WORLD WAR Z
Russia's year of war: Purge of critics, surge of nationalism


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Cars in Moscow, Russia, on Wednesday, March 30, 2022, drive past a building decorated with a huge letter “Z,” which has become a symbol of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, along with a hashtag reading, "We don't abandon our own." The symbols serve as reminders of the conflict that has dragged on for a year.

DASHA LITVINOVA
Sun, February 19, 2023 

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Moscow's nights display few signs of a nation at war.

Cheerful crowds packed restaurants and bars in the Sretenka neighborhood on a recent Saturday night, watched by officers marked as “tourist police.” Nearby, a top-hatted guide led about 40 sightseers to a 300-year-old church.

There's only an occasional “Z” — the symbol of Russia's “special military operation,” as the Ukraine invasion is officially known — seen on a building or a shuttered store abandoned by a Western retailer. A poster of a stern-faced soldier, with the slogan “Glory to the heroes of Russia,” is a reminder the conflict has dragged on for a year.

Western stores are gone, but customers can still buy their products — or knockoffs sold under a Russian name or branding.

The painful, bruising changes to Russian life require more effort to see.

A broad government crackdown has silenced dissent, with political opponents imprisoned or fleeing abroad. Families have been torn apart by the first mobilization of reservists since World War II. State TV spews hatred against the West and reassuring messages that much of the world still is with Russia.

And Russia’s battlefield deaths are in the thousands.

QUASHING THE CRITICS

“Indeed, the war has ruined many lives — including ours,” Sophia Subbotina of St. Petersburg told The Associated Press.

Twice a week, she visits a detention center to bring food and medicine to her partner, Sasha Skochilenko, an artist and musician with serious health issues. Skochilenko was arrested in April for replacing supermarket price tags with antiwar slogans.

She is charged with spreading false information about the military, one of President Vladimir Putin's new laws that effectively criminalize public expression against the war. The crackdown has been immediate, ruthless and unparalleled in post-Soviet Russia.

Media cannot call it a “war,” and protesters using that word on placards are hit with steep fines. Most who took to the streets were swiftly arrested. Rallies fizzled.

Independent news sites were blocked, as were Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. A prominent radio station was taken off the air. The Novaya Gazeta newspaper, led by 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, lost its license.

Skochilenko, who says she is not an activist but simply someone horrified by war, faces up to 10 years in prison.

Prominent Putin critics either left Russia or were arrested: Ilya Yashin got 8½ years, Vladimir Kara-Murza is jailed awaiting trial and Alexei Navalny remains in prison.

Entertainers opposing the war quickly lost work, with plays and concerts canceled.

“The fact that Putin has managed to intimidate a significant part of our society is hard to deny,” Yashin told AP from jail last year.

PUSHING THE GOVERNMENT LINE

The purge of critics was followed by a splurge of propaganda. State TV suspended some entertainment shows and expanded political and news programs to boost the narrative that Russia was ridding Ukraine of Nazis, a false claim Putin used as pretext for the invasion. Or that NATO is acting via puppets in Kyiv but that Moscow will prevail.

“A new structure of the world is emerging in front of our eyes,” proclaimed anchor Dmitry Kiselev in a December rant on his weekly show. “The planet is getting rid of Western leadership. Most of humanity is with us.”

These messages play well in Russia, says Denis Volkov, director of the country's top independent pollster Levada Center: “The idea that NATO wants to ruin Russia or at least weaken … it has been сommonplace for three-fourths (of poll respondents) for many years.”

The Kremlin is pushing its narrative to the young. Schoolchildren were told to write letters to soldiers, and some schools designated “A Hero’s Desk” for graduates fighting in Ukraine.

In September, schools added a subject loosely translated as “Conversations about Important Things.” Lesson plans for eighth to 11th graders seen by AP describe Russia’s “special mission” of building a “multipolar world order.”

At least one teacher who refused to teach the lessons was fired. Although not mandatory, some parents whose children skip them face pressure from administrators or even police.

A fifth grader was accused of having a Ukraine-themed photo on social media and asking classmates about supporting the war, and she and her mother were detained briefly after administrators complained, said her lawyer, Nikolai Bobrinsky. When she skipped the new lessons, authorities apparently decided to make "an example” of her, he added.

SURVIVING SANCTIONS

The sanctions-hit economy outperformed expectations, thanks to record oil revenues of about $325 billion after the war sent energy prices soaring. The Central Bank stabilized the plummeting ruble by raising interest rates, and the currency is stronger against the dollar than before the invasion.

McDonald's, Ikea, Apple and others left Russia. The golden arches were replaced by Vkusno — i Tochka (“Tasty — Period”), while Starbucks became Stars Coffee, with essentially the same menus.

Visa and Mastercard halted services, but banks switched to the local MIR system, so existing cards continued to work in the country; those traveling abroad use cash. After the European Union banned flights from Russia, airline ticket prices rose and destinations became harder to reach. Foreign travel is now available to a privileged minority.

Sociologists say these changes hardly bothered most Russians, whose average monthly salary in 2022 was about $900. Only about a third have an international passport.

Inflation spiked nearly 12%, but Putin announced new benefits for families with children and increased pensions and the minimum wage by 10%.

MacBooks and iPhones are still easily available, and Muscovites say restaurants have Japanese fish, Spanish cheese and French wine.

“Yes, it costs a bit more, but there’s no shortage,” said Vladimir, a resident who asked not to be fully identified for his own safety. “If you walk in the city center, you get the impression that nothing is happening. Lots of people are out and about on weekends. There are fewer people in cafes, but they are still there.”

Still, he admitted the capital seems emptier and people look sadder.

‘IN THE TRENCHES, OR WORSE’

Perhaps the biggest shock came in September, when the Kremlin mobilized 300,000 reservists. Although billed as a “partial” call-up, the announcement sent panic through the country since most men under 65 — and some women — are formally part of the reserve.

Flights abroad sold out in hours and long lines formed at Russia’s border crossings. Hundreds of thousands were estimated to have left the country in the following weeks.

Natalia, a medical worker, left Moscow with her boyfriend after a summons was delivered to his mother. Their income was cut in half and she misses home, but they've decided to try it for a year, said the woman, who asked that her last name and location not be revealed for their safety.

