East Palestine Toxic Train Crash Shows Plastics Industry Toll on Planet. Will U.S. Ban Vinyl Chloride?
Judith Enck and Monica Unseld | March 13, 2023 | Democracy Now!
Five weeks after the Norfolk Southern toxic train derailment and so-called controlled burn that blanketed the town with a toxic brew of at least six hazardous chemicals and gases, senators grilled the CEO of Norfolk Southern over the company’s toxic train derailment. The company has evaded calls to cover healthcare costs as residents continue to report headaches, coughing, fatigue, irritation and burning of the skin. For more on the ongoing fallout from the toxic crash, and its roots in the plastics industry, we are joined by Monica Unseld, a biologist and environmental and social justice advocate who has studied the health impact of endocrine-disrupting chemicals used in plastics like those released in East Palestine. She is executive director of Until Justice Data Partners and co-lead for the Coming Clean science team. Also joining us is Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator and president of Beyond Plastics whose recent Boston Globe op-ed is headlined “The East Palestine Disaster Was a Direct Result of the Country’s Reliance on Fossil Fuels and Plastic.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
Five weeks after the Norfolk Southern train disaster in the small town of East Palestine, Ohio, the company’s CEO Alan Shaw was grilled on Capitol Hill Thursday about the February 3rd derailment and so-called controlled burn that blanketed the town with a toxic brew of at least six hazardous chemicals and gases, including vinyl chloride, which, when heated, becomes phosgene, the World War I chemical weapon. Shaw testified before the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee just days after the third derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in the U.S. since that derailment in East Palestine. This is part of the exchange with Democratic Senator Ed Markey.
SEN. ED MARKEY: Am I correct, Mr. Shaw, that last year Norfolk Southern made $3.3 billion in profits?
ALAN SHAW: Yes, sir. And last year we invested over a billion dollars in safety. And last year, our accident rate — our number of accidents was the lowest it had been in the last 10 years. Our safety stats, Senator, continue to improve. And I am committed to making Norfolk Southern’s safety culture the best in the industry.
SEN. ED MARKEY: Well, you’re not having a good month. You’re not having a good month. And it seems like every week there’s another accident that Norfolk Southern is a part of.
AMY GOODMAN: During his testimony, Shaw also faced questions from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders about covering the health costs of those impacted by the toxic derailment.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: You talked about covering the needs of the people of East Palestine. Does that include paying for their healthcare needs, all of their healthcare needs?
ALAN SHAW: Senator, we’re going to do what’s right for the citizens of East Palestine.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: What’s right is to cover their healthcare needs. Will you do that?
ALAN SHAW: Everything is on the table, sir.
AMY GOODMAN: The Ohio Department of Health reports East Palestine residents continue to experience headaches, as well as coughing, fatigue, irritation, burning of the skin, after the train derailment. Many remain unsatisfied with the Environmental Protection Agency response and much of the testing that was carried out by contractors for Norfolk Southern, featured in a video the company posted online.
NARRATOR: Sarah Burnett is a toxicologist with CTEH, an environmental consulting firm. She’s one of dozens of scientists in East Palestine helping answer those questions about air quality.
INTERVIEWER: So, what do you say to them? What is that answer?
SARAH BURNETT: I say to them that we have detected no vinyl chloride or other constituents related to this incident in the air and that all of our air monitoring and sampling data collectively do not indicate any short- or long-term risks to them, their children or their families.
AMY GOODMAN: But a recent ProPublica exposé, published with The Guardian, cited independent experts who said the tests were inadequate for detecting the full range of dangerous chemicals possibly unleashed in the derailment, failed to sample the air long enough and did not prove residents’ homes were truly safe.
For more, we’re joined by two guests. In Louisville, Kentucky, a state that neighbors Ohio, Monica Unseld is with us, a biologist and environmental and social justice advocate who has studied the health impact of endocrine-disrupting chemicals used in plastics like those released in East Palestine. She is the founder and executive director of Until Justice Data Partners and co-lead for the Coming Clean science team of environmental health and justice advocates focused on the chemical and energy industries. And in Albany, the capital of New York, Judith Enck joins us, former EPA regional administrator and president of Beyond Plastics, whose recent New York Times op-ed is headlined “Why Has the E.P.A. Allowed the Horrific Situation in Ohio to Continue?” She also wrote a Boston Globe op-ed headlined “The East Palestine Disaster Was a Direct Result of the Country’s Reliance on Fossil Fuels and Plastic.”
Welcome you both to Democracy Now! Judith Enck, let’s begin with you. Talk about what you think has to be done right now with East Palestine, and then what you think caused it. I mean, you were the EPA regional director in this area. What should the government be doing? And what did Norfolk Southern do wrong?
JUDITH ENCK: Well, the governor — the government needs to do so much more, starting with: Why are we producing so much vinyl chloride? That is used for one purpose, and that is to manufacture plastic, PVC plastic. And so, part of that is risks associated where the manufacturing takes place, mostly in Black and Brown communities in Louisiana and Texas. You put this vinyl chloride on the train tracks. We know that there are, unfortunately, many derailments a year. And so, this accident happened.
I question whether it was smart to drain this known carcinogen into local ditches and set it on fire without evacuating enough people — the evacuation zone was only one mile by two miles — without putting testing in place, and then, just a few days later, lifting the evacuation order, telling people that it was safe for them to return, with very limited testing. Dioxin testing didn’t happen until a month later, after pressure from the public and media cycles calling out the EPA. And then, unfortunately, the EPA asked the polluter here, the rail company, to do the testing.
And the dioxin testing, I think, is far too limited. We need surface testing inside people’s homes. Most people spend most of their time indoors. And volatile organic compounds, other contaminants will settle on people’s kitchen counters, rugs where kids crawl, furniture. None of those surface areas have ever been tested.
The reason I think we’re seeing this problem is because the EPA is deferring much too much to the state of Ohio. And starting today, I think they need to turn the page, assert more leadership and put public health protection front and center.
Listen to the interview and read the full transcript here. >>
