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(AP) – Norfolk Southern has agreed to pay $600 million in a class-action lawsuit settlement for a fiery February 2023 train derailment in Ohio, but residents worry the money not only won't go far enough to cover future health needs that could be tremendous but also won’t amount to much once divvied up.
"It's not nowhere near my needs, let alone what the health effects are going to be five or 10 years down the road," said Eric Cozza, who lived just three blocks from the derailment and had 47 family members living within a mile.
More than three dozen of the freight train’s 149 cars derailed on the outskirts of East Palestine, a town of almost 5,000 residents near the Pennsylvania state line. Several cars spilled a cocktail of hazardous materials that caught fire. Three days later, officials, fearing an explosion, blew open five cars filled with vinyl chloride and burned the toxic chemical -- sending thick, black plumes of smoke into the air. Some 1,500 to 2,000 residents were evacuated.
Norfolk Southern said the agreement, if approved by the court, will resolve all class action claims within a 20-mile radius of the derailment and, for residents who choose to participate, personal injury claims within a 10-mile radius of the derailment.
A 20-mile radius around the derailment would include not only East Palestine and the people who had to evacuate but also larger towns like East Liverpool and Columbiana, Ohio, and possibly at least part of Youngstown.
The settlement, which doesn't include or constitute any admission of liability, wrongdoing or fault, represents only a small slice of the $3 billion in revenue Norfolk Southern generated just in the first three months of this year.
See the full story in tomorrow’s Morning Journal.