The Auron MacIntyre Show - The Poison Train： Tragedy in East Palestine ｜ Guest： Pedro Gonzalez ｜ 3⧸7⧸23

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00:01:29.080 Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I've got a great stream with a great guest, which I think you're going to enjoy. Now, I'm sure all of you have at this point heard about the tragedy in East Palestine. And we know that there is a lot of speculation. There are a lot of people saying things like this is our Chernobyl. And I wanted to get somebody who had been on the ground who looked deep into this issue so we could kind of get more into what's going on there.

00:01:56.100 And Pedro Gonzalez is joining me. He is the politics editor over at Chronicles. And he's also got a great sub stack of his own Contra. Make sure that you check it out. Pedro, thanks for coming on.

00:02:09.840 Thanks so much for having me, Warren.

00:02:11.460 Absolutely. So like I said, this train derailment happened and there wasn't much coming out from the media beyond the initial contact. We know that because of some of the reporting that came out from different people like Tucker Carlson, more attention was paid.

00:02:29.320 But I still feel like it's insanely small story compared to its actual impact. So you went deep in depth on your own sub stack about this. And I want you to go ahead and just kind of walk us through different parts of it. But let's just start at the beginning. What actually happened with the train derailment?

00:02:48.440 Why did it derail? Were there different factors involved? A lack of regulation? Mechanical failures? Why did this train come apart? What was it carrying?

00:02:57.280 Yeah. So there's a lot here. And that's part of the reason why I wrote it. Because most of the information that was out there was coming out in bits and pieces.

00:03:05.820 And it was just difficult to get a kind of bird's eye view of what had happened. And one thing that I found when it's getting into this is that you really have to kind of piece it all together because on the one hand, there's no newspaper or media ecosystem in East Palestine, Ohio.

00:03:25.900 All of the reporting has happened from local outlets that are outside of East Palestine, people that live, you know, the town over or whatever and work for the media there that are coming into East Palestine.

00:03:38.280 And so it's interesting in the sense that although this has happened in the backyards of these people in a town of about 5,000 just under that, they're often in the dark and they have to turn to other sources outside of where they live to basically find out what's going on.

00:03:56.640 And it's a really interesting aspect of the story. I mean, interesting from an outside perspective, but obviously it's terrifying with the locals that something big has happened in their backyard and they often feel like they have no idea what's going on because people don't talk to them.

00:04:10.680 They don't get the answers they want. They get conflicting answers. And that's part of why, partly why I set out to do this.

00:04:17.120 So the East Palestine derailment actually begins before the night the train went off the tracks.

00:04:24.700 It starts on, as far as I can tell, February 1st when Norfolk Southern train 32N broke down at least once in the night.

00:04:33.860 People who spoke to CBS News agreed to talk to the media on the condition of anonymity because they said they were afraid of retaliation from Norfolk Southern.

00:04:42.540 And they told the press that they think that the reason the train broke down had to do with the fact that it was massive.

00:04:50.440 It was hauling over 150 cars, I think it was 151 cars, and it weighed 18,000 tons, something like that.

00:04:57.280 Just this thing was a behemoth. And the people who were, again, talking to the press anonymously were saying that, you know, we shouldn't even be running cars this big.

00:05:06.020 Like, this is asking for a disaster when you have this kind of a behemoth on the tracks.

00:05:12.860 And they also noted that basically the whole operation from beginning to end is stretched to the bone because of all of these layoffs, that you have one guy who's doing multiple different jobs.

00:05:25.100 I mean, this is – I think you should probably look at this as intense as, like, flying an airplane.

00:05:29.460 For whatever reason, we don't. But it seems to me that, you know, trains hauling important cargo and especially hazardous chemicals should be taken as seriously as planes flying in the sky.

00:05:40.180 But for whatever reason, we don't. And I think that's represented in the fact that Norfolk Southern thinks it's apparently fine to have, you know, one guy doing two or three different jobs that, you know, he may or may not actually be able to do.

00:05:51.700 But that's just what they have to do because there's not enough people.

00:05:55.740 So that's February 1st.

00:05:57.560 On February 3rd, the train is seen as it passes through Salem, Ohio at different locations.

00:06:07.580 It's basically security camera footage that we have at different residences and businesses that show as the train is sailing through the town that there's what looks like fire or sparks flashing underneath the cars.

00:06:21.700 And this is about 20 miles.

00:06:23.680 I think the footage that went viral that I think most people – if you've seen this video that I'm talking about, you've probably – you've seen the one from – it's a manufacturing plant in Salem.

00:06:34.860 And it's – the train is passing through the back of it, and you can see this kind of glow from underneath it.

00:06:39.540 That's about 20 miles from where the train derailed.

00:06:42.780 And so a big question is, you know, was the crew notified of the derailment?

00:06:48.000 Or in other words, why didn't they stop it from happening?

00:06:52.700 And initially, and as far as we know still, it sounds like it was a mechanical failure, not a brake failure or anything like that, just a mechanical failure.

00:07:01.500 And that the mechanisms that were in place to warn the crew, it seems like they basically failed or didn't warn the crew until the last minute.

00:07:11.380 And this is, again, a lot of this stuff is still being investigated, which I think is actually good that I wrote my report when I did about two or three weeks after the fact.

00:07:21.240 Because there are details in the report – again, this happened on February 3rd – but there are details in what I wrote that didn't come to light until, like, February 25th, just because that's how this whole thing has played out.

00:07:35.360 And initially, people, I think, kind of settled on that.

00:07:42.060 You know, it's like, okay, well, the crew didn't get notified.

00:07:44.500 There was some kind of a system failure, right?

00:07:46.020 It wasn't their fault.

00:07:48.120 It was an error with the machine.

00:07:51.260 But then, again, after the fact, it comes out that on February 1st, the train broke down at least once.

00:07:58.860 So why was it rolling on the tracks after February 1st, right?

00:08:03.760 Even if you – like, setting aside what happened on February 3rd and the failure of the warning mechanisms to actually give the crew time to stop the train,

00:08:10.480 why was the train even rolling if it broke down on the night of February 1st?

00:08:14.260 Like, no one has answered that question or has bothered to ask it.

00:08:20.140 So is the practice of running a train this large with that kind of skeleton crew, is that very normal for what's going on now?

00:08:26.840 Not even just with Norfolk Southern, but do you know, is that reflective of a larger trend in kind of the railroad industry?

00:08:34.920 That's a good question.

00:08:35.900 I didn't compare – I didn't do, like, a comparative analysis of basically the size of trains today versus, I don't know, 10 years ago.

00:08:42.580 But the comments that the crew gave to CBS indicated that this has become too common,

00:08:49.860 especially considering the lack of people that are available to make sure the train is safely operating.

00:08:56.280 So – and you kind of see this recurring theme of people saying – it goes all the way up to Pete Buttigieg, right,

00:09:03.280 whose initial reaction was, like, this stuff happens all the time, which that might be true, but it shouldn't happen all the time.

00:09:10.380 It's like saying, well, you know, there are a lot of third-world countries out there.

00:09:14.060 It's like, well, that doesn't mean that we should be one and that our infrastructure should reflect that of a third-world country, right? 1.00

00:09:20.060 Because that was a comparison.

00:09:21.300 Go ahead.

00:09:21.600 No, I was going to say, yeah, that's something that you really think about with this.

00:09:26.000 Isn't this just a reflection of a larger problem we have where we're just stretching all of our infrastructure,

00:09:31.800 all of these critical systems that are just the lifeblood of America that no one really seems to care about, pay attention to?

00:09:38.440 Everyone's way more interested in social justice and how many drag queens can dance on the head of a pin 1.00

00:09:44.300 rather than, you know, whether or not we can safely transport dangerous chemicals across the United States

00:09:50.040 without just nuking a small town in the middle of Ohio.

00:09:54.340 And so, you know, you mentioned airplanes, but we know even in that case, you know,

00:09:58.560 equity and those things are far more important than actually getting these systems moving.

00:10:03.160 And I think that just speaks to how far everyone is stretched and how willing they are to kind of bend and shape things around these political priorities.

00:10:10.020 And I think that that was another reason that I wrote this is because I immediately became sick of the whole, you know,

00:10:19.260 Democrats, bad, Republicans, good or whatever.

00:10:21.620 It's just not true.

00:10:22.760 This story is so much bigger and deeper than that.

00:10:24.900 And the issues that have made this, like Pete Buttigieg, unfortunately was correct to say,

00:10:32.160 a kind of a common factor of American life when it comes to our infrastructure.

00:10:36.780 Those, the things that have made that a reality, they predate the Biden administration.

00:10:42.540 They run through the Trump administration and actually go back to the Obama administration.

00:10:47.080 And it's the same thing regardless of who is in the White House.

00:10:50.680 Our infrastructure is still crumbling regardless of the rhetoric, right?

00:10:55.380 And again, I tried to make that very clear in my piece that this goes beyond Republican and Democrat.