“Between ourselves, we’re saying that once things calm down, we will be able to come back. But it wouldn’t resolve the rest of it. That huge snowball is rolling downhill, and nothing will be back (as it was),” Natalia said.

Draftees complained of poor living conditions at bases and shortages of gear. Their wives and mothers claimed they were deployed to the front without proper training or equipment and were quickly wounded.

A woman who is contesting her husband being drafted said her family life fell apart after she suddenly had to care for her children and frail mother-in-law.

“It was hard. I thought I’d lose my mind,” said the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because his legal case is continuing. Her husband came home on leave — suffering from pneumonia — and needs psychological care because he jumps at every loud sound, she said.

Vasily, a 33-year-old Muscovite, learned authorities tried twice this month to deliver a summons to a former apartment where he is officially registered. Although not sure if the summons was to draft him or to clear up his enlistment records, especially after a September attempt to deliver call-up papers, he doesn't intend to find out.

“All my friends who went (to the enlistment office) to figure it out are in the trenches now, or worse,” added Vasily, who withheld his last name for his own safety.

Volkov, the pollster, said the dominating sentiment among Russians is that the war is “somewhere far away, it is not affecting us directly.”

While anxiety over the invasion and mobilization came and went over the year, “people started feeling again that it indeed doesn’t affect everyone. ’We’re off the hook. Well, thank god, we’re moving on with our lives.’”

Some fear a new mobilization, which the Kremlin denies.

LIVES LOST

As the war became bogged down by defeats and setbacks, families got the worst news possible: a loved one was killed.

For one mother, it was too much to bear.

She told AP she became “hysterical” and “started shaking” when told her son was missing and presumed dead while serving on the Moskva, the missile cruiser that sank in April. The woman, who at the time spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared reprisal, said she found it hard to believe he was killed.

The military has confirmed just over 6,000 deaths, but Western estimates are in the tens of thousands. Putin promised generous compensation to families of those listed as killed in action — 12 million rubles (about $160,000).

In November, he met with a dozen mothers, which Russian media said were hand-picked among Kremlin supporters and officials, and told one of them her son's death wasn't in vain.

“With some people ... it is unclear why they die -– because of vodka or something else. When they are gone, it is hard to say whether they lived or not -– their lives passed without notice," he told her. "But your son did live – do you understand? He achieved his goal.”

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Associated Press writer David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, contributed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the Ukraine war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

What to Know About the Lawsuits Against the Company at the Center of the Ohio Train Derailment

Anisha Kohli
Sat, February 18, 2023 

Train derailment in East Palestine

Officials continue to conduct operation and inspect the area after the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, on February 17, 2023. Credit - US Environmental Protection Agency—Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Rail operator Norfolk Southern is now facing a slew of lawsuits over its derailed cargo train in East Palestine, Ohio on Feb. 3 that caused a massive fire and toxic chemical spill.

The rail company’s actions are being criticized as a major environmental and health crisis and the derailment as “wholly preventable,” according to one of numerous lawsuits brought by concerned community members.

After the crash, residents within a mile radius of the crash had to evacuate the area and those within three miles had to shelter in place when toxic chemicals, including vinyl chloride, spilled and caused residents to worry about the health risks of such exposure, the environmental impact on the region and the economic repercussions of evacuating

“From chemicals that cause nausea and vomiting to a substance responsible for the majority of chemical warfare deaths during World War I, the people of East Palestine and the surrounding communities are facing an unprecedented array of threats to their health,” Attorneys Frank Petosa and Rene Rocha at Morgan & Morgan, who represent a group of plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against Norfolk Southern, said in a statement on Feb. 15.

So far, eight lawsuits have been filed against Norfolk Southern, alleging negligence and seeking more than $5 million for property damage, economic loss due to evacuation and exposure to toxic chemicals.

“While the lives impacted by this wholly preventable catastrophe may never be the same, we are committed to holding Norfolk Southern accountable for its actions and inactions and securing justice for those whose lives have been disrupted and remain in danger,” the attorneys added.

Here’s what to know:

Norfolk Southern’s response to the spill

The derailed train made up of 50 cars struck East Palestine, a rural village home to about 4,700 people, near Ohio’s Pennsylvania border. Eleven of the cars were carrying hazardous materials, including vinyl chloride, a flammable gas and carcinogen recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Spilled chemicals from the derailment killed 3,500 fish in nearby streams, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. One of the lawsuits claims that thousands of residents in the region from Ohio to Pennsylvania could have been exposed to the toxic chemicals.

Authorities monitoring the scene were concerned about the risk of explosions following the derailment. On Feb. 6, Norfolk Southern decided to release and burn additional vinyl chloride, as a controlled release initiative that the company said would help avert the risk of explosions.

The company has said they are continuing to work to remove contaminants from the ground and streams following the spill, as well as monitoring air quality.

“We are here and will stay here for as long as it takes to ensure your safety and to help East Palestine recover and thrive,” Norfolk Southern President and CEO Alan Shaw said in a statement Thursday.

About the lawsuits

A lawsuit brought by Morgan & Morgan on behalf of residents in the derailment zone alleges that Norfolk Southern pumped more than 1.1 million pounds of vinyl chloride into the air. “I’m not sure Norfolk Southern could have come up with a worse plan to address this disaster,” Morgan & Morgan attorney John Morgan said in a statement.

The lawsuits allege that Norfolk Southern chose a cheaper, less safe method to contain the damage by releasing more chemicals, rather than safely and properly cleaning up the spill.

“Residents exposed to vinyl chloride may already be undergoing DNA mutations that could linger for years or even decades before manifesting as terrible and deadly cancers,” Morgan said in a statement. “Norfolk Southern made it worse by essentially blasting the town with chemicals as they focused on restoring train service and protecting their shareholders.”

Norfolk Southern has not commented directly on litigation, but in a statement Thursday, the company said that it will continue the ongoing cleanup efforts—which include removing contaminated soil and liquid—as well as distribute more than $2 million to help with evacuation costs and create a $1 million community fund.

Community leaders in East Palestine organized a town hall on Wednesday to meet and address people’s health and safety concerns from the derailment. Representatives from Norfolk Southern didn’t show up to the event, citing that the company’s employees faced “threats.”

