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Tag: Freight Train Derailment
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Ohio residents still suffer health issues a year after toxic train derailment
Ohio residents still suffer health issues a year after toxic train derailment – CBS News
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Norfolk Southern gives some workers paid sick days after crash
Norfolk Southern will give some workers paid sick days, bowing to union pressure following the derailment of one of its trains earlier this month.
The agreement, which the company announced Wednesday, provides sick time to roughly 3,000 unionized track maintenance workers. The deal allows employees to take four paid sick days a year and removes a stipulation in worker contracts that required them to give their supervisors 48-hour notice before taking personal days.
“Norfolk Southern’s success is built upon the incredible work our craft railroaders perform every day, and we are committed to improving their quality of life in partnership with our union leaders,” said Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw in a statement announcing the deal.
The company is also considering offering paid sick days to other unionized workers.
The agreement comes as Norfolk Southern contends with the fallout from the derailment of one of its freight trains in East Palestine, Ohio, which released toxic chemicals into the surrounding air and water, raising health concerns within affected communities.
The company pledged $6.5 million in compensation and financial assistance for local residents following the crash, and it is complying with orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to pay for the cleanup.
Those costs are a pittance compared with the money Norfolk Southern recently lavished on shareholders, critics say. Over the last five years, the rail operator has spent nearly $18 billion on dividends and share repurchases, or more than 2,500 times the funds it has pledged to the community affected by its freight train derailment.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg sent a letter on Sunday to Norfolk Southern’s CEO demanding the company make a serious financial commitment to clean up toxic waste resulting from the crash and to invest in preventive safety measures.
“Norfolk Southern must live up to its commitment to make residents whole — and must also live up to its obligation to do whatever it takes to stop putting communities such as East Palestine at risk,” he wrote. “This is the right time for Norfolk Southern to take a leadership position within the rail industry, shifting to a posture that focuses on supporting, not thwarting, efforts to raise the standard of U.S. rail safety regulation.”
Help wanted
Norfolk Southern has struggled to operate in recent years with a pared-down workforce, the result of sweeping pandemic-era layoffs, according to Shaw. The company is still looking to fill jobs at nearly all of its 95 locations.
At the time of the derailment, two Norfolk Southern rail workers and one trainee were operating a train with more than 100 cars. Under Federal Railroad Administration rules, a freight train must have a minimum of two crew members.
Norfolk Southern is the third major rail industry company to grant its employees sick days following the crash, marking an about-face in the industry. As recently as last year, Norfolk Southern and several other major freight rail companies rejected union calls for more paid sick days.
Granting union members seven sick days a year would cost all the major railroads $321 million annually, railroad union members have argued. Prior to the pandemic, railroads were the U.S.’s most profitable industry, with a 50% profit margin, according to research from business advising firm Comparisun.
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Lawsuits piling up against Norfolk Southern after train derailment
Lawsuits against Norfolk Southern are piling up nearly two weeks after a train derailed in eastern Ohio, releasing toxic chemicals and forcing thousands of locals to evacuate.
On Wednesday, the plaintiffs’ law firm Morgan & Morgan filed a class-action suit in federal court in Ohio on behalf of two women living in East Palestine, near the derailment. The Ohio village of about 4,700 people sits near the Pennsylvania state line and about 50 miles west of Pittsburgh.
“Norfolk Southern discharged more cancer-causing Vinyl Chloride into the environment in the course of a week than all industrial emitters combined did in the course of a year,” the suit alleges, claiming that the company chose to burn the vinyl chloride, turning it into a highly toxic gas, rather than disposing of it safely.
“From chemicals that cause nausea and vomiting to a substance responsible for the majority of chemical warfare deaths during World War I, the people of East Palestine and the surrounding communities are facing an unprecedented array of threats to their health,” Morgan & Morgan attorneys said in a statement.
The suit claims that “thousands of residents” in rural eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania could have been exposed to the toxins.
At least six other lawsuits have been filed against the company claiming negligence and seeking payment for property damage, economic loss suffered by business owners and exposure to hazardous chemicals.
Norfolk Southern was in the news again Thursday when one of its trains derailed in Van Buren Township, Michigan. Roughly 30 cars came off the track, including one containing liquid chlorine, but local public safety officials said on Facebook that there is no evidence of a chemical spill. State and local authorities are investigating, according to CBS News Detroit.
