No one in the country wants toxins dumped in their backyard from the Norfolk Southern train derailment in early February that hit the small town of East Palestine, Ohio, exposing a local population of 5,000 and many more living in proximity.
The latest request to dump the toxic wastewater was denied by Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. Clean Harbors, a wastewater management company, had proposed that 675,000 gallons of wastewater be hauled from East Palestine to Baltimore’s city-operated Black River Wastewater Treatment Plant. Scott sends apologies, but the answer is no. Who blames him?
Residents are experiencing headaches, rashes and diarrhea, and in a copper plant downstream from the derailment site, employees complain of trouble breathing and skin falling off their hands. In the nearby community of Negley, people experience trouble chewing and swollen fingers. Animals were among the first to show signs of chemical exposure.
East Palestine, sitting along the Ohio River, has had the Heritage Thermal Services incinerator for 30 years to dispose of waste. One of the first dumping sites of wastewater from the derailment cleanup, this hazardous waste facility has been cited for violations and lawsuits. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stated they had repeatedly exposed this Ohio community to cancer causing toxins that also caused miscarriages. The facility continued to operate, denying EPA’s report. Millions of gallons of toxic wastewater has already been hauled to other states like Texas and Michigan, hopefully not to a wastewater facility near you.
Data shows soil in East Palestine from the chemical spill has dioxin levels hundreds of times greater than the exposure threshold above which EPA scientists in 2010 found dioxin poses cancer risks.
This small, marginalized Ohio village is like so many others in our country. People in other cities smothered in Environmental Racism and Povertyism like Flint, East St. Louis, Appalachia, Louisiana, and more, know organizing and demanding answers from industries given a free path to practice poisonous business in their backyard is often fruitless.
East Palestine residents have quickly learned, as other front-line cities have over years of lifted regulations, violations written off, science ignored, losing family and neighbors to diseases, to not trust the system that is supposed to protect you. Government agencies like the EPA are no longer transparent. Industries pay big bucks for their lobbyists to pressure and pay off legislators who are becoming millionaires and billionaires The same legislators put pressure on our governmental agencies to turn their heads and our marginalized communities becomet he Ponzi.
How do we fight these destructionists? Communities like East Palestine are collaborating, heavily networking, organizing, and starting to take action. By working with other communities who have been in the long fight, like our Flint family, we can learn shorter steps to take than going through a long process of a learning curve to reach the goal. These industries worry when we come together. They know it shortens their time of destruction in your community or possibly, hopefully stops it before it begins.
Georgia de la Garza, who is from the beautiful Shawnee Forest of Southern Illinois, has served on the front lines as an organizer for social justice for many years. De la Garza has fought for Indigenous rights, Environmental Justice, Labor and Women’s rights on national and global fronts. She serves on the editorial board of the People’s Tribune.