“Unfortunately, after consulting with community leaders, we have become increasingly concerned about the growing physical threat to our employees and members of the community around this event stemming from the increasing likelihood of the participation of outside parties,” Norfolk Southern said in a statement.

East Palestine authorities told TIME that they had not received any reports of threats against Norfolk Southern employees.

Professor: Oily sheen on East Palestine creek behaving like vinyl chloride

Emily Mills and Saleen Martin, Akron Beacon Journal
Sat, February 18, 2023 

A viral video showing an oily sheen on a creek near the site of the toxic train derailment appears to show vinyl chloride, one of the chemicals released from a Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine.

"That looks like the way that I would expect the vinyl chloride to behave," said John Senko, a professor of geosciences and biology at the University of Akron, noting he did not know the proximity of the video to the derailment.

"It looks like what's happening is you got some of that stuff on the bottom of the creek, you stir it up a little bit, it starts to come up and then it's just going to sink again," he said. "So that stuff's behaving like I would expect vinyl chloride to behave.”

Where did the train come from?Cars carrying toxic chemicals traveled through many northern Ohio cities before derailing

The video, posted by U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, during a Thursday visit to the site of the Feb. 3 derailment, has been viewed more than 4 million times.

Investigators believe a wheel bearing in the final stage of overheat failure occurred moments before the derailment, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.

Of the 50 cars on the 141-car train that derailed, 11 were carrying hazardous materials. Five contained vinyl chloride, a colorless gas used to make hard plastic resin in products like credit cards and PVC pipes. Officials feared the cars would explode, so the vinyl chloride was burned on Feb. 6.

Clean water is pumped in Sulphur Run in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 11.
Videos of oily sheens in East Palestine waterways

In the video Vance posted on Twitter, he's standing next to a waterway.

“So I’m here at Leslie Run, and there’s dead worms and dead fish all throughout this water,” he said in the video. “Something I just discovered is that if you scrape the creek bed, it’s like chemical is coming out of the ground.”

Derailment: Maps and graphics explain toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio

Vance then uses a stick to scrape the bottom of the waterway, which causes an oily sheen to appear on the top of the water.
Expert stresses need for groundwater monitoring

Kuldeep Singh, an assistant professor in Kent State University’s earth sciences department, said the videos may show chemicals went through the streams and into the groundwater.

When the streambed sediments are stirred, contaminants are released, he said.

Another possibility, Singh said, is after the spill, naturally occurring materials like decaying leaf litter, biofilms or clays absorbed the chemicals.

He stressed that so often, people focus on issues that can be easily seen. However, there are also chemicals present that are harder to trace, including groundwater contamination, which he calls "the invisible part of this puzzle."

It could be a year or two before groundwater contamination is traceable in local wells due to how slowly it moves, he said.

Asked whether the rainbow slicks could have been caused by other natural processes, Singh said there is a chance.

“Any aerobic decomposition of specific kinds of algae may create some of these sheens, but not the ones that I'm seeing,” he said.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Friday said it's now safe for residents to drink from the municipal water system. Officials are still urging people with private wells to get their supply tested and drink bottled water out of caution.

In an apparent reference to Vance's video, DeWine said Sulphur Run remains severely contaminated but was dammed to prevent it from running into other waterways.

The EPA has said thousands of fish have been killed in various creeks around and near Columbiana County, where East Palestine sits.

East Palestine train derailment updates:Chemical plume in Ohio River has dissipated

East Palestine acid rain:Is there acid rain in Ohio? What to know after East Palestine train derailment

Hoses along Sulphur Run creek are part of an attempt to clean the water after the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern train derailment.

What is vinyl chloride?

Vinyl chloride, a colorless gas used to make the hard plastic resin, is a carcinogen, and burning it releases phosgene, a toxic gas that was used as a weapon during World War I, and hydrogen chloride into the air, according to USA TODAY.

"It's not good stuff. It's a carcinogen," Senko, from the University of Akron, said. "It has the potential to cause some kind of cancer if you're exposed to it for long periods of time. And I guess maybe the big problem with it is it’s just not going to go away."

Senko said vinyl chloride is difficult to remove because it's more dense than water, so it sinks to the bottom.

"The big reason that it's tough to remove is because it doesn't dissolve in the water, and so it just kind of stays there and kind of releases little bits over really long periods of time," he said.

Norfolk Southern lawsuits:Norfolk Southern released 1.1M pounds of vinyl chloride after derailment, lawsuit alleges

How can vinyl chloride be cleaned up?

Senko said that possible ways vinyl chloride can be removed include microorganisms that can convert it to less toxic compounds under certain conditions or vacuuming it out. "But that's tough," he said, adding it would be expensive, time-consuming and generate a lot of waste in the form of contaminated sediment.

Cautioning that he doesn't know what will actually happen, Senko said one possibility would be to just leave it there.

"Another thing that may happen ... is they would just say all right, it's there. Hopefully you can just cover it up with more stuff and just keep our fingers crossed that the sediments don't get swirled up all the time, and eventually it just kind of gets buried and (we) won't have to worry about it," he said.

Senko said "that's not desirable" but noted a similar process, not necessarily involving vinyl chloride, happened at Akron's Summit Lake, which was the source of cooling water for local factories in the early 20th century. Because the water came back laden with heavy metals, oils and chemicals from the factories, Summit Lake was too polluted for recreational use for years.

As part of the Akron Civic Commons project, the water and sediments at the bottom of the lake were tested, with the results showing that over the decades, the lake has naturally cleaned itself, with water quality improving.

More train derailments:Trains are becoming less safe. Why the Ohio derailment disaster could happen more often

Saleen D. Martin of USA TODAY, Kelly Byer of the Canton Repository and Haley BeMiller and Monroe Trombly of the Columbus Dispatch contributed to this report. Contact Beacon Journal reporter Emily Mills at emills@thebeaconjournal.com and on Twitter @EmilyMills818.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Oily sheen in Vance video behaving like vinyl chloride, expert says

Lawsuit: Fish and animals dying as far as 20 miles away from East Palestine

Kelly Byer, The Repository
Fri, February 17, 2023 

A black plume rises over East Palestine, Ohio, as a result of a controlled detonation of a portion of the derailed Norfolk and Southern trains Monday, Feb. 6, 2023. 