Town hall no-show
Norfolk Southern representatives failed to appear at a town hall Wednesday night, citing “growing physical threat to our employees and members of the community.” The company announced this week it would create a $1 million fund to help the community recover, calling it a “down payment on our commitment to help rebuild.”
Also on Wednesday, Ohio’s attorney general, Dave Yost, told Norfolk Southern his office is considering suing the rail operator, warning the company to preserve all information potentially relevant to legal action.
“The pollution, which continues to contaminate the area around East Palestine, created a nuisance, damage to natural resources and caused environmental harm. Local residents and Ohio’s waters have been damaged as a result,” he wrote.
Norfolk Southern declined to be interviewed. “We do not comment on pending litigation,” the company said.
The company’s stock has fallen roughly 9% since the Feb. 3 derailment in Ohio.
Derailment
On February 3, a freight train derailed in a fiery, mangled mess of nearly 50 cars on the outskirts of East Palestine. No one was injured, but officials seeking to avoid an uncontrolled blast had the area evacuated and opted to release and burn toxic vinyl chloride from five rail cars, sending flames and black smoke billowing into the sky.
The spilled contaminants affected more than 7 miles of the Ohio River, killing 3,500 fish, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.
There have been anecdotal reports that pets and livestock have been sickened, the Associated Press reported. No related animal deaths have been confirmed, state officials said. Such confirmation would require necropsies and lab work to determine a connection to the incident.
So far, water and soil testing have not detected any contaminants, officials with the Environmental Protection Agency said in a press conference Thursday. However, the agency warns residents who rely on private drinking sources not to drink from private water wells until they’ve been tested by an independent consultant.
Precision-focused railroading
Officials are still unclear on the precise cause of the derailment, but suspect the cause is a mechanical issue with a rail car axle. The National Transportation Safety Board said it has video appearing to show a wheel bearing overheating just before the derailment. The NTSB said it expects to issue its preliminary report in about two weeks.
The incident has drawn attention to precision-focused railroading, a management technique that workers say has made trains more dangerous and harder to handle. A recent Government Accountability Office report found that PSR resulted in a 28% cut in staff across the seven major commercial railroads. The number of derailments fluctuated, with Norfolk Southern reporting 2 derailments per million train miles over the past decade.
Employees of Norfolk Southern previously told CBS News the train broke down at least once on its route before derailing on February 3. The workers blamed the train’s size — 18,000 tons and 9,300 feet, or 1.8 miles long.
“We shouldn’t be running trains that are 150 car lengths long,” one of the employees said. “In this case, had the train not been 18,000 tons, it’s very likely the effects of the derailment would have been mitigated.”
A company spokesman told CBS News that the train’s distribution was “uniform throughout” and that the route previously held a longer, heavier train that was “split into two shorter, lighter trains in the past few months.”
Railroad unions have for the past three years accused companies of cutting corners, stretching workers thin and rushing essential safety checks.
“Safety be damned”
“They have made reductions anywhere they can make reductions,” Jared Cassity, an official with the SMART Transportation Division, which represents some Norfolk Southern workers, said on a recent podcast. “It’s ‘Safety be damned, let’s get the freight over the road.’ That’s the new approach.”
Cassity said that training for new workers had been cut down from 18 weeks to six, and workers sometimes have just 90 seconds to conduct a safety inspection of an entire train car.
Sen. Brown called out the rail company for giving out dividends and stock buybacks last year. “Their total buybacks and dividends are higher than their investment in rails,” he said Thursday.
CBS News’ Michael Kaplan and The Associated Press contributed reporting.
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Lawsuits piling up against Norfolk Southern after train derailment
Lawsuits against Norfolk Southern are piling up nearly two weeks after a train derailed in eastern Ohio, releasing toxic chemicals and forcing thousands of locals to evacuate.
On Wednesday, the plaintiffs’ law firm Morgan & Morgan filed a class-action suit in federal court in Ohio on behalf of two women living in East Palestine, near the derailment. The Ohio village of about 4,700 people sits near the Pennsylvania state line and about 50 miles west of Pittsburgh.