00:11:00.440 And so the train derails on the night of February 3rd.

00:11:08.320 And again, this is one of those things where it's really murky because what we were told and what we're still told is that the reason that there was this controlled vent,

00:11:19.920 and we're going to get to that, is that there was the threat of these cars containing hazardous chemicals exploding,

00:11:28.140 which would have, you know, the blast radius they estimated would be about a mile.

00:11:33.040 And on top of that, you'd obviously get the release of all these noxious chemicals, but with a blast.

00:11:37.240 And so what we understand is that there was nothing noxious from what we're told that was leaked as soon as the train derailed, right?

00:11:48.860 It was a sort of thing like that stuff did get into the soil and sky, but it was because of the controlled vent.

00:11:56.020 But again, here's one of the murky things is that people immediately reported smelling something foul.

00:12:00.660 The fire chief, Keith Drabik of East Palestine, at one point basically said, like, look, as far as we can tell, the air quality is okay.

00:12:10.500 But if you don't have to come to East Palestine, don't. 0.86

00:12:13.020 And the mayor himself, who was on scene within minutes of the train derailing around 9 p.m., said that he could smell something really terrible.

00:12:23.640 And like all the residents I spoke with said the same thing.

00:12:25.880 And one of the residents I spoke with, her name is Zusa, she told me that she actually woke up and then she was awake.

00:12:32.600 She didn't wake up.

00:12:33.660 She was awake when the train derailed and she had no idea what happened.

00:12:36.820 She just heard tons of sirens, you know, tons of ruckus.

00:12:41.800 And then she knew something was wrong when her son, who has asthma, started vomiting.

00:12:46.200 And that suddenly, like, she had difficulty breathing because her lungs and her home were filled with some horrendous smelling thing.

00:12:53.560 And so they fled in the night around 3 a.m.

00:12:55.880 But they had no idea, you know, what had happened, really.

00:12:59.500 So, again, this is one of those things where there's all these questions.

00:13:02.500 Was there or was there not something that was leaked from these cars on the night that it actually happened, apart from the controlled vent?

00:13:09.380 We don't really know.

00:13:11.200 And that contributes to the distrust around this and all the confusion.

00:13:14.720 And that was my first impression of, like, talking with the residents, apart from the fact that they're very nice and kind and generous with their time, despite the fact that they're kind of living through this, you know, waking nightmare of uncertainty.

00:13:26.580 They're also just very, they don't trust authorities.

00:13:29.740 Because from the beginning, the authorities fumbled how they were handling this.

00:13:34.340 And that's reflected in everything, in every aspect of the response.

00:13:39.280 I can keep going.

00:13:42.120 I don't know if you want to interject.

00:13:42.960 No, well, I just, I think it's interesting that, like you said, because there is no media in that area, they are completely reliant on outside reporting and they're completely reliant on the experts.

00:13:56.520 Like you said, you're completely reliant on these different authorities that have to come in from out of town.

00:14:02.200 They need to interject. 0.89

00:14:03.080 They need to assess what's going on.

00:14:05.600 And unfortunately, of course, you want the first concern to be the welfare of the citizens, the stabilization of the environment, containing everything, making sure that people are properly informed and taken care of.

00:14:18.700 But it seems like at every step, the concern was the possible political outfall, the possible, you know, legal liabilities, the possible reactions by different corporations, entities there.

00:14:31.860 It's hard for the people there to get a straight answer.

00:14:34.220 Is my water safe?

00:14:35.860 Is my air safe?

00:14:37.920 Do I need to flee this area?

00:14:39.640 Can the government give me assistance?

00:14:41.580 What is being done to ensure that the damage is minimized?

00:14:46.340 And what action do I need to take as a resident here?

00:14:48.720 It just seems like that was completely, like you said, something that they could not trust at any moment.

00:14:54.080 Yeah.

00:14:54.400 No, from the beginning, that's at least the impression the residents got.

00:14:58.780 And again, it's totally independent of intention.

00:15:01.960 Um, but that's, that's just the impression that the residents got is that people don't care about us.

00:15:07.280 And also it's more important that, you know, Norfolk Southern comes out of this looking okay.

00:15:11.520 And so on February 4th, there's a partial evacuation order that's imposed by Mayor Conaway.

00:15:20.960 And most people, by the way, in the town that I spill, I actually didn't meet anybody who doesn't like the mayor.

00:15:26.160 He's, he's one of them.

00:15:27.340 Right.

00:15:28.040 And I should have started with, with this is that East Palestine is the quintessential, um, small American town.

00:15:35.960 Uh, it's, it's blue collar.

00:15:38.120 You know, the average income, the average household income is around 46,000.

00:15:41.960 It's 90% white, you know, 99% of the people that live there are U.S. citizens.

00:15:45.920 Um, it's, it's, it's a small place, but it's very industrious.

00:15:49.760 Like they've, they've been manufacturing a lot of things that range from things that are made with metal to, uh, uh, uh, ceramics.

00:15:57.440 I spoke with people that have worked at the same ceramics, uh, facility for decades.

00:16:03.240 Uh, and that facility, it's actually really interesting.

00:16:06.040 I found that the, the place where they work, this, uh, this plant that they said was actually fairly close to where the train derailed.

00:16:12.160 Um, the kilns are over a hundred years old and the, uh, this tiny little plant in East Palestine, Ohio, manufactured, um, parts made out of ceramic for, um, uh, the Manhattan project.

00:16:27.380 They, they covertly was involved in producing stuff that was being, uh, shipped off for use in the Manhattan project.

00:16:34.260 So kind of interesting, like, and I, I wanted to bring that out because the reaction that some people had, I'm not going to name names.

00:16:41.020 I could, if you want me to, but the reaction that some people had was like, who cares about this, like small town?

00:16:46.380 This is like, this is so irrelevant compared to, I don't know, Ukraine or something.

00:16:49.840 Right.

00:16:50.580 Yeah.

00:16:50.840 By the way, this happens all the time.

00:16:53.500 And I was just so disgusted by that.

00:16:56.540 Uh, it's yeah.

00:16:58.020 Go ahead.

00:16:58.340 I think that was the, the, the reaction so many people had is, you know, this seems like a horrific event.

00:17:03.980 That seems like there's a huge problem here, but you know, no one from the government responding,

00:17:09.640 no major players are showing up, you know, the president is heading over to Ukraine to

00:17:14.740 talk about how many billions of dollars you're going to spend on that.

00:17:17.320 And like you said, there's a failure on all political sides here.

00:17:20.020 It's not just the, just Biden or the Democrats, but, but it did seem like a very clear message

00:17:25.800 was sent.

00:17:26.340 Like these people are not important.

00:17:27.940 This is not what the empire cares about.

00:17:30.060 There's, there's more important things happen in the world.

00:17:32.200 We shouldn't really be focused on this.

00:17:34.860 But one thing that is, is a little confusing is from much of the coverage, a lot of people,

00:17:40.560 I think got the idea that there was just this order to like go burn everything, you

00:17:44.400 know, like, like some guy showed up with a flamethrower and just kind of, uh, got rid

00:17:48.660 of the chemicals, but it, it sounds like the train might've art was already on fire.

00:17:54.540 There was already some level already happening.

00:17:57.280 And so the decision was whether or not to go ahead and like you said, vent those chemicals.

00:18:02.520 So what was the train carrying that is, that was so, uh, worrisome and why was the decision

00:18:09.040 made to go ahead and take that action while the train was already on fire?

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00:18:42.560 That's a good question.

00:18:43.600 So the train was carrying a variety of different chemicals that are hazardous to humans and are

00:18:49.000 used in various things from paint to manufacturing PVC.

00:18:54.560 And, but the one that everyone knows about and the one that everyone, that was like the main

00:18:58.740 concern was vinyl chloride.

00:19:01.720 And I think five, I'm doing this from memory.

00:19:04.700 It's obviously in my article.

00:19:05.860 Sure.

00:19:06.260 Five of the cars that derailed contained a combined, uh, it was over a hundred thousand gallons of

00:19:13.100 vinyl chloride.

00:19:13.620 So this stuff is, is really dangerous.

00:19:16.620 It's extremely carcinogenic.

00:19:18.580 Um, and it, it, it actually can be converted into, or it, it, it can become, um, essentially

00:19:26.380 a chemical weapon.

00:19:28.500 Uh, I think it's called phosgene.

00:19:30.720 And this was, this was used in world war two or excuse me, world war one.

00:19:34.600 Um, and it, it killed about 85,000 people.

00:19:38.680 And so I think, I think it becomes that when it interacts with heat.

00:19:42.520 And so basically the concern was, is like, if we allow this, because initially the, um,

00:19:48.460 initially the approach was to allow the fires to burn out and then, um, first responders

00:19:55.480 would move in and then basically, uh, complete extinguishing it once Norfolk Southern deemed

00:20:01.820 it safe, but that changed when on November 5th, there was detected a, basically a sharp

00:20:09.580 increase in the temperature of one of the cars containing vinyl chloride.