(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

A new federal lawsuit claims fish and wild animals are dying as far as 20 miles away from the site of a train derailment and controlled burn of chemicals in East Palestine.

The Sandusky-based Murray & Murray law firm on Thursday filed a class-action complaint on behalf of three East Palestine residents, their relatives and other residents within a two-mile radius of the crash site and property owners within a 100-mile radius. It's one of at least seven lawsuits filed against Norfolk Southern since the Feb. 3 derailment.

While the release of chemicals is believed to have killed about 3,500 fish across 7.5 miles of streams, officials have yet to confirm any nonaquatic wildlife deaths connected to the derailment.

The Columbiana County Humane Society told the Herald-Star in Steubenville that it is compiling reports of sick animals as far as seven miles outside the evacuation zone. And the Ohio Department of Agriculture is testing tissue from a six-week-old beef calf that died Feb. 11 about two miles outside East Palestine, according to the Ohio Emergency Management Agency.

Previous cases:Norfolk Southern faces several lawsuits over East Palestine derailment, chemical release

Vinyl chloride, which was burned in several train cars to avoid a possible explosion, is a gas used to make hard plastic resin in plastic products and is associated with an increased risk of liver cancer and other cancers, according to the federal government's National Cancer Institute.

Officials warned the controlled burn of cars containing the gas would send toxic gas phosgene and hydrogen chloride into the air.

The latest lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court's Northern District of Ohio, claims that Norfolk Southern was negligent in its transportation of hazardous material and its response to the derailment. It also holds the company liable for the resulting harm and losses.

"Mass kills of wild animals and fish have been reported as far as 20 miles away from the Derailment Site," it says. "Although mandatory evacuation orders have been lifted and residents have been told that it is safe to return to their homes, plaintiffs and members of their class believe, with good reason, that the prospective dangers from the hazardous exposure are being grossly downplayed and that their health has been and is subjected to injurious toxins."

Norfolk Southern's media relations team said via email that they are "unable to comment on litigation."

Battaglia by Rick Armon on Scribd



The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identified four toxic chemicals known to have been released into the air, surface soils and surface waters: vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate and ethylene glycol monobutyl ether.

Isobutylene also was in the rail cars and tankers that were "derailed, breached, and/or on fire," according to a general notice of potential liability letter the EPA sent Feb. 10 to Norfolk Southern. A document from Norfolk Southern detailing the train cars and damage states that the isobutylene tanker was not breached.

The EPA found contaminants from the derailment site in samples from Sulphur Run, Leslie Run, Bull Creek, North Fork Little Beaver Creek, Little Beaver Creek and the Ohio River.

The plaintiffs had not returned to their homes by Thursday and "are faced with the prospect that the real and personal property they own may be damaged beyond their lifetimes and is now worth far less and might be or become unsaleable," according to the lawsuit.

They are seeking monetary damages for "economic and non-economic damages" among other various fees and court costs.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Lawsuit claims fish, animals dying 20 miles away from East Palestine

How dangerous train derailments affect communities like East Palestine, Ohio


Caitlin Dickson and Christopher Wilson
Sat, February 18, 2023 

A woman takes a photo of a train that derailed in Sandusky, Ohio, in October 2022. (Gina Bates/Facebook)

Four months before a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals ran off the tracks in East Palestine, Ohio, creating a fiery explosion that burned for days, another cargo train operated by the same company derailed at an overpass roughly 140 miles away, in Sandusky, Ohio.

Fortunately, no one was injured as a result of the Sandusky derailment, which caused several rail cars to overturn and fall onto one of the main roads leading in and out of the city. The train had been hauling paraffin wax, some of which leaked from the derailed cars and into the city’s sewers, but it quickly hardened and reportedly posed no danger, according to city officials. Roughly 1,500 people were temporarily left without power after the crash, and Amtrak was forced to reroute many of its trains while railroad workers rushed to repair the line. Although the railroad was back up and running a week later, the underpass below remained closed to vehicles and pedestrians for months.

Days after the derailment, a prescient editorial in the Sandusky Register called for a thorough and transparent investigation into the derailment, arguing that “knowing full well the cause for what happened is the first, most important step in preventing it from happening again.”

“It could have been catastrophic, but, fortunately, the loss of life and serious injury both were avoided if only by luck,” the Register’s editorial board wrote. “But the next time, if something like this happens again, it could be more devastating, and someone could be hurt or killed. It seems like pure luck everyone escaped safely this time.”

Sandusky wasn’t the only city in Ohio to experience a train derailment in the months leading up to the crash in East Palestine. In early November, 22 cars of a 237-car train transporting rock salt and other materials derailed in Ravenna Township, a municipality of fewer than 9,000 people roughly 20 miles east of Akron. Days later, another train carrying garbage derailed between Toronto and Steubenville, dumping garbage into the Ohio River. Both of those trains also belonged to Norfolk Southern, one of the nation’s largest railroad companies.

A handwritten sign outside a flower shop on Market Street on Feb. 14 in East Palestine. (Angelo Merendino/Getty Images)

According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics and the Federal Railroad Administration, there were an average of 1,705 train derailments per year in the U.S. between 1990 and 2021. A number of derailments have already been reported in various other parts of the country this year, and even in the weeks since the crash in East Palestine.

For the most part, these incidents don’t result in death, injury or the release of hazardous substances into the nearby community — which is why they don’t usually receive more than a blurb in the local news.

But they nevertheless have a real impact on the often small, working-class communities where they tend to take place.

“This is the cost of doing business. It's just that these costs are being externalized mostly to these very small communities that are becoming victimized by these catastrophes,” said Anne Junod, a senior research associate at the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute who has studied catastrophic train derailments at Ohio State. “If you look at most of the derailments that have occurred in the last 15 years, because of this expansion in oil and gas development, these are happening in our smallest communities, for the most part, that are the least capitalized to do anything about it.”

In an interview with Yahoo News, Junod said she was much less surprised to learn of the derailment in East Palestine than she was by the amount of media attention it has received in the weeks since.

“Frankly, … this accident wasn't a surprise at all; these accidents have been happening for quite a while,” she said. “I'm glad to see it getting its due attention, because it's been affecting communities across North America for the better part of the last 15 years.”

But while national interest in East Palestine has cast a welcome spotlight on some of the very real issues that have long plagued communities along freight rail lines, Junod warned that unless the current attention leads to meaningful policy changes, these kinds of events are certain to continue.

