Another Norfolk Southern freight train derailment was reported on Thursday as CEO Alan Shaw testified before the Senate Environment and Public Health Committee examining the earlier derailment of a train carrying hazardous chemicals that caused an environmental disaster in East Palestine, Ohio. Shaw apologized multiple times to the residents of East Palestine but avoided making firm commitments to…
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At a town hall meeting in East Palestine, Ohio Thursday night, hundreds of residents had their first chance to directly confront the rail company responsible for the train derailment that took place in the town last month, and used the opportunity to share their outrage over Norfolk Southern’s failure to keep residents safe following its release of toxic chemicals from the crash site.
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Residents and officials in Harris County, Texas have expressed alarm since learning that contaminated water used to extinguish a fiery train crash in East Palestine, Ohio has been transported more than 1,300 miles to a Houston suburb for disposal. Houston’s Coalition for Environment, Equity, and Resilience tweeted Thursday: “We are disturbed to learn that toxic wastewater from East Palestine…
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Norfolk Southern allows a monitoring team to instruct crews to ignore alerts from train track sensors designed to flag potential mechanical problems. ProPublica learned of the policy after reviewing the rules of the company, which is engulfed in controversy after one of its trains derailed this month, releasing toxic flammable gas over East Palestine, Ohio. The policy applies specifically to the…
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Facing intense scrutiny and backlash over the toxic derailment of one of its trains in eastern Ohio, Norfolk Southern on Wednesday reached a deal with a leading rail union to provide up to a week of paid sick leave per year to around 3,000 track maintenance workers. Under the agreement, Norfolk Southern will immediately give four workdays of paid sick leave annually to maintenance employees who…
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ordered Norfolk Southern to conduct and pay for the cleanup of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, as the railroad company faces widespread criticism for releasing and burning toxic chemicals in recent weeks. The EPA announced on Tuesday that Norfolk Southern must identify contaminated soil and water in East Palestine and clean it up…
The Supreme Court is deciding whether to intervene in the private prosecution that sent embattled environmental lawyer and human rights activist Steven Donziger to federal prison and nearly 1,000 days under house arrest. The court’s decision whether to take up his case, which could come as soon as this week, could rewrite the separation of powers between the three branches of the federal…
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The toxic clouds that billowed up from a derailed freight train in Ohio earlier this month are a chilling metaphor for the toxic greed that has infected so many of our big corporations. After having to evacuate, residents of the town near the derailment are cautiously going back home, but they still don’t know the full extent of the damage to the area’s environment and public health.
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Thousands of people in East Palestine, Ohio, have been assured by the state Environmental Protection Agency and Republican Gov. Mike DeWine that the town’s municipal water has not been contaminated by the train derailment that took place in the town earlier this month, but the only publicly available data comes from testing that was funded by the company behind the crash. As HuffPost reported late…
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Last week a train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, sending 50 cars carrying toxic chemicals careening off their tracks. The resulting fire burned for days, forcing hundreds of evacuations and blanketing the small village on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border in smoke. Runoff from the site contaminated two streams nearby. Over the next week, as officials worked to avoid a deadly explosion that could…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.