00:20:13.120 And the concern was that if that car goes, the, all the other ones are going to go.

00:20:17.300 And, and then you have a scenario where you're not just, you don't just have an explosion,

00:20:21.600 but then you, you have this scenario where this stuff, I guess, gets hot enough that it

00:20:25.220 can also become much worse or something.

00:20:28.080 Again, all this stuff is, this is one of the situations where it's like,

00:20:31.820 I, the criticism of whether or not, you know, like the vent was a good or bad idea.

00:20:37.880 I don't know.

00:20:38.680 Like, I guess we're not going to know for a while, but it wasn't an easy, it wasn't an

00:20:42.820 easy call.

00:20:43.700 Right.

00:20:44.060 And I mean, imagine being one of the first responders that had to deal with this because

00:20:47.660 what these guys had to do was, is they had to dig trenches around.

00:20:51.420 And I think this is a really important part of the story that again, this got totally overlooked

00:20:55.280 in the really heated debate over whether or not they should have vented the chemicals,

00:21:00.140 right.

00:21:01.080 Or take the risk of having an explode.

00:21:03.500 What they did, what they ended up doing was digging these trenches around the cars and

00:21:07.480 dumping the stuff into pits and then igniting it with flares and allowing it to burn off.

00:21:13.280 And, and that's where you got that, that photogenic, but ominous black cloud that everyone

00:21:17.640 saw.

00:21:17.960 Right.

00:21:18.180 But it's important to note that the cars were on fire before that.

00:21:20.700 I saw a video.

00:21:21.600 I was not allowed to share it and put it in my, in my story because of the person that

00:21:26.700 took it, I think was like worried about their employment.

00:21:28.960 But I saw a video that was taken by somebody who was on scene at the moment it happened.

00:21:33.000 And I mean, the cars were on fire because again, there was, there was already that black 1.00

00:21:37.760 cloud that everyone is familiar with.

00:21:39.800 There were flames before that.

00:21:41.300 And there was smoke before that, that, that really nasty black cloud is just obviously all

00:21:45.020 the chemicals that were being burned off.

00:21:46.320 Um, so that happened.

00:21:49.560 Right.

00:21:50.240 And amid the debate over the venting, it was completely missed this question of like, well,

00:21:55.340 wait, what about the first responders?

00:21:57.160 Because a lot of the people who were involved in particular, the firefighters had to surrender

00:22:02.060 hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment because it was contaminated.

00:22:07.320 I was told that they had boots that had basically been eaten through by the stuff that they were

00:22:11.900 dealing with.

00:22:12.420 Uh, I tried to, I tried to speak to the East Palestinian fire department that they didn't

00:22:16.420 want to talk to me, but I know that the fire chief himself has said that, that they're basically

00:22:21.100 having to use gear on loan from other agencies in and out of Ohio because they had to surrender

00:22:26.400 all their gear.

00:22:27.060 Like this sounds like some pretty nasty stuff, right?

00:22:29.600 So what about the guys that had to actually dig the trenches, interact with it?

00:22:32.620 Well, according to one union representative, and this letter was sent to Governor DeWine on

00:22:39.200 March 1st.

00:22:40.000 Again, the derailment happened on the 3rd.

00:22:42.660 We like, we didn't get this letter until March 1st.

00:22:45.320 And in that letter, this union rep says that there are a bunch of, of, uh, a bunch of workers

00:22:50.580 who were involved in this effort, uh, who were not given the proper protective equipment.

00:22:56.800 And that, that at least one of them told the rep that he, he had been experiencing like

00:23:03.840 brutal migraines and nausea as he was work, like dealing with this stuff.

00:23:07.700 And he, and he basically called the supervisor and asked, like, I, I, you know, I can't see

00:23:11.780 straight.

00:23:12.240 I'm sick to my stomach.

00:23:14.080 And the supervisor got, got back to him by saying, I'll get back to you.

00:23:17.680 And they never did.

00:23:19.200 And according to this letter, there are 40 people who were, uh, that this person represents

00:23:25.200 who were involved in the cleanup, who say that they weren't given the proper PPE and that

00:23:28.960 for days afterwards, they had migraines and nausea.

00:23:31.940 So what are the long-term effects of that?

00:23:34.540 We don't know.

00:23:35.100 And most people don't even know that the letter was sent, you know, and I think Norfolk Southern

00:23:38.840 responded in the Hill.

00:23:40.960 They, yeah, they responded in the Hill by basically saying it's not true or whatever.

00:23:44.620 It's funny.

00:23:44.960 All their responses are worded in such a way that don't inspire confidence and make you

00:23:48.900 think that they're, it's like, it's kind of an admission that there's probably some

00:23:53.040 truth to this complaint because of the way that things are worded.

00:23:55.540 But anyways, again, we didn't even know that until March 1st because everyone was like

00:23:59.640 so angry about the venting, but that everyone was so angry about the venting that we forgot

00:24:03.340 about the people that actually had to deal with this stuff and are ultimately forgotten.

00:24:07.000 And we won't hear about them again, you know, unless something horrible happens to them,

00:24:10.080 like they develop cancer or something.

00:24:12.400 Yeah.

00:24:12.500 It sounds like a, like an agent orange, you know, burn pit scenario where, you know,

00:24:17.060 yeah.

00:24:18.320 How could they even be prepared for this kind of thing?

00:24:20.920 Right.

00:24:21.080 Like it seems like that your average local first responding department is not going to have

00:24:25.280 this kind of thing on hand.

00:24:26.640 It's very clear that the company involved did not have any way to contribute to this

00:24:30.900 cleanup, you know, in, in the immediate aftermath when these decisions had to be made.

00:24:35.600 And then the fact that these people are not getting any kind of answers, that there's no

00:24:40.260 attention paid to what's going to happen longterm.

00:24:43.160 Yeah.

00:24:43.360 It does seem like an absolute nightmare for, for the people who had to immediately be impacted

00:24:48.680 by this cleanup.

00:24:49.700 And if they're not there, then that just means the community suffers even more.

00:24:53.460 So they're doing their job, but you know, they're not getting any, any special thanks

00:24:57.720 and who knows if they'll be taken care of in the long run for being directly involved

00:25:02.040 in, in this cleanup.

00:25:04.020 But what about the, you know, the aftermath of this?

00:25:07.700 Like once you have that situation, at least somewhat stabilized, what, what were the people

00:25:13.340 dealing with right after?

00:25:14.800 And what was the effort of the government and Norfolk Southern in trying to understand kind

00:25:19.640 of the impact of, uh, uh, on the environment and the people who are living in the town?

00:25:24.480 Yeah.

00:25:25.080 So initially it seemed like the wine was because it's interesting to see how attitudes toward

00:25:31.940 the wine have shifted.

00:25:33.300 Uh, when I went to, I got as close as I could to where the train derailed and there's, um,

00:25:38.180 there's a, there's a store with an old banner.

00:25:40.720 It's been there for a lot for years.

00:25:42.720 You can tell because it looks really warm by weather, but there's an old banner that

00:25:46.480 says, um, I think it's like dump Mike fire, Mike DeWine.

00:25:50.160 So you, you can kind of see that this is a town that, you know, is, is already there.

00:25:54.060 There's some tension there.

00:25:55.620 And I spoke to the people that I worked with.

00:25:58.380 We spoke to the, at the ceramics facility told me that, or at least the husband told me

00:26:02.660 that he was basically a Democrat his whole life, uh, until Trump.

00:26:06.640 And, um, so this is very much that kind of a town, right?

00:26:12.040 Uh, like they value, I guess their, their independence and, and at the same time they

00:26:19.340 demand accountability.

00:26:20.740 And so initially it, I think it actually looked like DeWine was doing a decent job.

00:26:26.120 Uh, there, there was, what seemed like an aggressive, uh, response from the state, but

00:26:31.120 then it was like, after that, it kind of just disappeared.

00:26:34.200 And that's how most people feel like DeWine just, you know, did what he had to do initially

00:26:39.320 and then just vanished.

00:26:40.280 And, and you contrast that to COVID where someone I know joked is the reason that DeWine

00:26:47.340 locked everyone in their homes during COVID is because, you know, his true calling in

00:26:50.760 life was to be a cop and very different with this, you know, very much like hands off.

00:26:56.920 There's that, uh, very bad, uh, question that he feels where he's asked, you know, would

00:27:02.560 you be back in East Palestine?

00:27:03.600 And his response is something like, well, I think I'd probably be drinking bottled water,

00:27:06.640 but yeah, I think I'd be back in town if I lived here.

00:27:09.320 Like that was, that was a terrible response.

00:27:12.200 And so, but the thing that really rubbed people the wrong way was the fact that from where

00:27:19.360 they stood, it looked like Norfolk Southern was overseeing the cleanup or, you know, most

00:27:26.060 people kind of see it as a coverup of, of what Norfolk Southern did.