“My hope is thin that we’ll see a lot of changes coming out of this, just because this is another in a long line of these derailments,” she said.

Despite the apparent frequency of derailments in general, trains are still considered the safest way to transport large volumes of chemicals over long distances, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. But while train wrecks involving hazardous materials are relatively uncommon, according to an analysis from USA Today, federal inspectors have flagged 36% more hazmat violations over the last five years than in the five years before that.

Rail companies in recent years have turned to Precision Scheduled Railroading, a system intended to maximize efficiency that results in longer, heavier trains. It has also resulted in a reduction in the number of workers, which railroad unions say has resulted in more cursory inspections and trains that are less safe.

There has also been a rollback on a new braking system. In 2015, the Obama administration instituted new rules on the transportation of crude oil, which were criticized for not being rigorous enough. Under former President Donald Trump, numerous regulations were rolled back, including one mandating the use of electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes, stating that it was too costly. The Associated Press found that Trump’s administration had miscalculated its estimates. Norfolk Southern said that it had “opposed additional speed limitations and requiring ECP brakes” in a 2015 lobbying disclosure.

An air monitoring device is fixed to a pole after the derailment in East Palestine. (Reuters/Alan Freed)

As for potential changes that could reduce the number of derailments, Junod suggested updating the braking system and legislating an increase in staffing that would allow for larger crews, more thorough inspections and additional time for maintenance.

“If you have one-person crews, if you have archaic braking systems, and you have unworkable maintenance expectations, you're going to see these types of accidents. And that's why we're seeing them,” Junod said.

Some state and federal officials have raised the possibility of regulatory changes in the wake of the East Palestine derailment, but so far they’ve mostly focused on rules that would require the railroad to notify local officials in advance about trains carrying hazardous materials.

In a fact sheet released Friday, the White House said Biden’s Department of Transportation was “working on rulemakings to improve rail safety including proposing a rule that would require a minimum of a two-person train crew size for safety reasons” and “developing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that will require railroads to provide real-time information on the contents of tank cars to authorized emergency response officials responding to or investigating an incident involving the transportation of hazardous materials by rail.”

The East Palestine derailment has also broached questions about who should be responsible for handling the response to these incidents, and whether railroad companies can be trusted to prioritize public health and safety over their own financial interests.

A burned container at the site of the East Palestine train derailment.

 (Reuters/Alan Freed)

Norfolk Southern’s response in East Palestine has been criticized by residents and officials in both state and federal governments. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro expressed “serious concerns” on Tuesday, accusing the company of having been unwilling to explore alternative courses of action, “including some that may have kept the rail line closed longer but could have resulted in a safer overall approach for first responders, residents, and the environment." The EPA said earlier this week that Norfolk Southern failed to properly dispose of contaminated soil at the crash site in its effort to get the railway reopened.

In an email to Yahoo News earlier this week, a spokesperson for Norfolk Southern said the company has “called the governor to address his concerns,” and insisted that it is “committed to ensuring health and safety through ongoing environmental monitoring and support for their needs.”

“Norfolk Southern was on-scene immediately following the derailment and began working directly with local, state, and federal officials as they arrived at the unified command established in East Palestine by local officials, including those from Pennsylvania,” the company said. “We remain at the command post today working alongside those agencies to keep information flowing from our teams working at the site.”

Reports from East Palestine this week revealed the community's skepticism and mistrust of the controlled burn of chemicals from the derailed cars. Despite repeated assurances from state officials that it was now safe for residents who had been forced to evacuate during the burn to return to their homes, many locals continued to report rashes, headaches and difficulty breathing, as well as an odd smell in the air.

“We've been let down,” one local woman told EPA Administrator Michael Regan, who met with residents in East Palestine on Thursday as EPA officials conducted tests of the water and air at their homes. “My community should not have been back before that was done.”

Rail employees navigate debris and toppled hopper cars in 2012 at the scene of the derailment at the Main Street overpass in Ellicott City, Md.

 (Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Junod noted that even if the cleanup occurs and residents receive financial compensation, long-term psychological trauma will persist after an incident like the one in East Palestine, which she described as “fundamentally [changing] this community for the people that live there.” She cited a 2013 train accident that killed 47 people in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. Six years after the crash and explosion, a study from the regional public health authority showed that while residents had been improving, seven out of 10 adults "still showed signs of post-traumatic stress,” and that at least two suicides had been linked to the accident.

“People are incredibly distressed, and there are effects we see over the long-term years from now in other communities that have experienced this type of catastrophe,” Junod said. “You see PTSD, you see depression, you see anxiety at levels that didn't exist before.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the state, city officials in Sandusky announced this week that the underpass closed off since the train derailment in October was now partially reopened to northbound traffic, with a 15 mph speed limit.

In interviews with local news outlets, the city’s director of public works hailed this as a sign of progress, after months of frustration. But public comments posted to the city of Sandusky’s Facebook page in response to the announcement on Thursday revealed a mix of relief, skepticism and fear from local residents, especially in light of recent events.

“Hey, they could have had hazardous cargo,” wrote one person. “Consider ourselves lucky.”

Norfolk Southern continuing cleanup from Ravenna Township, Sandusky derailments

Eric Marotta, Akron Beacon Journal
Sun, February 19, 2023 

Property owner Bert McEwen of Ravenna Township and resident Chuck Knight, who witnessed a freight train derailment Nov. 1, watch last week as another train passes right next to the property.

Chuck Knight believes he has to move.

He can't sleep at night after watching a freight train derail just feet from where he had been watching fireworks in the distance over Kent State University.

"I was watching the fireworks and the train came through, and it came through flying, probably 50, 55 miles per hour and I'm not kidding you, he was a-flyin' because the breeze was blowing on me," he recalled. "I heard a bang behind me so I turned and looked and I saw a car coming, and it had fire coming out of it, sparks − a million of them.

"That car was coming up, and as it was coming past me I saw an object flying through the air, and it was so dark out there I couldn't make out what was what ... the cars must have got to jumping and twisting, derailing on the track."

The object was a freight car carrying Jeeps. It landed on a boat just feet away from where he was standing. Two other cars dumped tons of rock salt over the tracks, which were shattered "like a twig."

