order was lifted on the night of Feb. 8, Norfolk Southern trains started rolling--before residents could reopen their shops or return home. Conaway was furious. trains.com/trn/news-revie…

The trains were rolling again but for people like Zsuzsa Gyenes, the trouble had only begun. She fled her home around 3 am with her son after the train derailed on the night of Feb. 3. I spoke with her outside an EPA press conference.

Zsuzsa told me they didn't know what happened that night. They just knew there was trouble because all the sirens in the air. And then she had difficulty breathing and her asthmatic son started vomiting as their house filled with an awful smell.

She has been staying in a hotel with her son since the wreck. But the housing assistance is coming to an end and she doesn't know if it's safe to go home, considering her son also has asthma.

But who determines if it's safe in this case? A contractor hired by Norfolk Southern.

Norfolk Southern hired a firm called the he Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health (CTEH) to conduct testing in East Palestine. Zsuzsa has had a less than stellar experience with CTEH.

CTEH has been involved in several environmental incidents, including the BP oil spill, and has been criticized for always saying what corporations seem to want them to say: everything is fine, there is no reason to worry. archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.co…

Zsuzsa said a CTEH toxicologist told her they couldn't connect symptoms people are reporting to the train.

I contacted CTEH for a comment. They said: "We have not been made aware of symptoms in members of the community that are attributable to air quality in East Palestine."

CTEH: "Air monitoring data collected in the community indicates no short or long-term health risks concerning incident-related substances."

People in and near East Palestine continue to report everything from persistent headaches to rashes that they attribute to the derailment.

Zsuzsa's home was to be tested on Feb. 23. But when no one showed up, she called a Norfolk Southern rep to get some answers. According to Zsuzsa, this person said: "You need to talk to an attorney to be able to talk to anybody."

I tried to reach them for a comment but couldn't.

It's difficult for people to trust the authorities in charge of the cleanup for all the above reasons and more. It also doesn't help that Norfolk Southern spends a ton of money lobbying Democrats and Republicans. DeWine's own connections to the railroad company make locals itch.

For example, on Feb. 15, DeWine said in a press release that the "Ohio EPA is confident that the municipal water is safe to drink" after tests returned with "no detection of contaminants associated with the derailment." But those tests weren't done by state or local officials...

Instead, they were done by AECOM, a Dallas-based consulting firm hired by Norfolk Southern. DeWine received at least one contribution from AECOM last year. followthemoney.org/show-me?dt=1&d…

DeWine has also received thousands of dollars from Norfolk Southern. But so have many politicians. Here's a chart that shows Norfolk Southern's political giving over the years via the National Institute on Money in Politics.

Remember Troy Nehls criticizing JD Vance for telling people to avoid drinking tap water in East Palestine? Well... foxnews.com/politics/gop-r…

Nehls has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors in the transportation sector, according to Open Secrets. That includes railroad companies.

Nehls has also received donations from Norfolk Southern.

A report of the railroad company’s contributions to candidates and political committees shows it gave to Nehls directly during the 2022 general election.
nscorp.com/content/dam/ns…

But going back to DeWine: the governor has also been connected to Norfolk Southern through Dan McCarthy, who was DeWine's top lobbyist until he resigned amid a scandal in 2021.

In 2021, FirstEnergy agreed to pay a $230 million fine for bribing public officials in an effort to secure a $1 billion bailout for two nuclear plants in northern Ohio. cincinnati.com/story/news/pol…

FirstEnergy used a dark money group called Partners for Progress to that end, which it set up in 2017. At that time, McCarthy was president of Partners for Progress and a lobbyist for FirstEnergy.

According to his LinkedIn, McCarthy also led The Success Group, another lobbying firm, from 1994 to 2020, which overlapped with his tenure as DeWine's legislative director. governor.ohio.gov/media/news-and…

The Ohio Lobbying Activity Center database shows Norfolk Southern has employed the group to lobby on a wide array of railroad-related issues. www2.jlec-olig.state.oh.us/olac/Reports/F…

Norfolk Southern is the perfect villain in this story. Its top shareholders are Vanguard Group and BlackRock. But the truth is that incidents like these are the result of bipartisan neglect. nscorp.com/content/nscorp…

This thread is just a series of excerpts from the article. There is a lot more to the story that you can read here. contra.substack.com/p/the-poison-t…

And you can support my work by becoming a subscriber. contra.substack.com/subscribe