The state attorney general made the lawsuit public on Tuesday (local time). He wanted damages, penalties and, above all, a clear statement that Norfolk Southern was responsible for the disaster, the US broadcaster CNBC quoted prosecutor Dave Yost as saying on Wednesday.
The lawsuit following the train wreck in the community of East Palestine in northeastern Ohio, not far from the Pennsylvania border, in early February includes a total of 58 counts of violations of state and federal laws governing the handling of hazardous substances, according to the broadcaster and the Washington Post and concrete environmental consequences of the accident.
Controversial decision
The train, with a total of 150 wagons, crashed around 9 a.m. on February 3 on its way from Madison, Illinois, to Conway, Pennsylvania. 38 wagons derailed, eleven of which had chemicals loaded, some caught fire and burned for around 48 hours. The contents of some wagons were “controlled” burned by order of the authorities. The question of how “controlled” this actually was and how reasonable the decision to do so is still debatable.
Dangerous chemicals blown into the air
According to reports from the US media, hydrogen chloride and carbon monoxide dichloride (known under the name phosgene as a chemical warfare agent from the First World War) were released. Residents within a 1.6 kilometer radius of the scene of the accident were brought to safety, rescue teams from Ohio, neighboring Pennsylvania and West Virginia were deployed.
For Attorney General Yost, the train accident was “absolutely avoidable”. He sees Norfolk Southern as having an obligation and, in a statement according to CNBC, referred to an 80 percent increase in accidents at the railway company over the past ten years. Citizens of Ohio would have to live with the consequences of the accident “for many years”.
Yost wants compensation for state spending, environmental damage, operational costs and economic damage suffered by residents of East Palestine. Shops complained about slumps in sales because people avoided the area. According to the lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio (OHND), the accident was one in a series of at least 20 since 2015 — including accidents involving dangerous goods.
“A lot of things we don’t know yet”
After the accident and the “controlled” burning of the chemicals from the train, residents complained about complaints. Railroad workers said they felt sick while the cleanup was taking place at the crash site, CNBC said.
According to the Ohio court lawsuit, after the freight train derailed, chemicals in the soil, including vinyl chloride, which is known to cause cancer, spilled into the Ohio River via surface water. There are “many things that we don’t know yet,” said Yost, such as whether there are long-term consequences for agriculture.
Fear of losing real estate value
Owners of houses and apartments feared that they would never be able to sell their properties because no one wanted to move to the area, making them practically worthless. Norfolk Southern said it would seek solutions to compensate for possible long-term consequences, including property depreciation.
Prosecutor Yost demands long-term monitoring of soil and groundwater samples. According to the Washington Post, the burning of chemicals from some tankers to avoid an acute risk of explosion three days after the accident caused protests.
Norfolk Southern accident investigation
The CEO of Norfolk Southern, Alan Shaw, recently promised before a US Senate committee in Washington that the rail company would completely clean up the scene of the accident and apologized for the consequences of the accident. The accident was “an epic disaster,” said Yost, and “cleaning up will be expensive.”
The US authorities also announced last week a special investigation into Norfolk Southern’s safety record. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said it would examine the railroad’s safety culture “given the number and importance of recent accidents.”
The announcement came just after a rail worker died in an accident at work – the third such incident at Norfolk Southern since 2021. “The NTSB is concerned that several organizational factors may be involved in the accidents, including safety culture,” it said it in the statement. The agency cited five serious accidents: three work-related fatalities since December 2021 and two trains derailed this year, including the freight train loaded with toxic chemicals.