He ran to get his friend Bert McEwen, who is hard of hearing, from the house. The two men ran away from the tracks and watched the evolving disaster.

"There was dust and smoke everywhere," Knight said.

More:Trains are becoming less safe. Why the Ohio derailment disaster could happen more often

For the past five years, Knight has lived in a camper by McEwen's house on South Prospect Street in Ravenna Township. His camper is within 100 feet of tracks, while the house is just a few yards farther. The busy Norfolk-Southern rail line passes their homes on its way from Cleveland to Hudson, through the south side of Ravenna in Portage County, southeast to Alliance, then east to Conway, Pennsylvania.

The route goes through East Palestine and is believed to be the same route taken by a train carrying hazardous material that derailed there, causing an environmental catastrophe on Feb. 3.

The Norfolk Southern train derailment site in November in Portage County, along with another that happened in October in Sandusky, still being cleaned up months after they occurred, as the railroad also scrambles to deal with the derailment in East Palestine.

Norfolk Southern had another derailment Thursday in Michigan, just west of Detroit.

More:Train carrying toxic chemicals traveled through many northern Ohio cities before derailing
Dozens of cars contained hazmat in Ravenna Township derailment

The 238-car train that derailed in Portage County was carrying a variety of freight, including 63 cars containing unidentified hazardous materials, according to a mandatory accident report Norfolk Southern filed with the Federal Railroad Administration. The railroad previously said 22 derailed cars were predominantly auto racks that carry vehicles and hoppers holding rock salt. About 300 tons of rock salt piled from three cars, according to the report.

Ryan Shackelford, director of the Portage County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said multiple types of hazardous materials were being transported, but added his agency did not have a report.

A bulldozer removes tracks from the Ravenna Township derailment site on Nov. 2.

He said hazmat placards, placed on the side of rail cards to identify contents, showed some cars contained flammable chemicals, while others contained corrosive chemicals. He said placards indicated other cars were carrying molten sulfur; some contained anhydrous ammonia.

The Norfolk Southern report, which still has to be verified by the Federal Railroad Administration, said the primary cause of the Ravenna Township wreck was "buffing or slack action" and "train make-up" around the 121st position in the train as it was traveling at 35 mph down the track that evening.
Cleanup continues at Ravenna Township site

Portage County Commissioner Sabrina Christian-Bennett, who owns a vacant lot where freight cars were derailed, said Norfolk Southern has until March 1 to complete the cleanup under its current access agreement with property owners.

Two wrecked rail cars remained on the east side of the track Friday, across from her property and South Prospect Street, even though it's been more than three months since the Nov. 1 derailment.

Two train cars remain at the scene, even though it's been more than three months since the Nov. 1 derailment in Ravenna Township.

"I'm not thinking they're going to have it done with everything that happened in East Palestine," she said. "I'm sure ours has been put on the back burner again.

"The good news is they didn't have chemicals," she said. "It could have been a lot worse."
Repairs continue at Sandusky derailment site

The city of Sandusky has yet to fully reopen an underpass that was the site of the Oct. 11, 2022, Norfolk Southern derailment. One-way traffic resumed on Columbus Avenue in Sandusky on Thursday after contractors repaired concrete retaining walls. A date for the road's full reopening has not been set.

According to Norfolk Southern's mandatory report, the 101-car train was traveling 31 mph around 4:30 p.m. when 21 cars derailed, spilling 10,000 gallons of paraffin wax from one car at around the sixth position in the train.

The primary cause was listed as a roller bearing failure, according to the report.

A Federal Railroad Administration official said results of the formal investigations are usually completed within six months of the incident date. He said further information, other than that from the railroad's self-reporting, is not available.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown speaks to the media about the Norfolk Southern train derailment Thursday in East Palestine, Ohio.

Hazmat cargo commonplace on area tracks

While Norfolk Southern Railroad officials would not confirm the route taken by the train that derailed in East Palestine, a federal agency investigating the disaster confirmed Wednesday that the train was piloted by a crew it picked up in Toledo en route to a rail yard in Conway, Pennsylvania.

If the train followed the most direct route on Norfolk Southern tracks toward East Palestine, it would have then passed through Cleveland, Hudson and Ravenna, as well as near Kent, before catching fire and crashing near the Pennsylvania border.

Shackelford said it is not unusual for hazardous materials to travel on area rails.

"Anywhere there's a CSX line, Norfolk Southern line, or Wheeling line, you'll see hazardous materials going throughout the county all day long, every single day," he said.

While hazardous material spills are probably the "most common hazard" the agency deals with, "obviously, train derailments are not. But they do happen," said Shackelford.

Here's what data shows:How often do train wrecks spill hazardous chemicals into neighborhoods?

He said that normally, the only notice local officials get of hazardous train cargos is when trainloads of crude oil roll through.

He said Norfolk Southern and Wheeling Lake Erie responded to a survey local emergency planners organized about five years ago. The companies identified 318 types of hazardous materials they carried.

"There is only legislation to make notifications when the Bakken crude oil is coming through our county," he said.

Chuck Knight, who witnessed a Nov. 1 train derailment in Ravenna Township, shows his boat that was destroyed by a train car as a derailed car sits nearby.

'Definitely getting out of here'

Knight says he now counts every train that passes his camper.

On Thursday night, he counted 27 trains passing in both directions between midnight and 2 a.m. − about one every five minutes in all, or 10 minutes between trains in either direction.

"Round about midnight, they start running, but you can come out here any time of day and see that they're flying ...

"I won't be staying here. I'm leaving here. I'm definitely getting out of here," he said. "These trains never woke me up once I got used to it ... It bothers me now."

Train cars and tanks lie on their sides along the tracks after a derailment Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio.

He said he fears the trains are not being maintained properly.

"I can tell you which cars are going by, which car has bad wheels on it. That's how good I've got at identifying what's going on with the train cars. You can hear it, it's so bad. You can see it, it's so loud."

Eric Marotta can be reached at 330-541-9433. Follow him on Twitter @MarottaEric.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Portage County derailed train had hazmat, but only rock salt spilled

Environmental groups call on Buttigieg to restore Obama-era train brake rule



Zack Budryk
Fri, February 17, 2023 at 2:37 PM MST·2 min read

A coalition of environmental organizations on Thursday called on Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to act on a rail safety rule scrapped by the Trump administration, arguing failure to enforce it increases the likelihood of environmental rail disasters.