00:27:29.140 And again, it didn't inspire confidence that the testing agencies, the, the contractors

00:27:36.160 that Norfolk Southern brought in, like the center for, uh, toxicology and environmental

00:27:41.080 health that I write about them, my story, uh, that they brought in like the CTEH is, is

00:27:47.620 a firm that has a long history of being involved in controversies where, you know, some organization

00:27:55.680 like BP, like they were involved in the BP oils bill and they've been involved in a

00:28:00.580 number of other environmental disasters where a corporation is at fault and this contractor

00:28:05.700 will come in and will always say it's safe.

00:28:09.000 It's safe to go back to work.

00:28:10.360 It's safe to be in the water or whatever.

00:28:12.160 And so when they, you know, came into town and introduced themselves, like locals figured

00:28:18.260 it out and were not happy about it.

00:28:19.980 And so I spoke to one woman who had a pretty bad experience with her or with, uh, with this

00:28:26.860 contractor.

00:28:27.360 And basically she had been living, she's, she's the woman that I mentioned earlier who

00:28:32.320 fled at 3 a.m.

00:28:33.620 with her son when he began vomiting and she had been living, um, out of town across the

00:28:39.100 border in Pennsylvania and a hotel.

00:28:41.240 And on February, until February 15th, she had been receiving housing assistance.

00:28:45.120 But once all these tests came back and again, who's doing the testing, right?

00:28:48.440 Once all the testing came back that everything's fine, the housing assistance started to dry

00:28:53.160 up.

00:28:54.400 And again, contributing to that controversy is the fact that when DeWine declared the coast

00:28:59.940 was clear, uh, he, he wasn't citing, uh, authorities on a local or state level.

00:29:06.180 He was actually citing a contractor called ACOM.

00:29:09.980 And this is a private agency.

00:29:13.000 Uh, it was, I believe it was hired by Norfolk Southern as well.

00:29:15.700 And, but more importantly, when I looked into donations, um, through the, uh, open secrets

00:29:21.320 database, they called, I think it's called followthemoney.org.

00:29:23.740 It has, it has a broader institutional name, but the URL is followthemoney.org.

00:29:27.040 You can, you can actually see that ACOM has contributed at least, uh, once to DeWine in

00:29:32.660 the last year or so.

00:29:34.500 So again, this is the kind of stuff that makes people itch.

00:29:37.580 Right.

00:29:37.820 And there's actually a lot more here when it comes to like the, the, the connection

00:29:42.560 between politics and lobbying and the transportation industry into wine specifically, but, um, going

00:29:48.540 back to Zusa.

00:29:50.020 So she wants to get her home tested to confirm, you know, it basically, if I'm not going to

00:29:55.280 be supported to live outside of East Palestine, I want to know for sure that it's safe to go 1.00

00:29:59.520 home.

00:29:59.760 And so initially a test is scheduled and she goes to meet them at her home and he's

00:30:04.560 Palestinian, uh, but 15 minutes before the appointed time, she's told we basically, we

00:30:09.460 can't do the test because we need a cop and there are no cops that are available at the

00:30:13.060 time Trump was in town.

00:30:15.020 And so basically they surmised that there were no cops available because they're all

00:30:18.620 doing, you know, security detail for Trump.

00:30:21.760 And Zusa told me that she ended up getting into a really heated exchange with this toxicologist

00:30:27.780 from the center because the toxicologist is telling her, we can't trace any of the symptoms

00:30:33.960 people are experiencing to the derailment.

00:30:37.060 And that sets Zusa off because, you know, it defies everything that she's been hearing

00:30:41.760 and experiencing herself.

00:30:43.660 And I also thought it was shocking.

00:30:45.940 So I actually got in touch with this woman. 0.87

00:30:47.520 Her name is Sarah Burnett.

00:30:48.360 And I reached out to her and I just gave her the quote that Zusa gave me.

00:30:51.180 And she replied and said that, uh, she just, she basically clarified that none of the air

00:30:58.400 quality tests or none of the symptoms that people are reporting, uh, have been connected

00:31:04.680 to, uh, air quality in East Palestine.

00:31:09.260 But again, there's, you know, tons of people reporting different things.

00:31:12.820 Like obviously Zusa's son was throwing up and she had difficulty breathing.

00:31:15.500 And I spoke to a business owner who evacuated, um, her shop in the downtown.

00:31:20.480 And when she came back to her shop, she said it was filled with this really thick chemical

00:31:24.900 smell that burned her eyes and throat.

00:31:26.660 And then her son could still, I mean, like, this is like a week and a half after the fact.

00:31:29.780 And she said her son occasionally can still smell it.

00:31:32.540 Right.

00:31:32.960 And so then you have this, this contractor that Norfolk Southern brought in saying, we

00:31:37.960 can't connect any of the things that you're describing to air quality.

00:31:40.440 And again, like, this is exactly the kind of thing that, that has made this, this whole

00:31:47.720 crisis, the actual environmental crisis and a health emergency, um, seem like one big cover

00:31:55.080 up to the people of East Palestine.

00:31:57.140 Yeah.

00:31:57.300 I mean, it, it feels like having a cigarette company tell you that the scientists that they

00:32:02.200 hire have found that cigarettes have no connection to cancer.

00:32:05.220 Right.

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00:33:54.600 All right.

00:33:55.300 So we've got these poor people who are in a town that, you know, there's a massive black 0.99

00:34:01.600 cloud from a chemical that is carcinogenic that we know has serious side effects.

00:34:07.760 They are all there's many, many people in town feeling very serious health, health impacts,

00:34:15.780 and they have this contractor hired by the very people who are responsible for the train

00:34:21.940 derailment saying, well, we just can't possibly figure out how any of this could be connected,

00:34:27.600 even though a three year old pointing at the giant cloud, the sky can probably do the math.

00:34:32.480 What is the government?

00:34:33.880 Where's the government during all this?

00:34:35.740 Are they concerned?

00:34:37.320 I mean, we all we hear about is environmental regulations, the horrible impacts of things

00:34:42.240 on the environment.

00:34:42.980 Is the government not active in testing this stuff, making sure that the corporation is

00:34:47.740 doing and needs to keeping an eye on these contractors who have been involved in this testing?

00:34:53.440 Initially, the impression was that basically Norfolk Southern was out in front and that the EPA

00:34:58.920 was doing stuff.

00:34:59.940 But ultimately, again, the impression that everyone got was that Norfolk Southern was

00:35:04.120 running the show after Trump visited. 1.00

00:35:07.440 I mean, this is again, this is why it's so stupid. 0.99

00:35:09.840 After Trump visited, then the federal government starts to get more involved, obviously, because 0.99

00:35:14.460 the Biden administration, I think, felt humiliated by that.

00:35:17.720 And so that's when you start to see kind of a more proactive role.

00:35:21.420 DeWine also starts to be a little more proactive.

00:35:23.900 But I think from the very beginning, that was part of the problem was that it felt like

00:35:32.500 you had to get people to care because this is not the kind of town that you're supposed

00:35:36.240 to care about.

00:35:36.940 Right.

00:35:37.920 And again, even when you have this involvement by the government, people are looking at,

00:35:45.180 for example, guys like Troy Nels, the Texas Republican who chastised J.D. Vance.

00:35:52.080 I don't know if you if you saw that video of J.D. Vance in a creek.

00:35:55.880 The locals call it, I think, sulfur run.

00:35:59.520 And and Vance is in there and he has a stick and he scrapes it across the creek bed.

00:36:04.780 And there's this kind of like brew of chemicals that come up and it looks kind of like an oil slick.

00:36:10.480 And so this is the water that's in town.

00:36:12.760 Right.

00:36:13.420 And Nels freaks out and says that it's really irresponsible because sorry, J.D.

00:36:18.080 after that release in that video says that people should people should stick to bottled

00:36:23.660 water.

00:36:24.060 And this stuff is being provided by the government.

00:36:26.040 Right.

00:36:26.360 So it's like an easy it's an easy thing that you can do to keep yourself safe.

00:36:29.580 Just drink bottled water instead of tap water for as long as you can.

00:36:33.760 And Troy Nels freaks out and says that it's super responsible for him to say that, you know,

00:36:39.680 kind of like shame on you for for scaring people.

00:36:42.620 I think he even says that he like, you know, ask someone to give me a glass of tap water

00:36:47.280 so I can so I can drink it in front of them and show them how safe it is.

00:36:51.520 But I looked at Troy Nels just because it's so easy to find this stuff.

00:36:55.980 And when you look at like donations that are given to Troy Nels, the big the biggest one

00:37:00.940 of the biggest sectors for donors for Nels is the transportation industry.

00:37:05.300 And he also received donations from Norfolk Southern during the 2022 general election.

00:37:13.480 And again, so it's like the government's involved.

00:37:15.640 Right.

00:37:16.200 But people still don't really feel like it like it's looking out for them.

