Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include a statement from Norfolk Southern that was received after the original time of publication.
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio (NewsNation) — Ashley McCollum looked out her back door on Feb. 3 and thought her town was on fire.
More than three months later, McCollum continues to live at a hotel about 10 miles from East Palestine. She’s one of many residents displaced by the Norfolk Southern train derailment that released flames, smoke and toxic chemicals throughout the surrounding area.
On Tuesday, she joined her neighbors in spelling out a list of demands for city, state and federal officials that ranged from paid relocation, independent water testing, and that the state of Ohio to declare her hometown a major disaster area.
“It’s kind of like we’re saying, ‘Hey, we have to live here,'” McCollum said. “No one’s paying attention to it anymore.”
The community group Unity Council for the East Palestine Train Derailment hosted a town hall meeting Tuesday, rife with concerns about chemical exposure from the February wreck. More than three months have passed since a train carrying vinyl chloride derailed in the otherwise scenic Ohio town. Many of East Palestine’s nearly 5,000 residents say their needs have yet to be met.
“We shouldn’t have to fight this hard to get the care and things that we need,” Columbiana resident Kim Rankin said. “This is ridiculous. We should have had this a long time ago.”
The group’s demands include:
- Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issues an emergency or major disaster declaration to allow full recovery support of the federal government
- Norfolk Southern, through coordination of the federal government, must fund relocation for anyone who feels unsafe in their home
- Norfolk Southern must provide funding to residents who wish to seek independent medical and environmental testing for the next 30 years
- Norfolk Southern must supply residents with proper filtration devices and communicate more efficiently to be inclusive of all residents
- Norfolk Southern must dispose of all toxic waste created by the train derailment safely and far away from the affected communities
So far, waste has been shipped out of state, but some was scheduled to go to a half-hour north to East Liverpool, Ohio.
Fear of continued chemical exposure is widespread, influencing whether residents will sleep at their homes or drink the local water.
“We don’t want it in our backyard,” board member Hilary Flint said.
Those who evacuated their homes grabbed what they could and piled their families into hotel rooms miles away. Some return occasionally, leaving before a headache sets in, they said.
Others left for good. Businesses suffered. Community members’ health took a turn and now many residents of East Palestine, nestled close to the Pennsylvania-Ohio border an hour away from Pittsburgh, think they’ve been left to pick up the pieces on their own.
Two representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency attended Tuesday’s meeting. They said residents’ concerns were heard and taken seriously but did not comment specifically on any demands.
“We paid close attention,” EPA Chief of Staff Alfred Saucedo said.
Representatives from Norfolk Southern and the city government did not attend.
Norfolk Southern provided NewsNation with the following comment Wednesday, after residents’ demands were published:
“We continue to handle many of requests of this nature (such as reimbursing independent testing or temporary relocation during remediation work) case-by-case through the Family Assistance Center,” spokesperson Connor Spielmake said in an email.
Since the derailment, more than an estimated 39,000 tons of solid waste and 16.6 million tons of liquid waste have been shipped from the site, according to the EPA. The agency facilitated more than 600 indoor air screenings and collected upward of 500 private well samples. Excavation of the track is still underway, a task the EPA expects Norfolk Southern to complete by the end of May.
Locals’ trust in the U.S. EPA, however, is eroding. And because the results of official testing so far are mostly preliminary, many feel the guesswork has been left for those living in East Palestine.
In March, an independent environmental firm identified “probable carcinogens” in river water around East Palestine that it says the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency did not find. The Ohio EPA stated it stood by its results.
“You can find what you don’t look for,” Scott Smith, chief sustainability officer at ECO Integrated Technologies, Inc., said, speaking of the EPA’s testing.
Smith is working with a team to conduct free, independent environmental testing for East Palestine residents, many of whom say they can no longer sit in their front porches or play with their children in their backyards.
“It’s like everyone’s crying out to them saying we don’t feel safe,” McCollum said. “We don’t feel comfortable.”