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, US broadcaster CNBC said, quoting prosecutor Dave Yost on Wednesday.
The lawsuit following the train crash in the northeast Ohio community of East Palestine, 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 substances. dangerous, according to the broadcaster. and the Washington Post and the concrete environmental consequences of the accident.
controversial decision
The train, with a total of 150 carriages, crashed at around 9:00 am on February 3 while traveling from Madison, Illinois to Conway, Pennsylvania. 38 railcars derailed, eleven of which were loaded with chemicals, some caught fire and burned for about 48 hours. The contents of some wagons were “controlled” and burned by order of the authorities. The question of how “controlled” this actually was and how reasonable the decision to do so was is still moot.
AP/Gene J. Puskar A plume of black smoke hung over the crash site for days
Dangerous chemicals released into the air
According to US media reports, hydrogen chloride and carbon monoxide dichloride (known under the name of phosgene as a World War I chemical warfare agent) were released. Residents within a mile radius of the crash site were brought to safety, rescuers from Ohio, neighboring Pennsylvania and West Virginia were mobilized.
For Attorney General Yost, the train accident was “absolutely preventable”. He sees Norfolk Southern as having an obligation and, in a statement according to CNBC, referred to an 80% increase in accidents at the rail company over the last ten years. Ohio citizens would have to live with the consequences of the accident “for years to come”.
Yost wants compensation for state spending, environmental damage, operating costs and economic damage suffered by residents of East Palestine. Stores complained of falling sales as 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.
“Many things we still don’t know”
After the accident and the “controlled” burning of the train’s chemicals, residents complained of complaints. Rail workers said they felt ill while cleaning up at the crash site, CNBC reported.
IMAGO/MediaPunch/mpi34 Fear of long-term environmental consequences
According to the Ohio court filing, after the freight train derailed, chemicals in the ground, including vinyl chloride, which is known to cause cancer, spilled into the Ohio River via surface water. There are “a lot of things we still don’t know,” Yost said, as if there are long-term consequences for agriculture.
Fear of losing real estate value
Home and apartment owners feared they would never be able to sell their properties because no one wanted to move into the area, making them virtually worthless. Norfolk Southern said it would seek solutions to offset potential long-term consequences, including property depreciation.
The Yost promoter requires long-term monitoring of soil and groundwater samples. According to the Washington Post, the burning of chemicals from some tanker trucks to avoid an acute risk of explosion three days after the accident sparked protests.
Norfolk Southern accident investigation
Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw recently pledged before a US Senate committee in Washington that the rail company would thoroughly clean up the crash site and apologized for the fallout from the accident. The crash was “an epic disaster”, Yost said, and “cleaning up will be expensive”.
AP/Gene J. Puskar War footage from the scene of an accident
US authorities also last week announced 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 significance of recent accidents”.
The announcement came on the heels of the death of a railway worker in a work accident – the third such incident at Norfolk Southern since 2021. “The NTSB is concerned that a number of organizational factors may have been involved in the accidents, including safety culture,” it said. in the statement. The agency cited five serious accidents: three work-related deaths since December 2021 and two trains derailed this year, including the freight train loaded with toxic chemicals.