East Palestine: Ground Truth | The Derailment
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — East Palestine, Ohio is a village located near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. And this village has gone national for its story. That story, a Norfolk Southern train derailment, which spilled chemicals and caused massive chemical release. But now, I’m on the ground, to hear stories from people in this community — including the village manager.
“I actually was not here at the time of the derailment, but I was working for the City of Shinnston in West Virginia. And, I heard about it,” said East Palestine Village Manager Chad Edwards. “I went to the web to look to see if there was a city manager. Well, at the time, the former city manager had resigned.”
Edwards said he had followed the story, and says that he was approached for his current role in the village by a hiring firm back in July, an opportunity he considered and eventually took.
“I like what I do and I’m a public servant and I like to be where I can help. Of course, you know, with the derailment and everything, I knew there was gonna be a little bit of opportunity for some development.”
He started November 1st and says having done this work in his previous position made coming to East Palestine a no-brainer. But the derailment, over a year later, he says continues to be a source of concern, a concern that’s fresh in the minds of community members and non-locals.
“I know that there’s a bad perception of the town.”
But despite that, Edwards says, “I’m not worried about drinking our city water, you know, I see the test results, so I know what’s in it.” Adding, “I’m not worried about the drinking water, you know, runoff, that’s a little different — but that’s not what we’re drinking.”
Now Edwards told me that the regulatory agencies overseeing the cleanup are “not easy to deal with.” But one resident I spoke to says he still feels the derailment’s impacts despite remediation efforts. Meet Jake Cozza.
“I’ve been in East Palestine most of my life, I’m 49-years-old, I live 0.3 miles away from the derailment. I was standing on my front porch the night it happened.”
Cozza says that since the incident, he has experienced what he believes to be are side effects from the chemical that was released into the air: vinyl chloride.
“We went to DC to Capitol Hill, we went down to Columbus and disrupted a state senate hearing, just so that we could get heard. It was almost like a drug withdrawal. When I was away from the poisons, I more or less got sick. So, recently, within the last month, I’ve moved out of East Palestine and today I went there for a couple hours and, as you can see, my eyes are beat red and I got a headache, and the symptoms — once you’re used to those chemicals — you just get used to them like everyday life.”
Cozza says while the derailment itself was a time, the fight for federal support and Norfolk Southern aid has been an ongoing challenge. You’ll hear about that, how a group of community members have organized, and who he says have been the community’s true advocates, in part two of “Ground Truth: East Palestine.”