00:37:20.940 And the last time I visited before I published a story, the EPA had actually finally set up

00:37:27.200 a kind of like HQ in downtown East Palestine.

00:37:31.000 And I think it's part of that, like they actually are trying to get more aggressive about showing

00:37:36.200 people, you know, you know, the EPA is here.

00:37:38.580 We're actually trying to make things better.

00:37:40.520 And I mean, look, the the people that I spoke with, they were I mean, they're actually nice.

00:37:46.040 And this is, I think, another important part of the story.

00:37:48.700 The people in downtown East Palestine who are there working for the EPA, some of them are

00:37:54.820 from out of town.

00:37:55.340 But I imagine, you know, a few of them are also from Ohio and they're basically just normal

00:38:00.460 people who are trying to do their job.

00:38:02.320 And I got that impression also from a few Norfolk Southern employees that I spoke with.

00:38:07.620 Like, these are not like, you know, the suits like these are blue collar guys who live in

00:38:12.400 Ohio.

00:38:13.260 And, you know, they don't like being you know, they don't like the position that they put

00:38:18.220 in where they've kind of become representatives of this like evil entity.

00:38:21.100 Like, you look at Norfolk Southern's top shareholders and it's like Vanguard and BlackRock, right?

00:38:25.780 It's the perfect villain because they're just like they're lobbying everywhere.

00:38:29.680 They're super powerful.

00:38:30.680 They're really good at influencing Republicans and Democrats to get what they want in terms

00:38:34.320 of legislation.

00:38:35.600 You know, they're they have obviously their shareholders include these like what Matt

00:38:40.440 Taibbi would call like the vampire squids of finance capitalism, right?

00:38:44.640 Just it just like it's the perfect villain.

00:38:46.700 Um, but then there are people that are just like, like the first responders, the emergency

00:38:50.980 crews that work for Norfolk Southern, um, who obviously, you know, are not happy about

00:38:56.240 this, but because of what's happened, it's like blown back onto them.

00:39:00.140 And so like I was told by one of the guys that I interviewed, his name is Chris Klein.

00:39:05.300 He told me that he, he has friends who are both there on the night the train derailed.

00:39:09.800 And he also has friends who are, you know, blue collar Norfolk Southern employees and he

00:39:14.980 feels sorry for obviously both of them.

00:39:17.200 But he said like the, the Norfolk Southern guys have been kind of getting like unduly attacked

00:39:22.800 by people they know, kind of like, how could you work for that company?

00:39:27.040 And that was another aspect of the story that I thought was really important to tell because,

00:39:32.000 um, because these are things that no one in Ohio are responsible for that these blue collar 0.99

00:39:40.960 employees are not responsible for.

00:39:42.240 Like they, they didn't ask for this.

00:39:44.140 Um, and, and again, it's, it's something that transcends like the, like the, the red blue

00:39:48.540 divide, uh, because it doesn't matter who's in the white house.

00:39:51.400 They're going to be lobbied by organizations like Norfolk Southern anyway.

00:39:54.880 Now, do you think that the, or do the residents feel like there would have been more of a response

00:40:02.840 if there was more political hay to be made here?

00:40:05.400 Like you said, so many people involved here are lobbied by these people.

00:40:09.200 They don't want, uh, the right type of attention drawn to what's happening here.

00:40:14.880 But if this had been a community that, you know, if this could have been a, the story about

00:40:19.340 how, uh, uh, you know, uh, uh, racist company that was, uh, callous against, uh, different

00:40:25.660 community, uh, you know, just, just let this, uh, chemical run wild and, and let the effects

00:40:31.260 have impacted.

00:40:32.120 Do people there feel like there would have been a more significant federal response and that

00:40:36.560 the press would have brought a lot more resources to bear on holding a company like this

00:40:41.100 accountable?

00:40:42.480 Maybe.

00:40:43.080 I mean, something that occurred to me was the fact that, you know, like Flint, Michigan, we

00:40:46.960 all know what those two words mean when I say them, like the, the issue of water in there,

00:40:51.400 right?

00:40:52.760 It seems to me that East Palestine, uh, it only got attention.

00:40:58.960 It, it has not kind of entered our psyche and our vocabulary the way that Flint, Michigan

00:41:05.820 has.

00:41:06.640 And I think for obvious reasons, again, this is a town that you're not supposed to care

00:41:10.180 about.

00:41:10.440 You know, this is, this is a quintessential white working class town in heartland America. 0.75

00:41:16.960 Who cares?

00:41:17.740 Right.

00:41:18.380 And, and so I think that unfortunately that's just kind of how things are.

00:41:21.720 I mean, Pete Buttigieg was talking as, as this whole thing was unfolding, Pete Buttigieg

00:41:26.280 is talking about how, uh, it's a real problem that there are so many white people in construction.

00:41:32.600 Yeah.

00:41:33.040 You know, it's just, it's, it's terrible, um, that you basically have to, you have to worry

00:41:41.740 about whether or not your town is going to get the attention it needs amid a crisis, you

00:41:46.600 know, based on if you, if you check enough of the boxes that suggest you are politically

00:41:52.160 useful, right?

00:41:53.620 Um, yeah, if, if we don't have enough people with the right diversity boxes to throw in

00:41:59.860 front of a camera, then our town might just not get the kind of federal aid or the kind

00:42:04.860 of media attention really that drives, uh, accountability and changes things.

00:42:10.420 But, you know, where are people now?

00:42:14.240 I mean, like you said, there, there's a lot of this has dried up, uh, the federal dollars

00:42:19.220 or the housing assistance and, and other things are not necessarily there.

00:42:23.440 I mean, we've got FEMA, we've got these emergency organizations that could provide extended, uh,

00:42:31.500 you know, I assistance.

00:42:32.860 I live in Florida.

00:42:33.540 I know that for, you know, six, eight, almost a month, almost a year after hurricanes, FEMA's

00:42:39.840 out there putting people up in hotels and taking care of people, making sure that they

00:42:45.040 kind of have a lot of this relief are, are, is none of this involved here?

00:42:49.840 Is it, is that attention not being focused and why not?

00:42:53.620 So my, my focus, um, toward the end of the story is talking about the assistance that business

00:43:00.420 owners are getting, right?

00:43:01.400 Because it seems like there's all, there's, this is another murky aspect of the story.

00:43:08.560 And this is something that lent to the concern of, of locals is for example, initially there

00:43:14.300 were these, the people that were going around conducting testing were asking people to sign,

00:43:19.120 uh, hold harmless paperwork, basically sign this.

00:43:25.020 And, uh, if anything happens to you, we're not liable.

00:43:28.960 Uh, basically if we tell you to move, if we tell you it's safe to go back home and you

00:43:33.180 get cancer or whatever, uh, you can't hold this responsible.

00:43:37.120 And it's funny because again, Norfolk Southern's response to that once pictures of these documents

00:43:42.040 started to go viral, uh, and people were saying like, I'm being asked to hold harmless the

00:43:47.980 people that are involved in the cleanup.

00:43:49.220 If anything happens to me, like that doesn't, that doesn't make me feel good.

00:43:52.360 Norfolk Southern responded by saying, well, that was a mistake.

00:43:54.800 Uh, we, we've, we've corrected that and, uh, yeah, like they didn't even say it's not

00:43:59.700 true.

00:43:59.920 They're like, Oh, whoops, we, uh, that one slipped by us and we're going to make sure

00:44:04.060 that it doesn't happen again or whatever.

00:44:06.020 It was just this, it's how all their statements are like, they don't, they don't rebut anything.

00:44:10.620 They're just like, kind of like, sorry.

00:44:12.500 Or, you know, uh, like they, they, they were asked, or there's all this controversy over

00:44:18.300 soil remediation, right?

00:44:20.120 Because, uh, several locals told me that whenever a train comes through, there's this awful chemical

00:44:25.740 smell, uh, depending on how close to you live to, to ground zero.

00:44:29.460 And that might have to do with the fact that a lot of the soil, um, this is, this goes back

00:44:36.260 to what happened immediately afterwards.

00:44:37.860 So after the controlled vents on the night of, uh, February 8th, um, the mandatory of

00:44:44.840 actual evacuation was lifted and trains started rolling immediately afterwards.

00:44:51.080 And that actually infuriated the mayor because the mayor was, according to the mayor, Norfolk

00:44:55.680 Southern told him the trains won't start rolling until basically everyone's back in their homes

00:45:00.620 and, you know, like settled.

00:45:02.800 Um, that's not what happened.

00:45:04.020 As soon as the evacuation order was lifted at night, trains started rolling through.

00:45:08.980 I've heard estimates that range from five minutes to 15 minutes to an hour, but most

00:45:13.340 people have like the consensus is the coast was declared clear and the trains started going

00:45:19.280 before residents were able to get back into their homes or open their own or open their

00:45:23.580 businesses.

00:45:24.840 And when I visited right before I published my story, I saw signs on shops that say close

00:45:30.500 until further notice.

