East Palestine,Ohio:One year after a freight train full of hazardous chemicals derailed near her home in regional Ohio,Ashley McCollum is still too scared to return.
The 34-year-old mother has lived in a hotel in a neighbouring town since March,haunted by memories of the fiery crash that forced residents to evacuate as almost 400,000 litres of cancer-linked gases seeped into the air,soil,and creeks.
“We’ve had maybe a handful of home-cooked meals since we’ve been gone because all we have is a microwave and a mini fridge,” McCollum tells me as she sits in the subsidised Best Western hotel room she shares with boyfriend,her seven-year-old son and two dogs.
“But honestly,I’d rather be here than in town. Every time I went back I’d have some kind of reaction. I would have rashing,I would have excessive bowel movements,stomach cramping,eyes burning,a chemical taste in my mouth,lips tingling,ear pain…
“Now I’m terrified to go home. I don’t want to be forced to live somewhere only to find out in 10 years that the whole town was contaminated.”
But the mushroom cloud that once hung over East Palestine has been replaced with a shadow of uncertainty,fear,and distrust.
On one side are residents who believe there are still risks and want ongoing support:health care,indoor air and water testing,and financial aid.
They say that more should be done to hold Norfolk Southern to account,and are frustrated that things such as relocation funding,which helped locals like McCollum pay for food and lodging over the past year,are ending this month.
Some locals are still finding chemical sheen in creeks,while others insist they can still smell chemicals after it rains.
And some hope that East Palestine is a wake-up call for broader reform,such as better rail safety standards and a ban on the use of vinyl chloride,a colourless gas that is linked to higher risks of cancer,which was one of the toxic materials that derailed that night.
“The rail transport of vinyl chloride actually puts millions of people at risk across 2000 miles of tracks,” says Beyond Plastics director Jess Conard.
Signs line the streets declaring:“We are East Palestine;Get ready for the Greatest Comeback in American history.”
Importantly,too,fish are back in the streams,after tens of thousands were killed following the crash.
But Elzer reckons the one thing that’s holding the community back is the community itself.
“It’s hard because we still have people that are claiming everything is bad and won’t let it go,” she tells me during a quiet moment at her greenhouse.
“Our house is just under a third of a mile from where the train derailed and we’ve never had any symptoms.
“So I do think there’s a stigma to all this. Before this happened,we would tell people,‘Oh,we’re north of Pittsburgh,south of Youngstown,that’s where we’re located’. But we don’t have to do that any more. Everyone has heard of East Palestine.”
Botched response from the start
The incident that catapulted East Palestine into the global spotlight took place around 8:54pm on Friday,February 3,2023,when a wheel bearing on a 2.7-kilometre-long freight train barrelling towards Ohio began to overheat.
By the time the operating crew realised what was happening and managed to stop the vehicle,dozens of railcars had already come off the tracks.
Eleven of them contained toxic chemicals such as butyl acrylate,ethylene glycol,and vinyl chloride,which is used to make plastic.
Authorities had two options:do nothing and wait for an overheating railcar to explode,which could have resulted in “catastrophic” shrapnel firing in every direction for almost two kilometres;or conduct a controlled burn to release toxic vinyl chloride into the air,in a bid to stop the explosion.
Authorities chose the latter. Not long after,residents began reporting everything from respiratory problems and skin rashes,to fish kills and chickens found dead in their coops.
However,an analysis by this masthead of expert testimony and data suggests the response was botched from the start.
For instance,witnesses who testified before the National Transport Safety Board investigating the derailment have called into question the vent-and-burn decision,arguing that the tank cars in question were not undergoing a chemical reaction that would have caused them to explode.
Scientists have also pointed to the EPA’s early reliance on testing equipment that wasn’t sensitive enough to measure butyl acrylate,another colourless gas that can target the eyes,skin,and respiratory system. Those faulty test results were then used to lift the initial evacuation order.
Locals also weren’t getting the information they needed from the EPA or Norfolk Southern,leading to a sense of distrust that continues until now.
‘Like Lord of the Flies’
Local chiropractor Rick Tsai is still convinced that residents are being lied to,and is so fed up with what he describes as “spineless” politicians that he has decided to run as a Republican for a newly vacant Ohio seat in the US Congress.
In the aftermath of the crash,Tsai began his own independent testing of the creeks that weave through East Palestine,and recorded contamination levels twice as bad as the EPA.
Like many other residents,he also got sick,suffering headaches,sore joints and diarrhoea that lasted for weeks.
While he hasn’t experienced any symptoms in a while,footage he took from earlier this year shows him dredging up chemical sheen from a local waterway. Evidence,Tsai says,of ongoing contamination.
“For the entire year,I’ve been documenting those creeks,and much of what the EPA has told us is a lie,” he says.
“So I’m putting these videos up on YouTube and I’m getting reactions like,‘Shut up,Norfolk Southern is going to cancel the money for the park’,or,‘Shut up,people aren’t going to want to come here and spend money in our town’. ”
“It’s likeLord of the Flies,where everyone breaks off into factions and everybody hates each other when they were once friends. We’ve got brothers and sisters and families fighting each other over this.”
While the EPA insists that it does not have “any sign” of contamination in the town’s water,air or soil,research from an independent environmental group the Three Rivers Waterkeeper suggests otherwise.
In November,the group tested water from Sulphur Run,the creek that cuts through the middle of East Palestine,and found much higher levels of contamination across 15 different types of carcinogenic chemicals.
Executive director Heather Hulton Vantassel notes that differences in the creek levels and flow of water could account for the discrepancy,but to allay any concerns,she believes it is incumbent on the EPA to be more transparent about contamination levels and future health risks.
Back at the Best Western hotel about 20 kilometres from the crash site,Ashleigh McCollum couldn’t agree more as she reflects on the lingering trauma East Palestine still suffers.
She remembers the wail of firetrucks that night,weaving through her once-quiet neighbourhood to the scene of an unfolding environmental disaster.
‘We didn’t ask for any of this.’
East Palestine resident Ashley McCollum
She remembers,too,the look of panic on her son’s face as they fled:first to her mother’s house,and eventually to the hotel room where her family has been relocated for almost a year.
And she remembers life before the disaster:camping in chemical-free parks,eating crayfish from a clean creek,enjoying her house near the railway tracks.
“Now that’s all gone,” she says. “We didn’t ask for any of this.”
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