EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — “We got railroaded on Wednesday,” Chris Albright, representing Justice for East Palestine Residents and Workers, told a meeting of 30 people here Sept. 28, referring to the decision by Judge Benita Pearson to approve the $600 million settlement between some 55,000 class-action plaintiffs and Norfolk Southern rail bosses in a Youngstown courtroom.
“We’re still fighting,” Albright added. “It’s not over yet.” He condemned Pearson for denying their affidavits urging the court to get more information on the chemical contamination from the February 2023 train derailment, subsequent fire and burn-off of toxic chemicals.
Salem News reported Pearson called the settlement “fair, reasonable, and adequate,” despite affidavits challenging earlier test results.
The Unity Council for the East Palestine Train Derailment held a press conference outside the courthouse, blasting the settlement as a “mere pittance for what these victims need for their health care and evacuation to safer locations,” the newspaper reported.
“Norfolk Southern, the criminal railroad company that caused and exacerbated this disaster and poisoned thousands of citizens,” the group said, “has only provided superficial support, conducted faulty research while attorneys have hidden results of their toxicology study from the residents, and negotiated the fastest settlement agreement in history, one that does not meet the needs of the injured, homeless, and ill residents.”
The Salem News reported that Jami Wallace, president of the Unity Council, shouted “sham” when the judge rendered her decision, prompting Pearson to order police to “put [Wallace] to the pavement.” Wallace told the Militant the judge then said, “Does anyone else want to challenge me?”
Wallace said many people opted into the settlement “not because it was a good deal, but because they thought it was the only chance to sue.”
At the Sept. 28 meeting, Zsuzsa Gyenes from East Palestine told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the derailment forced her and her young son out of their home and into hotels for 17 months. She says she has no idea what she’ll end up getting because, like all the class-action members, any reimbursement money already received from Norfolk Southern will be deducted from the court-ordered payment. “That money is being taken away as if we were being paid twice, but that was definitely not the case,” she said.
‘This is far from over’
“Now the railroad and the attorneys can finally ‘go away,’ marking the end of this ordeal for them, just as they’ve wanted all along,” Christina Siceloff told the media. She lives in Darlington, Pennsylvania, with her son Eddie, 6 miles from where the train derailed. “But for those of us who live here, this is far from over.”
“They’re still not giving us answers,” another Darlington resident, Carly Tunno, told the Post-Gazette. “They’re still not admitting to the extent of the contamination. We still don’t have anywhere to go.”
“These are attorneys that were supposed to operate in our best interest,” she added. “They did not do that.”
The Salem News reported the ruling cleared the way for plaintiff attorneys to receive 30% of the settlement for legal fees and expenses, equaling $180 million.
“I was appalled that the judge wouldn’t let me testify in court,” toxicologist George Thompson, who filed one of the affidavits, told the Sept. 28 meeting.
Thompson reviewed what chemicals had been on the train, and said, “It’s not what’s on the train, but what came out in the fire, what happens when these products are burned.”
He also spoke to the massive volume of chemicals caught up in the fire and burn-off, challenging the assumption in the settlement that limited payments to people living within a 20-mile ring around East Palestine. “The contamination was more widespread.”
Residents were exposed to a slew of hazardous chemicals in a single incident, Thompson said. “Nobody has ever studied a fire with the high temperatures seen in East Palestine and the number of chemicals and products involved,” he told the Pittsburgh Union Progress.
The National Transportation Safety Board said that Norfolk Southern bosses didn’t need to carry out that burn-off. But they wanted to get the trains moving first. They put the community and people in 16 different states at risk.
Thompson called for an independent expert to be brought in to reassess air, water and soil test results from Norfolk Southern and the Environmental Protection Agency. The railroad should create a trust fund to compensate people for the fair market value of their home or business if they want to leave the community.