00:45:31.960 And I asked people, you know, who wanted to be anonymous.

00:45:36.060 I asked them, um, is it related to, you know, what happened on February 3rd?

00:45:40.280 And they said, yes.

00:45:42.200 So the trains are rolling, but life has not gone back to normal.

00:45:46.660 And I mean, that's just kind of the story of this whole thing.

00:45:50.100 The good news is that it looks like the EPA is, is going to be there.

00:45:55.240 Like I was told that they leased the building in downtown East Palestine for six months.

00:46:00.620 So they're going to be there for at least six months.

00:46:03.100 Um, but when I asked them, I walked in and I asked them some questions and I, I brought

00:46:07.680 that up and I asked them, you know, so you guys are going to be here for six months.

00:46:10.400 And they said, we'll be here for as long as we have to.

00:46:13.100 I hope that's true.

00:46:14.440 Um, because the, the state of things right now is that if you visit, it's, it seems like

00:46:19.540 life is starting to return to the normal.

00:46:21.100 But if you talk to people, there's always this kind of uncertainty, uh, in their voices

00:46:25.200 and, and going back to business owners, I asked them, um, you know, has, have you been

00:46:31.700 offered help?

00:46:32.620 And, um, at least initially what was going on was Norfolk Southern was asking people to

00:46:37.520 provide three years of back paperwork to qualify for assistance, right.

00:46:41.900 Um, to, to be compensated presumably.

00:46:44.200 But the problem is, is that there are businesses that are, that haven't been around that long.

00:46:47.560 Um, there was one family that I, I didn't, I didn't find them.

00:46:51.320 I didn't interview them.

00:46:52.100 It was, I think it was an article in CNN and they opened a coffee shop in East Palestine

00:46:56.000 and they were thinking about opening a second one.

00:46:58.000 I think also in East Palestine, just in a different location, uh, because they said things were

00:47:02.920 kind of on the upswing for a while.

00:47:05.120 That's changed, right.

00:47:06.640 Um, there's a building that's right really close to where the train derailed.

00:47:10.960 And I was told that the owner of that building also recently acquired it and was, was like,

00:47:16.840 that's obviously, you know, kind of ruined his plans now.

00:47:20.940 And that's kind of the state where things are is, you know, that's the question is like,

00:47:24.900 is the aid that we're being offered going to be enough in the longterm?

00:47:27.760 Um, and you know, is East Palestine going to make it?

00:47:30.460 And the last thing I'll say, cause I'm going on and on here is that the people there are really

00:47:34.800 resilient.

00:47:35.760 Everyone I talked to is obviously, you know, scared.

00:47:38.020 One woman I spoke to, her name is Joy Masher. 0.97

00:47:40.800 She runs a flower shop.

00:47:42.520 Um, very tough lady, uh, very resilient, um, and very, very like positive.

00:47:48.640 But she told me that, you know, she still feels terrified about what happened here.

00:47:51.960 And a lot of it has to do with all of the unknowns.

00:47:56.440 Yeah.

00:47:56.960 It's, it's people don't understand what something like this happens to your town kind of what,

00:48:02.180 because it's like you said, the emphasis is so much on moving on, getting business back,

00:48:06.180 going, you know, the train's got to run again.

00:48:07.860 And, and people don't realize this kind of the, that longterm impact and what it does

00:48:13.640 to people's lives and careers and investments.

00:48:16.620 Do you look at people and you're like, how could they possibly even think about signing

00:48:20.360 some kind of hold harmless agreement?

00:48:21.840 But you got to realize like these people are in the middle of a tragedy.

00:48:26.200 They don't know what's going on.

00:48:27.240 They don't know who to trust.

00:48:28.180 They don't know when help is coming.

00:48:29.800 They don't know what comes next.

00:48:31.060 A lot of times they're not sure if anyone is coming to help them, if, if there, if there'll

00:48:35.740 be another opportunity, this might be the only chance to get anything.

00:48:38.680 And a lot of these companies are relying on that, you know, not just in this situation,

00:48:43.780 but all kinds of different disaster situations where they think if we can, you know, just

00:48:48.520 trick people into securing what they can get now, then we can avoid the kind of legal

00:48:53.940 ramifications later.

00:48:55.380 But of course, like you said, you also have these people who have to live in this town.

00:48:58.500 Um, you know, they, if you own a home here, it's not like you can just sell it and move

00:49:02.220 away who in their right mind is buying a home in East Palestine for like the next, you 1.00

00:49:07.840 know, five, 10 years, right?

00:49:09.360 Like, like who's opening a business, who's doing any of that stuff.

00:49:13.260 And so the people who have invested in that community, the people who have, you know,

00:49:17.640 who spend their, their day to day there, the people who have sacrificed for that, it's

00:49:21.960 not, it's not just whether this stuff is going to have a long-term effect on them health

00:49:26.420 wise, which of course is a massive concern and something, a question that they still

00:49:30.440 have no idea what the truth is about, but also their, their mid to, you know, their short

00:49:36.100 to midterm prospects are just devastated because they're, they're locked into a place where

00:49:41.940 no one is sure what's going to happen and what the long-term environmental health effects

00:49:46.340 are going to be.

00:49:46.820 And no one is going to invest in or, you know, help them figure out what to do next.

00:49:52.220 Now that they've been stuck in this situation.

00:49:54.680 Yeah.

00:49:55.160 I, I, one of the people that I spoke with told me that their neighbor had recently gotten

00:50:00.340 a job offer in Florida and he was just about to put his home up for sale when this happened.

00:50:07.560 And now that this is one of these small examples of how far reaching this stuff is, right?

00:50:14.700 And how it has all these angles that we're not even aware of until we ask people, but basically

00:50:19.720 this, this person that had this, you know, this promising job prospect.

00:50:23.940 Well, now all of that is cast in doubt because, you know, good luck selling your home in East

00:50:28.120 Palestine right now.

00:50:29.800 Property values have already started to fall, but at the same time, and this is a point that

00:50:34.140 I really wanted to emphasize, these people are really resilient and they they're there

00:50:39.320 because they want to be there.

00:50:40.860 Uh, the, I, I spoke to a couple, um, I interviewed the couple and their son.

00:50:45.640 I didn't get a chance to talk to her, uh, the daughter who said that she had some pretty, 0.78

00:50:49.480 uh, nasty rashes on her hands. 0.97

00:50:51.360 I, the, the husband is named Lenny Klein.

00:50:53.420 The wife is Pam Klein.

00:50:54.680 The son is Chris Klein.

00:50:56.460 Uh, Lenny showed me his, um, his waist and he had like a, a rash that ran across it.

00:51:01.400 And this is apparently something that fairly common that people have experienced since the

00:51:05.400 derailment is rashes on their, on their, on their bodies.

00:51:08.560 Um, but the Kleins have lived there their whole lives. 0.97

00:51:12.100 Uh, Pam and Lenny met in high school, uh, Lenny has lived in East Palestine his entire

00:51:18.680 life.

00:51:19.680 He only left briefly, uh, when he was in the air force and that's it.

00:51:25.200 They've worked at the same, uh, plant for decades and they have, they don't have any

00:51:30.360 plans to leave.

00:51:32.200 And the motto of East Palestine is where you want to be.

00:51:36.600 And that's, that's basic.

00:51:38.880 That's true for basically everyone living there.

00:51:40.920 They live there because it's where they want to be.

00:51:43.400 It's not because of the work.

00:51:44.360 I think like our brains have been so ruined by, you know, modern conceptions of work and

00:51:49.100 life, which is, you have to just basically be rootless and follow the work wherever it

00:51:52.460 takes you.

00:51:52.880 Right.

00:51:53.300 That's not what these people are doing.

00:51:55.060 They're in East Palestine because East Palestine is home in the truest sense of the word.

00:52:00.240 And that's again, why this is so tragic.

00:52:03.560 Um, they're, they're not, they're not ready to just become refugees and, and, and, you know, 1.00

00:52:09.540 in their own land.

00:52:10.560 So, but, but it's also, it's also really admirable.

00:52:13.640 And again, that's why it is the quintessential, uh, small American town.

00:52:19.960 Yeah.

00:52:20.380 I mean, that is exactly what you need to get through times like this.

00:52:23.260 You know, the, the old saying is, you know, Rome wasn't great.

00:52:26.220 Uh, uh, men didn't love Rome because it was great.

00:52:28.840 It was great because men loved it, you know?

00:52:30.620 And if the people are going to get through this and they're going to, uh, have a community

00:52:35.240 that continues forward, then they absolutely have to have that outlook that it's, it's

00:52:39.060 essential for them to fight for where they are and to value that more than an economic

00:52:43.540 opportunity or a place where they, where they can find some kind of different work.

00:52:46.940 But I wonder too, how this just impacts, I mean, obviously East Palestine, but, but all

00:52:53.960 these different towns that might in, you know, be affected by kind of this breakdown of

00:52:58.120 infrastructure when you feel like you've got to become a political football to get any

00:53:03.160 real assistance, right?

