On April 9, Norfolk Southern, the railroad responsible for the February, 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, settled a class action lawsuit for $600 million. The train was carrying 700,000 pounds of toxic vinyl chloride, which rail officials, fearing an explosion, set on fire, sending up huge plumes of black smoke. In the settlement Norfolk Southern didn’t admit liability or fault.
The East Palestine train derailment received widespread news coverage that brought intense scrutiny from government regulators and Congress. In addition to the announced settlement, over the past year the railroad made $100 million in payments to the town and residents impacted by the chemical fire.
The management of the train derailment in East Palestine stands in stark contrast with how another industrial accident in Louisiana was handled. In August 2023 — six months after the East Palestine incident — a chemical release and fire at the Marathon Petroleum Company’s refinery in St. John the Baptist parish led to a mandatory evacuation for several hours before residents were given the all-clear to return. There’s been almost no media coverage beyond the initial incident. Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Julie Dermansky, an independent multimedia journalist who lives in the New Orleans area. She covered the Marathon refinery fire, but also continued investigating the accident long after the rest of the media left the scene. Here she describes what was learned about the industrial accident by sticking with the story.
JULIE DERMANSKY: There was what they call a “pollution incident” at the Marathon refinery, which is about an hour and 15-minute drive from where I am. I looked at the exclusion zone, because there was a shelter in place (order) and then an evacuation, and so I made sure to go where I wouldn’t have to fight to get in, so I could get some images as fast as possible. Which is kind of funny in this case, because it’s part of the story. I could have just driven right to the place. They never closed off the area. So a lot of community residents who live within a mile or less in this one neighborhood that’s close by, didn’t even know. So, you know, the black smoke was going everywhere, and as you often hear in pollution incidents, you’re told, “Oh, there’s nothing to see here. It’s all contained within the facility and there’s no danger to the public.” Right?
Later that afternoon, the incident was under control and all the media left, but like usual I just went on covering it, and that’s when things get interesting because the incident was on a Friday, and a lot of the public doesn’t realize that we barely as a society have media on the weekend anymore, because no one wants to pay and the stations can get away with a skeleton crew. So no one was really paying attention.
Well, I got a tip from someone about a livestream on Facebook that the fire had restarted. So, I see this clip and this worker is holding his cell phone, and he’s like, “Oh my God,” and “Look at this” and “What are we doing here?”
I’m like, Is this real? And it was from 9 o’clock and it was about 11, so I contacted the Help number on the sheriff’s site to see if the fire was still going because I didn’t necessarily want to drive out there for something that wasn’t real, and they wouldn’t tell me anything. And then I come to realize the number I had called was actually for a company that was handling the press and media for the company, which, if you think about it, that’s kind of messed up. So, on the sheriff’s website, you call a number thinking you’re getting local help, and you’re actually getting a representative from the company.
So, I went out there and the flames I’d seen in the video that morning, which were real, had gotten under control, but it was still smoking and whatever. But I drove right up as close as I could to that tank and the video, I’ll give you will show it was smoky and the chemicals were really bad, and, anyway, the stories that we come across, you think they’re over because there’s kind of a footnote from the media and they all pick up and go, but they keep going and that’s when it gets interesting. So, I went the next day as well, because I wanted to see what was going on, if it was really out, because there was nowhere to get the news.
And the second day, on Sunday, they did finally get the smoke out completely, but that’s when things got interesting. I saw different people on the ground and I just took pictures of all of the cars and their logos, and I found that one of the groups of people there were actually the same cleanup crew that were on the ground after the Ohio incident in Palestine where the train derailed and all the chemicals. And, you know, if I hadn’t gone back, I would never have known that.
MELINDA TUHUS: It was interesting you mentioned East Palestine, because, of course there was just the settlement announced. There were a lot of chemicals that were released. It was sort of the same thing – “nothing to see here, nobody’s in danger,” but the people who are living there are living with definite impacts to their health. How did that play out in Louisiana?
JULIE DERMANSKY: No one will ever really know what they had to breathe in, because nobody monitored it. The state government could easily say, “Well, there were no dangerous toxins because they don’t necessarily monitor for what they were.” To get the information, you really have to press to get it. I don’t think people realize that if they don’t take matters into their own hands, like the people learned in East Palestine, we don’t get what we need necessarily. And people in Louisiana did not get what they needed.
The biggest information and news around this story was when can the Marathon refinery remain operational? And most of it never really shut down, because God forbid anything business connected to oil and gas closes down, so we have to keep it running. So, there’s an undertone of that when you’re covering these things, but the community members really never got the information of what they breathed in, and if it was safe and if the chemicals penetrated their homes the way they did in Ohio.
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