‘A LOSING BATTLE’
With few resources to recover, Darlington asks leaders for help
Lori O’Connell says she hasn’t taken a cent from Norfolk Southern.
Living just over 3 miles from the site of the Feb. 3, 2023, train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, she bought her own bottled water, her own cleaning supplies, her own independent testing for chemicals around her home. She had to plead with officials for months to evaluate her property’s soil and water.
Ms. O’Connell, of Darlington, feels lucky that her family could handle the costs. But when residents in her Beaver County township go directly to their local leaders for help with the expenses, she says they’re turned away and told to go to Norfolk Southern instead.
“I think that the government officials are doing a real disservice to the members of their communities when they do dismiss their concerns,” she said. “We are still having health issues. We have problems with homes, with our property. I know people who have vulnerable wells, and now those people are going to spend the rest of their lives drinking bottled water, cooking with bottled water.”
Ms. O’Connell has joined a handful of other residents in proposing a mini-grant program, where affected Darlington individuals and businesses could find some financial relief through reimbursements. It’s a move that one neighboring county, Lawrence County, has already taken.
Norfolk Southern sent $1 million to communities in Western Pennsylvania impacted by the derailment last year, at the request of Gov. Josh Shapiro. These funds are part of a multimillion dollar commitment in the wake of the derailment from the railroad company.
Darlington supervisors opted to keep their portion of the funds, $660,000, in a high-yield account, with plans to split the interest —
which could reach $25,000 to $30,000 a year — between the local fire and police departments. The fund already yielded over $15,000 in interest from September to December 2023.
Community members think that money could go toward costs related to relocation, medical bills, out-ofpocket testing or filtration systems that would keep people from relying on bottled water long term.
“We are very self-sufficient,” Ms. O’Connell said. “We take care of our own people. But I do know that there are people who are struggling, and they’re fighting a losing battle.”
The township’s supervisors heard the proposal from residents and their ongoing frustrations around the lack of resources during a January board meeting.
Chairman Mike Carreon still doesn’t see how a grant program would meaningfully benefit 1,800 Darlington residents. He’s also uncertain how officials would fairly decide who or what would be eligible — the same kinds of issues that East Palestine residents have encountered in Norfolk Southern’s reimbursement process.
“We have not heard of any testing through the DEP of anybody that needs a water filtration system, so if you get into that, you have to put in water filtration for everybody,” Mr. Carreon said.
“To give everybody a check, you’re only looking at a couple hundred dollars, that doesn’t solve our problems. We just don’t have the money.”
Putting the money back into the township’s first responders is a way to benefit the community as a whole, and it could also shield the township from raising taxes, or creating something like a fire tax, in the future, he said.
“If people showed up at our next meeting, and they all said, ‘We want you to write us a check,’ we would do it,” Mr. Carreon said. “The majority of the people that we hear from in the township are happy with the way that is going. If that was to change, we would reevaluate the situation.”
Ms. O’Connell agrees that infusing some money into law enforcement and first responders over time is a solid, sustainable investment, and that the funds would quickly run dry if they were distributed all at once. Her solution is dividing the interest three ways, between police, the fire department and residents with “provable” issues tied to the derailment.
“I get it, $660,000 is a lot of money to a lot of people, but when you divide it among 1,800 residents, it does become very minimal,” she said. “I understand where they’re coming from. But there should be a portion for the residents who do come to them with legitimate claims. You know, you can’t just say, ‘I need a check for $4,000.’ You come in with all the proof, the bills.”
Mr. Carreon doesn’t think the $1 million was enough of a commitment in the first place, considering the derailment left thousands of Pennsylvania residents reeling. That’s why township leaders are petitioning Norfolk Southern for additional support, he said.
“We are still trying to reach some kind of an agreement,” Mr. Carreon said. “The important things to us are long-term health concerns, continuing the water and the monitoring of the water, the soil. We are still asking every time for an inconvenience fee. That continues to get shot down. I would also like them to acknowledge that there was an effect on Western Pennsylvania.”
But when residents speak up about their symptoms or property issues during public meetings, it’s the same response, according to Ms. O’Connell: “Everything’s fine.” They hear that testing by the Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Agriculture continues to show no longterm contamination in Western Pennsylvania related to the derailment.
That doesn’t reflect her personal experience, she said. Her 24-year-old daughter is now on medication due to constant nausea. A PET scan showed “hot spots’’ in her husband’s kidneys. She and other members of the family tested positive for chemicals like vinyl chloride and benzene. She sees much less wildlife, including squirrels, mice and birds, around her property, which the couple have owned for 25 years.
“I think that the residents have been failed by all levels, local, state and federal government,” she said. “We know things have changed here. They want you to think it’s all in your head. Well, we live here. We know our environment.”
Lawrence County’s example
Residents advocating for the mini-grant program point to a similar initiative created in Lawrence County, which received $ 340,000 — the smaller cut of the $1 million.
County commissioners broke it down three ways, with $105,000 going to the Lawrence County Conservation District and the rest going to individual townships. It was up to the district to make the call on how to distribute the money — so long as it went toward the benefit of the businesses and residents.
Mary Burris, district manager, thought about small cash infusions into residential projects.
“There’s a lot of grant funding out there for nonprofits, community groups, that kind of thing,” she said. “There’s not as much for the average homeowner. We liked the idea of being able to benefit a lot of people who wouldn’t ordinarily have access to this kind of funding.”
Residents could apply for up to $5,000 in funds for conservation-minded projects, including clean soil and water. Closing the application window Dec. 1, the district awarded the entirety of the funds to 25 applicants by last month.
That was much sooner than Ms. Burris expected. But she still feels that the best way to use the money was through these residentled efforts, from apiaries to tissue testing for a cow at a local farm.
What has made the program work so far was first opening the applications to the portion of the county closest to the derailment, setting up certain parameters around what projects were eligible and doling out money as reimbursements, she said. It’s something she feels confident other communities could replicate.
“For the conservation district, it was a windfall, and I’m happy with the way we decided to use it to benefit the residents of the county,” Ms. Burris said.
Legitimate concerns
Whether or not Darlington supervisors decide to follow Lawrence County’s lead, Ms. O’Connell says she’ll continue to speak out against the inconsistent resources for Pennsylvania residents.
“Do I believe that there were people that weren’t affected? Absolutely,” she said. “But do I know that there are people who have been affected and are suffering? Absolutely. There are legitimate concerns in the community. People are so fed up at this point that they have basically just given up. I won’t stop.”
Mr. Carreon believes local leaders are doing the best they can with the resources they were given.
“It’s making us look like the bad guy when I think the fingers are pointing to the wrong party,” he said.