00:53:04.880 Like, you know, uh, Trump has to show up and, and, you know, people might have different,

00:53:09.360 uh, opinions on Trump showing up.

00:53:11.620 I think it was a good thing.

00:53:12.800 I, whether his motivations are, I think it was kind of Trump at his best focusing the

00:53:17.920 attention and forcing the Biden administration and, and, and the media to cover this and care

00:53:23.440 and make a big deal about this, uh, or as big as deal as possible.

00:53:28.120 But the, the fact that a part of your, your city has to basically be figuring out how to

00:53:33.500 become a political football, if you want anything done and the action to be taken has to be a

00:53:37.660 terrible position to be in when you're in the middle, middle of a tragedy like this.

00:53:40.800 Yeah, no, it's terrible.

00:53:42.400 And it speaks to the unseriousness of, uh, the, the incumbent political establishment,

00:53:48.660 whatever current year, whatever you want to call it.

00:53:50.220 I mean, it's just, it's a joke, right?

00:53:51.820 Like you need, you have to worry about this stuff.

00:53:54.200 Like, are we sufficiently diverse or whatever, uh, to attract the attention that we need in a,

00:54:00.680 in a crisis?

00:54:01.420 It just, it's insane that you actually have to think about that stuff.

00:54:04.740 Um, that's not, you know, how a country should be run, but that's, that's how things are.

00:54:10.580 Uh, but going back to your point about, I mean, I, I, I thought you were going to make a point

00:54:18.100 about how this affects other places in Ohio.

00:54:20.700 Uh, but you went in a different direction, but I'll just, I'll touch on it.

00:54:23.480 No, go ahead.

00:54:23.840 Go for it.

00:54:24.300 This is really interesting.

00:54:25.240 I spoke to a reporter who told me that there was another team of reporters went to a town

00:54:33.120 that's a few miles away called Negli and they came back because they went there to cover a story

00:54:40.920 about, I think that there was chemicals that were detected in, in a stream in Negli.

00:54:45.460 It's a three, three, three or five miles away from East Palestine.

00:54:49.160 And they came back with headaches and they reported a smell like paint thinner and, you

00:54:55.920 know, to date, or at least when I published my story, there had been more than 43,000,

00:55:03.060 uh, animal deaths attributed to, uh, what happened in East Palestine over across Ohio, obviously

00:55:10.220 not just in East Palestine.

00:55:11.560 And it ranges from fishes to other animals.

00:55:14.020 So this already has, again, these kind of like far reaching consequences that everyone

00:55:18.620 is wondering, you know, like, does it affect me even though I'm, you know, I'm about an

00:55:23.480 hour.

00:55:23.920 No, it's like, that's not true.

00:55:24.760 I'm about two hours away, just, just under two hours away from East Palestine.

00:55:27.400 So I, I drove there.

00:55:28.920 I did the two hour, uh, drive every time I went.

00:55:32.700 Um, but outside of it, you're already kind of seeing this, you know, you have all these,

00:55:36.500 you have other reports of people who had chickens, uh, that, that died.

00:55:40.580 Um, Joy, the woman I spoke with, she said that her chickens acted kind of strange.

00:55:45.200 Um, she, she knows are the people that have animal, like livestock died and stuff like

00:55:49.660 that.

00:55:49.920 But there are all these unknowns, right.

00:55:52.840 And, and we're kind of in it for the long run where I guess we're not going to know until,

00:55:58.480 you know, if, I mean, this is another part of, of why I wanted to write this story.

00:56:04.860 Like, it seemed like initially there was this kind of like sensationalism.

00:56:09.580 I know you're not supposed to, you're not supposed to, to make this criticism, but basically

00:56:15.180 it seemed like people were, people who were critics of Biden were kind of exploiting it

00:56:20.200 in a way that just like drive clicks and traffic.

00:56:23.260 Like, and, and basically that, that kind of annoyed me because like these people are already

00:56:29.000 terrified and they don't need you to drive traffic to your page by, you know, saying that

00:56:35.140 this is like, you're all going to die of cancer in five years or something like that.

00:56:38.720 And just like scaring the, you know, scaring them basically.

00:56:42.740 And so I think that's an important part of this is like getting, I guess, getting the facts

00:56:48.200 out there and helping people to understand instead of just trying to scare them.

00:56:52.020 Uh, and then forget about them.

00:56:53.780 I mean, that's, that's, that's the worst part of that kind of stuff is like, you basically

00:56:57.580 just gin up tons of like fear over what happened, but then you completely subtract the people

00:57:02.340 who are actually affected from the story.

00:57:05.120 So, yeah, you, you really need, like I said, it just, it needs to be a situation where you

00:57:11.540 don't have to be a political football to get the attention that's necessary.

00:57:14.440 You don't have to drum up a bunch of outrage.

00:57:16.860 There should be a consistent application of, you know, just, just basic interest by people

00:57:23.320 and the wellbeing of the people there and the, the, the necessary testing, the necessary

00:57:28.400 assistance.

00:57:29.620 That should not be something that either has to be completely driven by media attention

00:57:33.420 to the point where it's hyperbolic and scaring everyone or the point where it's non-existent

00:57:37.880 and then you get nothing.

00:57:39.600 Yeah.

00:57:39.800 Both extremes.

00:57:40.700 Yeah.

00:57:41.300 Right.

00:57:41.720 But is there any, uh, environmental groups?

00:57:45.760 Are there, are there any people who are supposed to be, we got all these NGOs that are interested

00:57:51.320 in this stuff.

00:57:51.940 Are there any interested to be on the ground testing things, helping these people out, providing

00:57:57.620 that, that, that assistance, you know, in, in the, in the area?

00:58:01.940 I didn't see any, like, I, I didn't, I didn't see any kind of like, you know, like the, like

00:58:06.720 the pipeline protesters, right.

00:58:08.260 Who care so deeply about the environment.

00:58:09.800 Like I didn't, there's, when I went to East Palestine the last time, um, I didn't really

00:58:15.500 see any kind of like fanfare or anything like that.

00:58:17.420 I'm sure that there are probably like some small groups involved, but again, it's nowhere

00:58:21.920 near like the level of activism that you see in other cases.

00:58:25.140 Like, I don't know of any like Hollywood celebrity who's spoken about, you know, the plight of East

00:58:30.020 Palestine or like we stand with East Palestine or something like it just, it just, as far as

00:58:34.320 I can tell it hasn't happened.

00:58:35.920 And it's funny because, uh, on the floor, on the, the window of one of the shops in

00:58:40.960 downtown East Palestine, there's a sign that says East Palestine lives matter.

00:58:44.420 So I think there's definitely a sense of that there.

00:58:47.040 Like the, the locals are aware that like actually our small town matters too.

00:58:51.220 And you should be paying attention to it, even if it's not fashionable because it's the right

00:58:56.480 thing to do.

00:58:57.720 Yeah.

00:58:58.260 No, no one's over there, you know, gluing themselves to artwork.

00:59:01.260 So no one seems to really care about the environmental impact here, but yeah, you, you see these kinds

00:59:07.260 of things happen all the time and you end up with, you know, benefit concerts or something

00:59:11.280 you, you, like I said, you think someone, uh, would, would be there at least, you know,

00:59:15.840 have raising awareness or, you know, getting, getting some kind of aid there driving.

00:59:20.300 Again, we got this massive NGO complex that seems to have plenty of time to send people

00:59:25.500 everywhere, but you know, just not responding in this way.

00:59:29.280 So are there any, uh, outside of obviously the fact that these people are resilient and

00:59:36.460 many of them are committed to making this work, which is incredibly admirable, but are

00:59:42.800 there any efforts being made to change things, hold anyone accountable, change regulations,

00:59:50.980 figure out, you know, legislation going forward that could, that could improve this situation?

00:59:56.720 Is any action being spurred by the fact that we had this major disaster that's, you know,

01:00:02.280 uh, affected this town this way?

01:00:03.840 Yeah.

01:00:04.040 I think right.

01:00:05.960 It might've even been the day that I published it.

01:00:08.540 JD Vance and Sherrod Brown, a Republican and Democrat, were talking about bipartisan legislation

01:00:14.980 in response to East Palestine, uh, with that is related to transportation and stuff.

01:00:21.440 So I think that, that was, to my knowledge, like that was like the, the major development,

01:00:26.440 but I'm not really aware of, of much more than that.

01:00:29.780 It was a really, it was great to see that, right?

01:00:32.320 Like it was a rare moment of, of, I think, bipartisans.

01:00:35.280 Usually the word bipartisan is actually a bad word and it means you should run for your life

01:00:38.680 because it's like, when you hear bipartisan, the next thing you're going to hear is like

01:00:43.040 amnesty, right?

01:00:44.360 Or bipartisan aid for Ukraine or something like that.