The Trump administration in 2017 repealed a 2015 rule that would require some trains carrying hazardous substances to upgrade their braking systems to electronically-controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes. In 2018, representatives for Earthjustice, Waterkeeper Alliance, Sierra Club, Riverkeeper, Washington Environmental Council and Stand filed an administrative appeal of the Trump administration’s replacement rule, arguing it was based on outdated impact analyses that predate the current level of crude oil being carried by rail.

In the Thursday letter, representatives for the organizations urged the Biden administration to act on the still-pending appeal.

“It should not take a tragedy like the recent hazardous train derailment in Ohio and the devastation it brought to the community of East Palestine, with water contamination, air pollution, and harm to human health, to turn attention to this issue again,” the letter states. “The pending administrative appeal presents an opportunity for your department to review and make a new determination of whether the costs of modern braking systems for high hazardous flammable trains outweigh the benefits of accident and harm prevention.”

“If we do not hear from you with a timeline for such a response, we will consider taking legal action, but we would prefer to work this out with you,” they added.

In an interview with The Hill, letter author and Earthjustice managing attorney Kristen Boyles said it was unclear whether the rule would have prevented the derailment of a train carrying several cars of vinyl chloride in East Palestine, Ohio.

However, she said, failure to update the braking systems to reflect the amount of hazardous materials currently carried by rail only increases the odds of further disasters.

Federal regulations did not classify the Norfolk Southern train that derailed in Ohio as a “high-hazard flammable” train. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) called the distinction “absurd” Wednesday and called for Congress to amend the statute.

A Department of Transportation spokesperson noted that a provision in the 2015 FAST Act required an independent analysis that determined the cost of the ECP rule outweighed the benefits.

“As a result, it is much harder for USDOT to advance a rule in the same configuration — due to threats of litigation and opposition in Congress,” the spokesperson wrote.

“USDOT supports efforts to expand safety regulations and will look to the [National Transportation Security Board] report on the cause of the derailment to take action that will ensure accountability and improved safety.”

— Updated at 5:28 p.m.

The Hill.

Four rail-borne risks moving through North American communities



Saul Elbein
Sat, February 18, 2023 

Communities alongside rail lines had two more close calls this week as freight trains carrying hazardous materials derailed in Houston and Detroit.

For the communities where this week’s wrecks took place, the damage was less severe than symbolic: a reminder of the importance of rail-borne hazardous materials to every part of the economy just after the crash in East Palestine, Ohio.

Houston is the capital of the nation’s petroleum industry, part of a sprawling crescent of refineries, crackers, factories and liquefaction plants stretching from Baytown, Texas, to the Mississippi River industrial corridor in Louisiana — sometimes called Cancer Alley.

And Detroit — the once-and-future heartland of American automotive manufacturing — is now a rising hub of electric vehicle and battery manufacturing, a suite of high technologies whose exotic chemistries depend on hazardous materials.

For example, liquid chlorine — carried in the train that derailed in Detroit — is an essential component in wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicle batteries, according to the Chlorine Institute.

The crashes in both regions — one a rising hub of clean energy, the other of fossil fuels — underscored the risk posed by hazardous materials moving through the nation’s towns and cities.

That is a risk that is often invisible until, suddenly, it explodes.

Since 2015, the U.S. rail system has been responsible for 106 derailments in which hazardous materials were released, according to Federal Railway Administration data analyzed by The Hill.

In 2022 alone, the agency tracked ten derailments containing hazardous materials, which ranged from a pair of propane-carrying cars overturned in Maine to a 44-car derailment in Iowa that sent 65,000 gallons of asphalt into an Iowa creek.

Last year also saw a spill of 19,300 gallons of hydrochloric acid from a derailment in Oklahoma and 20,000 gallons of nervous system-distorting methyl methacrylate monomer — a key ingredient in fake nails.

In East Palestine, approximately 36 cars derailed — 11 of which carried hazardous materials.

If that wreck had happened in 2022, it would have been in 8th place in terms of cars destroyed.

Still, these trains — especially in emergency situations — pose unseen risks.

“Local communities don’t know what’s in these trains,” said Kristen Boyle, an attorney with public interest law firm Earthjustice. “Local communities can’t find out. They can’t stop the trains from going through, and they have been unable to get safety regulations.”

“And then they’re the ones left with, you know, the explosion,” she added.

Representatives from the Department of Transportation told The Hill that the agency doesn’t monitor the real-time movement of hazardous materials across the country. Trains carried about a million tons per day by rail in 2017, the last year the government released numbers.

The nation’s rail trade groups have been quick to point out that this system is very safe on a train-by-train basis. According to the Associated of American Railroads (AAR), trains are ten times as safe per mile as trucks, and 99.9 percent of hazmat-containing rail shipments make it to their destination without incident.

But trains also carry far more cargo than trucks — making the risks of a spill far more severe. And the sheer volume of U.S. rail travel means that even a failure rate of 0.1 percent can lead to a lot of damage.

For example, about 20,000 rail shipments of vinyl chloride — the highly explosive and carcinogenic chemical that Norfolk Southern contractors poured in a ditch and burned off in East Palestine — cross the country each year, according to the American Chemical Society.

That 99.5 percent success rate would still allow for 100 possible releases of a hazardous chemical — such as crude oil, ethanol, vinyl chloride or methane.

CRUDE OIL

One recent boom in hazardous material transport by rail dates back to the coincidence of two historic phenomena in the 2010s that drove a boom in crude oil transports by rail.

The first was the boom in “fracked” oil and gas, and second, the discovery of shale plays far from traditional pipeline complexes.

These two developments created a radical shift in the geography of the U.S. oil industry — one that created a need for new routes to connect new wells to new or existing coastal export terminals.

And when the proposed export pipelines projects — such as Keystone XL, the Dakota Access Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline — foundered against dedicated local opposition in rural farm counties, the booming oil and gas industry turned to rail.

In March of 2010, just 1.2 million barrels of oil were moved by train — a quantity that peaked at 35 million in October of 2014, mostly out of the new fracking fields in the Midwest, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA).

