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To the editor:
Last year Norfolk grossed over $12 billion. They had income from railroad operations of almost $5 billion and a final bottom line of $3.2 billion. They are worth over $50 billion and have a plan to spend $10 billion on stock buy backs in the future. This benefits no one except the shareholders and management. From rail operations they make over $400 million a month, $13 million a day.
Per their 10-K, almost 17% of their gross revenue is from hauling chemicals. Yet apparently, they cannot afford to hire more workers to staff the emergency center to help the people affected by their negligence, greed and ineptitude. Reports today from the Help Center state victims are having to wait six hours to get a sit down with an NS reps. to get their $1,000 stipend. Apparently, they do not have enough funds to hire more people to process these applications.
Reports say they have "donated" over $2 million to help. I would not refer to this as a donation. It is a reimbursement, a pittance, to pay for their negligent acts
They have totally ruined the beautiful scenic PARK NATURE walking trail that runs for a mile-and-a-half down Leslie Run. I, along with others, have posted videos of the disgusting situation down there. Go anywhere, move some rocks or scrape the bed and all kinds of toxic plumes come up. Yet for over two weeks I have not seen any of their workers in the park to remediate this scenic mile-and-a half-walking trail. Apparently they do not have the money for this.
Saturday they were able to scrape up enough funds to hire three workers to walk the creek and clean up the dead fish that had been rotting down there for two weeks. Why is no effort being made to clean up the PARK NATURE TRAIL part of Leslie Run? They have all kinds of mitigation efforts at Park entrance, where Sulphur Creek joins Leslie Run. Yet for over two weeks they have nothing going on into the woods and the walking trail.
Could it be that at this time of year few people traverse it and that is a convenient place to store their toxic waste? Out of sight, out of mind. Or maybe they think it gets better with age the longer it sits.
I guess all of the public and the kids who play in the PARK stream and on the trail in the summer will have to find something else to do. This area is totally polluted and will probably never be remediated. And that is pitiful.
Why do they not bring in more crews to tackle this situation? Have the cornered the market of every available clean up person in the country? Or again, are they just trying to minimize costs?
Why does everyone pretend that the problem has been solved by damming up Sulphur Creek but no one mentions the environmental disaster in Leslie Run and the Park trail. Over two weeks and no one is down there working on this.
To Norfolk, get out your check book, spend some of that $400 million you make every month. Hire more environmental workers. Get that disgusting pool of toxic chemicals out of the Park's walkway stream immediately.
Governor DeWine, start talking about this and order your EPA administrators to crack down on these bean counters. To Norfolk, step it up and drop some dough to clean up the environmental disaster you caused. If you have to put on every cleanup crew in the country, do it NOW. In the long run it will be cheaper to do it right instead of letting it get worse. Don't worry about the impact on next quarter's profit.
Richard S. Scullin,
New Waterford