On Thursday, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released a preliminary report providing a rough outline of what they believe happened in the moments before, and the days after, the Norfolk Southern Railway Company train derailment earlier this month.
The incident spilled large amounts of hazardous materials into the Village of East Palestine, Ohio, 1 mile from the Pennsylvania border.
Of the 38 derailed cars, the report confirmed 11 were hazardous materials tank cars carrying combustible liquids, flammable liquids, and flammable gas — including five carrying vinyl chloride, a flammable petrochemical used when making polymer polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. Those tank cars subsequently ignited, fueling fires that damaged an additional 12 non-derailed cars.
During a news conference conference Thursday, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said while investigators have completed their on-site investigation, they are very much still in the fact-finding portion of their research, but know what derailed the train and will now need to determine the cause.
According to the report, surveillance video from a local residence in East Palestine showed what appeared to be a wheel bearing on the 23rd rail car, the first to derail, in the final stage of overheat failure moments before the derailment.
Homendy said the car was loaded with plastic pellets that combined with the hot axle to start the fire. The bearing has since been collected as evidence by NTSB for further examination.
The report indicates the Norfolk Southern rail crew were operating the train within the company’s rules and below the track speed limit, going about 47 mph, with an authorized speed of 50 mph.
Investigators also found that defect detectors along the tracks were operating as designed and once the rail crew was alerted by the detectors, they began to stop the train. After stopping, the crew noticed fire and smoke and immediately notified dispatchers of a possible derailment.
While it appears at this time that Norfolk Southern wasn’t in violation of any state or federal law, Homendy said, “This was 100% preventable. There is no accident. Every single event that we investigate is preventable. The NTSB has one goal, and that is safety and ensuring that this never happens again.”
The rail company is being criticized, as are the state and federal government, for poor public relations and governance immediately following the derailment.
“It seems like every disaster we have, that the government response and the response of the company involved in the disaster are lacking, and this was certainly no different,” said Jesse Richardson, professor of law, lead land use attorney, WVU College of Law.
Richardson said when something like this happens, regardless of whether a law was broken or whether the health of the people is in peril, it’s imperative that the government and the responsible party quickly come to the community and reveal all the information they know — as well as being open to a discussion with the community about it means for them.
“Norfolk Southern didn’t send a representative to the community meeting, saying that they feared for the safety of their employees,” Richardson said. “You don’t want to minimize anyone’s fear of safety, but it seems like Norfolk Southern should have had someone within the area that worked for them or something of that nature that could have shown up and been the face of the company. They didn’t communicate well with the community.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not immediately deployed by the Biden Administration, initially saying FEMA doesn’t respond to emergencies like the derailment. However, officials have since changed their mind and deployed FEMA to support the agencies who had already responded.
“These people in East Palestine are concerned about drinking water and breathing the air and they need more than just platitudes. And it seems like the government and Norfolk Southern failed them in that respect,” Richardson said.
Homendy said the NTSB investigation will look into how responders and the public received information prior to, and right after, the derailment.
Following the derailment, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources reported an estimated 3,500 aquatic animals were killed. Many of the deaths are attributed to the immediate release of contaminants into the water.
An order issued to Norfolk Southern on Tuesday by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will require the company to conduct and pay for all cleanup actions associated with the train derailment. This order marks the transition of the multi-agency response from its “emergency phase” to a longer-term remediation phase.
“Norfolk Southern is already on notice that they are going to have to pay for the cleanup here,” Richardson said. “There is no indication yet that they violated any laws, but when something like this happens it’s straight liability and Norfolk Southern is going to have to pay for it.”
If Norfolk Southern doesn’t start the cleanup process and make progress according to the set schedule, the EPA can come in and oversee the cleanup, charging all costs to the railway company.
According to Richardson, several lawsuits have already been filed by residents of East Palestine. So far, those lawsuits have not alleged any violation of state or federal law, but are relying on common law torts such as nuisance, negligence, trespass and straight liability torts — saying because this happened, Norfolk Southern is liable for the damages to the citizens. Concerns about lowered property values have also been expressed by the local residents.
“I think that Norfolk Southern is going to have a difficult time saying they’re not liable for any damages that the residents have,” Richardson said. “My question at this point is what are those damages? At this point we don’t know what the impact is going to be on the health of the people in the area and that will be the significant thing, I think.”
A WVU School of Medicine professor agreed.
“At this time, it is difficult to assess the scope of the impact this will ultimately have (near the crash site),” said Timothy Nurkiewicz, professor and chair of WVU’s Department of Physiology, Pharmacology and Toxicology.
“Chemicals were spilled, and a potent mixture of toxicants were aerosolized on a massive, uncontained scale,” he explained. “Acute toxicities have been observed in wildlife and humans, but the situation has changed in the past couple of weeks. It may no longer be possible to identify what caused these acute effects. However, the environment and greater ecosystem must be robustly monitored if future adverse health effects are to be avoided.”
Nurkiewicz said the incomplete combustion of the vinyl chloride resulted in “the creation of a complex mixture of toxicants. In general, this aerosol was a mixture of gases and solid particles that, when considered together, is capable of a larger area of effect on the ecosystem.
“Further,” he said, “when inhaled, mixtures of this type are capable of penetrating into the deep lung and causing more harm.”
Norfolk Southern has been trying to make amends with local residents, claiming to have made nearly $8 million in financial commitments to the East Palestine community, with more to come.
In a press release Friday, the rail company pledged to donate $300,000 to the East Palestine School District after hearing that, despite the area being declared safe to host athletic and extracurricular activities, schools outside the district have been voluntarily forfeiting games to be held within the district, causing a loss of revenue for the school and neighboring businesses.
It also said it will donate $850,000 to the local fire department to replace equipment used during the response and a $220,000 reimbursement to fund new equipment for the first responders.
Homendy said the NTSB’s continued investigation will take a deeper look into current rail regulations and practices as well as several key factors surrounding the incident, including the wheel set and bearing that triggered the derailment, the defect detectors along the railway, rail car design and the quality of clean-up efforts. It will even probe the material used to make the HAZMAT placards designating hazardous material cars, which melted in the fire — making it more difficult for first responders to identify and target hazardous cars.
“During the Obama administration, and during the Trump administration, there was discussion and proposals to make rail cars more immune to rupturing during accidents, to widen the scope of the chemicals that are covered by the safety rules, to look at speed limits and braking procedures, and a number of things — and during both of those administrations those proposals failed,” Richardson said.
“I think that will come up again, as it always does after a disaster, and maybe something will happen. But what seems to happen often is after some time has passed we forget about this disaster and we don’t think about it until the next one occurs,” he said. “I think that is part of what the people of Ohio are trying to do, is to make sure that this is visible and high on the radar of elected officials, to hopefully make sure that something actually gets passed this time.”
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