01:00:47.100 Like it's typically nothing good, but this seems to be like a rare moment when, when

01:00:51.380 the word bipartisan actually meant something.

01:00:53.740 Uh, and, and so, yeah, it was, it was nice to see that.

01:00:58.040 But apart from that, I don't really know.

01:01:00.340 Um, Pete Buttigieg has only spoken about East Palestine to basically complain that he thinks

01:01:06.680 it's unfair that the response of the Biden administration has been maligned.

01:01:11.480 And, and that basically like, it's kind of like, Hey, you know, Tucker Carlson says that

01:01:15.800 he cares about people in Ohio, but I bet he's never been to TJ Maxx.

01:01:18.880 Like, like that, that's basically, that's actually what he said, by the way, there's like, there's

01:01:23.320 a quote where he says that.

01:01:24.960 Yeah.

01:01:25.280 Right.

01:01:25.620 It's so like, that's it.

01:01:26.600 They're just, they're basically the people who are, uh, you know, the adults in the room,

01:01:31.080 um, are just more concerned with saving face than actually helping people.

01:01:36.480 So obviously there are exceptions like Vance and Brown, um, but for the most part, yeah,

01:01:41.860 I mean, again, I was, I was glad that I waited as long as I did because right around the time

01:01:48.580 I published it, it kind of felt like a tension over East Palestine was petering out.

01:01:53.000 Like people were moving on to the next crisis.

01:01:54.900 Right.

01:01:55.420 And I'm sure you saw the uptick in people reporting about derailments, uh, like on social

01:02:03.160 media, like on Twitter, like, like every time a train, you know,

01:02:06.480 skipped off a track, there was like a video that went viral or something like that, which

01:02:10.560 is, I guess like good in the sense that it brings attention to the fact that this does

01:02:13.780 happen way more than it should.

01:02:15.620 But on the other hand, what happens in places like East Palestine, uh, which is a, I think

01:02:21.200 an, an, an exceptionally bad case that gets forgotten in, in the sauce of all of these

01:02:28.080 like, you know, viral videos of, of other incidents that are bad, but ultimately it's, you

01:02:32.360 know, it's not carrying hazardous chemicals and no one is hurt or something like that.

01:02:36.140 Right.

01:02:36.420 There, there, there are no long-term consequences for the community when like a train derails

01:02:39.900 in the middle of nowhere.

01:02:41.240 That's not what happened in East Palestine.

01:02:42.780 Uh, you're talking about a massive train that derailed carrying some really nasty chemicals

01:02:48.100 that have been, you know, that were released into the, into the atmosphere and also buried

01:02:54.060 in the ground, uh, in a state that is, you know, home to a lot of like great farmland.

01:02:59.440 And there, there's a lot of implications about, you know, the future of, of, uh, of, of what

01:03:06.320 this is going to mean.

01:03:07.040 So, um, yeah.

01:03:09.920 Yeah.

01:03:10.320 I think that's a huge part of it is just this, uh, it's the next big thing, uh, cycle, right?

01:03:16.020 Like, let's get excited about the next thing.

01:03:17.600 Let's get excited about the next thing.

01:03:18.960 And yeah, you get a little bit of extra scrutiny on the rail, uh, you know, system during this

01:03:24.400 time, but again, like you're talking about, these people don't live in your new cycle.

01:03:28.840 These people, people don't, don't, they, they shouldn't have to desperately hope that the,

01:03:34.560 that the national media will pay attention to them long enough for them to receive the

01:03:39.120 kinds of aid and the kind of response that they deserve.

01:03:44.260 And again, like you're absolutely right.

01:03:46.620 The bipartisan is almost always a terrible thing to hear because it usually means that the

01:03:51.000 uniparty has decided how, how to visit that upon something terrible.

01:03:54.400 But it's so sad that, that it's so rare to see like two guys who are from a, you know,

01:04:01.540 around an area saying, Hey, we should work together to make sure that these people are

01:04:05.560 taken care of and that this doesn't happen again.

01:04:07.840 And that's, you know, reminds you, you, you have that, that, that 10 seconds of, oh, that's

01:04:12.560 how government's supposed to work.

01:04:13.680 Like that's actually what representative government is supposed to do.

01:04:17.720 But we realize that so much more of it is driven by these new cycles in the next and

01:04:21.920 focusing on the next thing, as opposed to like actually making measurable and important

01:04:27.180 changes to protect and improve the lives of people who get you elected and, and, and who

01:04:33.320 employ you and, and what you're supposed to do there.

01:04:36.080 And so I, I am glad that you are covering this and I'm glad we could talk about it today.

01:04:40.840 And I think it's important for people to remember that these, this can be your city.

01:04:48.080 This can be your community.

01:04:49.680 This is not some isolated incident.

01:04:51.960 These kinds of things happen.

01:04:53.720 They're happening more and more often.

01:04:55.520 They're going to continue to increase and you need to have an understanding of what, what

01:05:02.520 to do in these scenarios, because like you said, you know, the, these poor first responders

01:05:07.280 who are just stuck being exposed to this stuff and, and who knows what kind of long-term side

01:05:12.780 effects it's going to have and who knows what kind of, uh, you know, insurance or medical

01:05:18.420 care or, or, you know, those kinds of things will be there for them in the long run.

01:05:22.280 You just, people need to understand that this stuff matters and you, you should have a government

01:05:27.320 that cares about this.

01:05:29.200 You have a legal system that holds companies accountable, irregardless of how diverse a 1.00

01:05:35.100 community is or how well it holds a new cycle together or how many celebrities it can

01:05:39.600 get to do a benefit concert for it that you shouldn't have to live like this.

01:05:43.320 You should have a system that cares for the people under it and, and shouldn't be driven

01:05:48.200 entirely by how much media attention one can derive from any given tragedy.

01:05:53.140 Yep.

01:05:53.680 No, that's well said.

01:05:54.800 I completely agree.

01:05:55.820 And yeah, I mean, that's, that's why that's, that's a big, there are different reasons.

01:06:00.800 There are obviously many reasons why I wrote this story, but that was a big part of it is,

01:06:03.940 is to show that the rot is really deep and it doesn't change unless enough people care

01:06:10.280 and it doesn't change unless enough people start paying attention, which is again, hard

01:06:16.000 for all the reasons that you just outlined, but it's still a worthy effort.

01:06:22.060 So absolutely.

01:06:23.580 Well guys, if you have any questions for myself or Pedro, go ahead and get them in now.

01:06:27.700 We're going to go ahead and start wrapping everything up.

01:06:29.820 But before we do, Pedro, where can people find your excellent work?

01:06:33.940 So I am the, like Orrin said, I'm the politics editor at Chronicles.

01:06:37.920 So you can read my column at chroniclesmagazine.org.

01:06:41.260 I publish a sub stack at contra.substack.com.

01:06:45.700 Contra is where I published this long dive into East Palestine.

01:06:50.840 The piece is called The Poison Train, East Palestine and the Derailment of Norfolk Southern 32N.

01:06:56.600 You can read it there.

01:06:58.700 And I would encourage you to subscribe because this kind of, this kind of work.

01:07:02.760 I do it because I believe in it, but it's also extremely time consuming and requires travel and all that stuff.

01:07:09.780 So I appreciate all the support that I can get to do more of it.

01:07:12.740 Because I also just really enjoy telling these stories and allowing people that are affected by them to speak for themselves.

01:07:19.580 Yeah, and that's another reason I wanted to have you on because there's so much of this that is just aggregation.

01:07:25.140 It's just one news site grabbing information from another report, from another thing.

01:07:30.560 You know, people are, there's so little actual reporting gets done.

01:07:35.400 And so I think people should support it when they can.

01:07:38.220 And I think, guys, if you, I know we went over a lot of material here, which you really should read the original piece because Pedro does have the receipts in there.

01:07:45.260 He's got all the details.

01:07:46.600 This does go very deep.

01:07:47.820 There's a lot of complicated connections, like I said, lobbying efforts, all kinds of things that get detailed.

01:07:54.700 So make sure that you're checking that out as well.

01:07:57.920 Also, guys, of course, if this is your first time here, make sure that you are subscribing to this channel.

01:08:03.300 And if you want to listen to this as a podcast, of course, you can go check out the Oren McIntyre show.

01:08:09.300 It's on all of your major podcast platforms.

01:08:11.780 If you do, make sure that you go ahead and give a review and a rating that really helps with all the algorithm magic and everything.

01:08:19.100 If you want to subscribe to anything else, the Rumble, the Substack, the Odyssey, follow on Twitter Gap, the links for all that stuff is down below.

01:08:27.780 Again, I want to thank Pedro for coming on.

01:08:30.060 Make sure you're checking out his excellent reporting.

01:08:32.840 And as always, guys, I'll talk to you next time.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - March 07, 2023

The Poison Train： Tragedy in East Palestine ｜ Guest： Pedro Gonzalez ｜ 3⧸7⧸23

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