“Norfolk Southern discharged more cancer-causing Vinyl Chloride into the environment in the course of a week than all industrial emitters combined did in the course of a year,” the suit alleges, claiming that the company chose to burn the vinyl chloride, turning it into a highly toxic gas, rather than disposing of it safely.
“From chemicals that cause nausea and vomiting to a substance responsible for the majority of chemical warfare deaths during World War I, the people of East Palestine and the surrounding communities are facing an unprecedented array of threats to their health,” Morgan & Morgan attorneys said in a statement.
The suit claims that “thousands of residents” in rural eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania could have been exposed to the toxins.
At least six other lawsuits have been filed against the company claiming negligence and seeking payment for property damage, economic loss suffered by business owners and exposure to hazardous chemicals.
Town hall no-show
Norfolk Southern representatives failed to appear at a town hall Wednesday night, citing “growing physical threat to our employees and members of the community.” The company announced this week it would create a $1 million fund to help the community recover, calling it a “down payment on our commitment to help rebuild.”
Also on Wednesday, Ohio’s attorney general, Dave Yost, told Norfolk Southern his office is considering suing the rail operator, warning the company to preserve all information potentially relevant to legal action.
“The pollution, which continues to contaminate the area around East Palestine, created a nuisance, damage to natural resources and caused environmental harm. Local residents and Ohio’s waters have been damaged as a result,” he wrote.
Norfolk Southern declined to be interviewed. “We do not comment on pending litigation,” the company said.
Derailment
On February 3, a freight train derailed in a fiery, mangled mess of nearly 50 cars on the outskirts of East Palestine. No one was injured, but officials seeking to avoid an uncontrolled blast had the area evacuated and opted to release and burn toxic vinyl chloride from five rail cars, sending flames and black smoke billowing into the sky.
The spilled contaminants affected more than 7 miles of the Ohio River, killing 3,500 fish, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.
There have been anecdotal reports that pets and livestock have been sickened, the Associated Press reported. No related animal deaths have been confirmed, state officials said. Such confirmation would require necropsies and lab work to determine a connection to the incident.
So far, water and soil testing have not detected any contaminants, officials with the Environmental Protection Agency said in a press conference Thursday. However, the agency warns residents who rely on private drinking sources not to drink from private water wells until they’ve been tested by an independent consultant.
Precision-focused railroading
Officials are still unclear on the precise cause of the derailment, but suspect the cause is a mechanical issue with a rail car axle. The National Transportation Safety Board said it has video appearing to show a wheel bearing overheating just before the derailment. The NTSB said it expects to issue its preliminary report in about two weeks.
The incident has drawn attention to precision-focused railroading, a management technique that workers say has made trains more dangerous and harder to handle. A recent Government Accountability Office report found that PSR resulted in a 28% cut in staff across the seven major commercial railroads. The number of derailments fluctuated, with Norfolk Southern reporting 2 derailments per million train miles over the past decade.
Employees of Norfolk Southern previously told CBS News the train broke down at least once on its route before derailing on February 3. The workers blamed the train’s size — 18,000 tons and 9,300 feet, or 1.8 miles long.
“We shouldn’t be running trains that are 150 car lengths long,” one of the employees said. “In this case, had the train not been 18,000 tons, it’s very likely the effects of the derailment would have been mitigated.”
A company spokesman told CBS News that the train’s distribution was “uniform throughout” and that the route previously held a longer, heavier train that was “split into two shorter, lighter trains in the past few months.”
Railroad unions have for the past three years accused companies of cutting corners, stretching workers thin and rushing essential safety checks.
“Safety be damned”
“They have made reductions anywhere they can make reductions,” Jared Cassity, an official with the SMART Transportation Division, which represents some Norfolk Southern workers, said on a recent podcast. “It’s ‘Safety be damned, let’s get the freight over the road.’ That’s the new approach.”
Cassity said that training for new workers had been cut down from 18 weeks to six, and workers sometimes have just 90 seconds to conduct a safety inspection of an entire train car.
Sen. Brown called out the rail company for giving out dividends and stock buybacks last year. “Their total buybacks and dividends are higher than their investment in rails,” he said Thursday.
CBS News’ Michael Kaplan and The Associated Press contributed reporting.