Brockovich urges reeling Ohioans to trust their instincts
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Three weeks after a toxic train derailment and chemical explosion upended this village just over the Pennsylvania border, famed environmental activist Erin Brockovich offered support for reeling residents worried about their health.
At a packed town hall Friday evening, Brockovich gave advice to concerned residents, telling them to trust their instincts. She said moments like this can feel like the “biggest gaslight” of people’s lives, and she told them that it won’t be a “quick fix,” but a “long game.”
“I’ve learned in communities over and over again — they can handle the truth,” she said. “Whether it scares them, or they don’t want to hear it. What they can’t handle is a mistruth, being misled.”
She told the residents to be aware of how they and their children are feeling and to document information.
“You know if you smell something. You know if the water is a funny color,” she said.
Brockovich was joined by attorney Mikal Watts, who urged people to get tested as soon as possible.
“I’m begging you, for your own good, go get your blood and your urine tested now,” he said. “If it says you don’t have anything, you have peace of mind. If it says you have something, you now have an objective, medical basis.”
Bob Bowcock, a water expert and the founder of the water development firm Integrated Resource Management, shared his concerns that contaminants may spread to the city’s drinking water sooner than expected.
“The state of Ohio has determined that groundwater protection from the surface contamination in this community is zero,” he said. “I’ve never seen a zero. Groundwater is very shallow here. If the chemicals are already at this location, we’ve got a real problem.”
Watts said while what happened in East Palestine is new to the community, it’s not a new phenomenon for trains to carry hazardous materials.
“We live in a society, for better or for worse, that chooses to ship the most deadly, the most toxic, the most dangerous chemicals ever made by man in rail cars right through populated cities,” he said.
As a law clerk, Brockovich was instrumental in revealing that a Pacific Gas and Electric facility in Hinkley, California, was contaminating the groundwater with high levels of hexavalent chromium, sickening the small community for decades.
With Brockovich’s help, residents reached a $333 million settlement with the company in 1996, the largest ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit at the time. The story propelled Brockovich into fame and later inspired the Oscar-winning 2000 film with her namesake.
Friday night, she called back to what happened in Hinkley and said it has happened everywhere, from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to the Flint, Michigan, water crisis.
“We’ve got failing infrastructure, companies with poor corporate models that put all of us at risk and continue to just think once we poison a community, it’s just going to magically go away,” she said. “We often find out five and 10 years down the road after you were told it was safe.”
Brockovich said she started receiving emails right after the train derailment Feb. 3 from concerned residents and was invited by the community to visit.
“I could see the frustration and the confusion growing for all of you and I feel bad for you,” she told the crowd. “And I’ve experienced this in community after community.”
The event at East Palestine was packed; every seat in the auditorium was filled and another room was set up with a live feed for the overflow.
John Messer, who lives about 5 miles away from the train derailment, was one of the many in attendance. He worries East Palestine, where he’s lived all his life, will become a ghost town if everyone is forced out due to health concerns. Messer came to the town hall seeking information that he feels he isn’t getting from authorities.
“Will I get cancer if I stay here?” he said before the meeting. “I’m trying to get answers to what’s going on.”
George Psomas came to the event because he and his mother, Helen Gould, live just 3,000 feet away from the derailment site. After hearing the information shared during the meeting, Psomas said he is going to call his doctor to see about getting his blood tested for toxic chemicals released during the accident, including vinyl chloride.
“That was one of my questions — what should I get done?” Psomas said. “I’m going to reach out to my doctor and get a baseline, get the basics done, so that they can monitor it five,10 years from now.”
The event concludes a busy week for East Palestine. Former President Donald Trump visited the village Wednesday with water and cleaning supplies, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg came Thursday, sharing his regret for not visiting sooner and echoing calls to hold Norfolk Southern accountable and prevent future rail incidents.
Brockovich was also on the ground Thursday in East Palestine, sharing on Twitter that she was meeting with residents.
The Pennsylvania governor’s pffice has made a criminal referral to the attorney general, which will investigate Norfolk Southern to determine possible criminal activity. The move came after the EPA announced that the company would be financially liable for all cleanup costs.
A preliminary report released Thursday by the National Transportation Safety Board painted a more detailed picture of the circumstances leading up the accident. The report found that hot box detectors tracked the increasing temperature of the train’s troubled axle before it derailed.
As residents continue to report nausea, headaches, skin irritation and other symptoms in the aftermath, the Ohio Department of Health opened a temporary medical clinic last week. But people have shared that the center falls short, failing to offer blood testing or other kinds of health assessments.