While no one was killed in the Feb. 3 derailment, anxieties persist about longer-term threats that could be slower to show themselves.
Water contamination is “a big issue and a big fear because the creeks run through town, and they run under businesses and houses, and so obviously that’s really scary. There’s a lot of pathways to exposure,” Misti Allison, an East Palestine resident who works with the group Moms Clean Air Task Force, told The Hill.
“So from an environmental perspective, there is still a lot of risk going on in East Palestine that probably a lot of people, if you don’t live in this area, aren’t aware of that,” she added.
In the meantime, Ohio’s two senators, Sherrod Brown (D) and J.D. Vance (R), have been making a full-court press for railway safety reform legislation they introduced in the wake of the crash.
“After years of raking in massive profits while cutting workers and cutting corners on safety, the company and the railroad industry continue to fight even the most basic safety rules in our bipartisan Rail Safety Act,” Brown said in a statement last week.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
