One Year After Toxic Train Derailment, Residents Still Seeking Help on Disaster Health Impacts

Interview with Hilary Flint, co-founder of the group, Unity Council for the East Palestine, Ohio Train Derailment, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

Feb. 3 marked the one-year anniversary of the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio near the Pennsylvania border. Toxic and carcinogenic chemicals were released when the cars jumped the track and more escaped when the railroad intentionally blew up five tankers full of vinyl chloride in a “controlled burn” that the railroad said averted a potentially more dangerous explosion.

Despite assurances from state and federal officials that the housing in town and the surrounding area was safe, many residents are still experiencing health impacts and fear contracting cancer and other serious ailments as time goes on.  President Biden is scheduled to visit East Palestine on Feb. 16.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Hilary Flint, who lives in a Pennsylvania town four miles from East Palestine.  She works with many local activist groups and co-founded the Unity Council for East Palestine Train Derailment. Here she talks about conditions residents are coping with one year after the toxic rail accident and the assistance they still need to deal with ongoing health impacts.

HILARY FLINT: So, I think that what people don’t necessarily realize is that what happened a year ago isn’t over. We’re still very much in an active clean up zone, so there are millions of gallons of wastewater; there are still tons of soil in the area. So, while we’re a year out, there really isn’t a lot of progress, unfortunately. So, the community still doesn’t have access to comprehensive health care. We still do not have indoor air testing. Our creeks are still contaminated and that cleanup is not close to complete.

MELINDA TUHUS: Is it the railroad that’s responsible for all the cleanup?  Is the federal government involved, or any governmental entity?

HILARY FLINT: I think in the beginning the communities that were affected in Ohio and Pennsylvania were very much expecting that the government would step in and we’d have the help we needed. We thought the EPA would help us out. That didn’t necessarily happen. We thought our municipal or state government would help out. That didn’t really happen. So, after about a month of waiting for answers, we started organizing as a community. So I helped start a group called Unity Council for the East Palestine Train Derailment and we are just kind of the conduit for a lot of the different nonprofits coming in, a lot of the different research studies, so we’re kind of the middle person between these outside agencies and the communities affected, kind of coordinating everything.

There’s been a great response from the nonprofits. Clean Air Council helped get people indoor air purifiers. The organization I work for, Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community, we’re helping get filtered water pitchers out to homes. There’s been everyday residents who’ve stepped up. So there’s a chiropractor in Darlington Township, PA, Dr. Chai – who was just getting bottled water for community members on an ongoing basis. He’s actually running for state representative right now. So, it’s really [spurred] a lot of activism from everyday community members.

MELINDA TUHUS: That’s really interesting. So, the chiropractor is running specifically as a result of this catastrophe and people’s response to it?

HILARY FLINT: Yeah. What our community experienced – the help that we needed it, we didn’t get it. So, there were different ways people responded to that. So we have Dr. Chai; there was a woman, Misti Allison, who ran for East Palestine mayor, and even though she was not able to beat the incumbent, she is still very much involved in the local advocacy. We had everyday residents who became watchdogs. We call them our creek rangers. So they go down to the creeks, which are heavily polluted with benzene compounds, and they take photos and they take videos and take different orgs down to do testing. So it’s been very interesting to see how people who have never been involved in this line of work really stepped up, when the entities that exist, didn’t.

MELINDA TUHUS: I know a lot of health impacts – if they develop – would take a long time, but what has the community seen in terms of health impacts?

HILARY FLINT: A lot of the things that we initially experienced we are experiencing to this day. So, upper respiratory infections. Something that feels like a sinus infection, so just constant runny nose, pressure in the head, migraines, dizziness, itchy eyes, skin rashes – so those are some of the things that have continued to be a problem. We’re having a lot of issues with bloody noses, both in children and adults. So, for example, if I spend more than two days in a row at my home in Enid Valley, PA, I get a nosebleed, and that nosebleed will continue every day that I’m there. So, the very serious health impacts I think could come later on down the road, but we are still having everyday health impacts, even a year later.

MELINDA TUHUS: Wasn’t benzene one of the chemicals that was released? And that’s a known carcinogen.

HILARY FLINT: Quite a few known carcinogens, many probable carcinogens. And unfortunately, there’s not a lot of existing studies on combined toxic exposure, and that’s one of the big problems here, is that no one can tell us definitively if we’re safe, because the data just doesn’t exist.

So, you know, we’re just over a year out and there are still things that we need. Number One being a major disaster declaration. [The incident] was upgraded to a major disaster and it sat on Biden’s lap. And it would open up things such as Section 1881a of the Affordable Care Act, which would give every resident affected by the train derailment Medicare for life. That’s the least we can do to safeguard our community members.

For more information, follow the Unity Council for East Palestine Train Derailment Facebook group at Facebook.com/groups/758398132306434 and Unity Council for East Palestine Train Derailment on Twitter @UnityCouncilEP.

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