The rail transport boom didn’t last — in part because investors slammed the brakes on an oil industry that it saw as irresponsibly overproducing.

But even as transport volumes fell, by November 2022 they still remained six times higher than where they had been in 2021. That month, 7.27 million barrels crossed the U.S. by train.

That number still represented about 90,000 carloads of crude oil per day — each hauling about 13,500 gallons, according to AAR.

And if a proposed merger between Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern is approved, it will create direct routes for exporting Canadian tar sands through the United States, Houston Public Media found.

That would be the same product that exploded in 2013 in the small Quebec town of Lac Megantic, killing 47.

Environmental and civil society groups are calling on the Biden administration to restore oil train safety rules weakened by Trump, as The Hill previously reported.

ETHANOL

In December, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed new rules intended to spur the production of enough biofuels and e-fuels, such as ethanol, to replace up to 180,000 barrels of oil per year.

About 95 percent of the ethanol moved in the U.S. in the first half of 2022 moved by rail — and rail exports of both ethanol and biofuels are rising, according EIA.

Biodiesel shipments by rail have also increased fivefold since 2010.

Rail biodiesel shipments were just 2.6 million barrels per year — but had soared to 13 million by 2019. Ethanol, meanwhile, has increased from 208 million barrels per year in 2010 to 237 million in 2022.

As with everything else, a higher volume of transport means a higher volume of spills.

In 2017, an ethanol train derailed and caught fire in northwestern Iowa after a bridge collapsed beneath it. In 2019 authorities in Utah blew up 11 biodiesel and propane cars derailed in a Union Pacific wreck.

VINYL CHLORIDE

The train that crashed in East Palestine carried vinyl chloride, a key ingredient used to make plastic. It is the kind of petroleum-based chemical that the fossil fuel industry is betting on in a greening world, CNBC reported.

Plastic use is projected to double in wealthy countries by 2060 — and most of those plastics will be “primary” plastics, or single-use, non-recycled ones, according to a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The continued dominance of single-use plastics means increased risk from toxic chemicals at both ends of the supply chain. Under this production scenario, the OECD found that plastic waste discharged into the environment would triple, with unknown consequences to public health and the environment.

But it also means a boom in the production and transport of plastic precursors — the volatile ingredients used to make them — will also have to increase.

For example, according to one industry report, vinyl chloride production is expected to grow 6 percent annually over the next five years.

That puts local communities on the hook for safety decisions made in the faraway boardrooms of the Class I Freight railroads. In the case of East Palestine, those decisions represented a twofold mistake by Norfolk Southern, environmental attorney Frank Petosa told the Hill.

First, Petosa pointed to the railroad’s “failure” to maintain the train’s wheels — causing the derailment and the subsequent fire.

But that mistake was compounded by a more serious one: the lack of proper safety release valves in the cars carrying vinyl chloride so that pressure could not be let out to avoid an explosion once the train — which was not considered highly flammable — caught fire.

Then the railroad capped this off with a final error, Petosa said. With no way to safely relieve pressure as the cars burned, Petosa noted, “they chose a solution that made everything worse. They chose to just, you know, poke holes in the tanks, release them into a burn pit and create an environmental disaster.”

METHANE

The expansion of plastics production goes alongside another boom in fossil fuels — the increase in the transport of methane, the explosive chemical commonly known as natural gas.

Since the Obama administration, the fossil fuel industry has characterized the nation’s gas industry as an energy weapon against Russia. The industry is in the midst of a historic buildout.

The main driver in this growth is a flood of new terminals — many of which will be serviced by rail. The Federal Energy and Regulatory Commission has approved 16 new LNG export terminals.

The LNG industry will help drive an estimated increase in U.S. consumption of petroleum will grow for the next 25 years — a growth that can be primarily accounted for by the rise in LNG exports, according to the EIA.

By 2050, the agency predicted that the U.S. would be producing 25 percent more gas than it consumed — most of it coming from new shale gas developments in corners of the United States, like the Bakken Shale of North Dakota.

Many of the new wave of natural gas terminals — built on the Gulf Coast, where shelter-in-place orders from chemical spills are a regular occurrence — will not need rail connections.

That is because they are connected to oil and gas wells by dense pipeline networks laid over the past century of oil and chemical production.

But others will be in areas where fossil fuels are a relative novelty — and where the only way to get volatile gasses in and out is by truck or trail.

For example, New Fortress Energy’s Miami LNG plant could process about 740,00 gallons of LNG per day — which would be supplied by trucks and trains moving through a densely populated city, a report from Food and Water Watch found.

Then there is the proposed LNG export terminal in Gibbstown, New Jersey — which a dozen New Jersey and Pennsylvania towns are fighting largely because of the fear that LNG-bearing cars would become “bomb trains” in a derailment.

LNG is so energy-dense that a single train carrying 22 cars of the substance contains approximately the same explosive energy as the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945, according to a 2020 comment by Earthjustice.

In a worst-case scenario — in which LNG spreading unchecked in a pool rapidly turns to explosive vapor, triggering a fireball — flames would put people and structures at risk as far as 1.5 miles from the leak, according to a report by the National Academy of Sciences.

The NAS also found that bystanders as far as .4 miles from the spreading pool of flaming LNG — or a quarter mile from that fireball — could get s and bystanders could get second-degree burns at nearly half a mile away, according to a report by the National Academy of Sciences.

Like the oil train brakes mentioned above, the LNG-by-rail issue is another regulatory whipsaw between the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations.

In 2020, the Trump Administration permitted the shipment of refrigerated methane — also known as liquefied natural gas, or LNG — via rail without special safety precautions.

The administration made this decision over the protests of both its own National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

The NTSB found that LNG shipments would likely start slowly and ramp up over time. But “the risks of catastrophic LNG releases in accidents is too great not to have operational controls in place before large blocks of tank cars and unit trains proliferate,” the agency found.

Under a policy called “energy dominance,” the Trump administration approved LNG-by-rail anyway, without the restriction that the NTSB had requested.

In November 2021, PHMSA suspended the Trump rule, but it has yet to promulgate a new rule or officially repeal the old one.

Any potential federal rule would be vulnerable in the event of a Republican presidential victory in 2024.

Even if it does, Boyle of Earthjustice noted, transport of uncompressed gas — which is still flammable, if less dramatically so — is still legal.

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