Almost five months after the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, locals say there's still a lack of transparency from state and federal officials - and not enough testing inside homes.
With the derailment not directly damaging homes, and Norfolk Southern responsible for clean-up costs, Tierney said FEMA explained that an emergency declaration would not get approved.
"Very early on, if we were hearing things where somebody wasn't getting reimbursed for hotel or per-diem food, we'd bring it to Norfolk Southern's attention and they'd be paying for it," Tierney said.
"We do want to protect the people of East Palestine - if for some reason Norfolk Southern were to stop paying for legitimate expenses that FEMA would cover, we don't want to lose the rights under the FEMA program simply because a timeline had passed and Norfolk Southern was paying through that timeline and then left people hanging dry afterwards." Locals argue that the extent of property damage isn't yet known because government officials aren't doing the work.
"They're testing for a very specific few chemicals when this was many chemicals." Relying on OSHA exposure limits for testing, she argued, doesn't account for long-term exposure in home rather than a workplace.
"Indoor air quality needs to be tested and, again, in a larger radius," Flint said.
Rather than a one- or two-mile radius, the Unity Council wants to see a seven-mile testing radius that aligns with a U.S. EPA plume map that hasn't been publicly released.
https://www.thecentersquare.com/pennsylvania/article_a0019294-16b8-11ee-a501-43efcf088008.html
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