Listen: From Lac-Mégantic to East Palestine—the Rail Freight Industry’s Ongoing Threat to Safety

Overturned tank cars and twisted rails at Lac-Mégantic accident site. Photo/Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

By Bob Hennelly

As we get farther into the 2024 campaign cycle, WBAI and the Pacifica Radio Network are committed to raising the issues that impact health and safety of the broad swath of America’s 330 million people, all too many of whom are marginal to the campaign conversation curated by the corporate news media.

A case in point would be the risks and dangers that are posed to so-called corridor communities like East Palestine, Ohio or Paulsboro, New Jersey, through which vast quantities of deadly chemicals pass through on rail lines 24-7.

Of course, back in February of 2023, East Palestine was the scene of the  the Norfolk Southern rail disaster, which resulted in the release of a vast quantity of vinyl chloride and other highly toxic chemicals into the air and water in the borderlands of Ohio and Pennsylvania. In that case, the railroad made the decision to vent and burn off the toxic cargo, exposing rail workers, first responders and the community at large to a potentially life altering toxic chemical exposure.

A subsequent National Transportation Safety Board investigation cited the railroad’s lack of maintenance and concluded that the Norfolk Southern Railway’s decision to “vent and burn”  the toxic vinyl chloride cargo  was “not necessary” to prevent an explosion.

The findings came as no surprise to America’s railroad unions. Norfolk Southern, as one of just seven Class One railroads, down from close to 50 in the 1980s, reportedly increased its payout to its shareholders by some 4,500 percent while it cut its railroad workforce by a third before the Ohio catastrophe. This was achieved by slashing costs, successfully resisting regulation, as the rail carriers made their trains longer, heavier, and much more profitable.

All this was made possible by the railroads spreading millions in campaign cash around inside the D.C. Beltway and in state capitals from Sacramento to Trenton where too many politicians looked the other way.

This mix of greed and deregulation in the rail industry has already had deadly consequences up in Quebec Canada.

Labor and environmental activists recently gathered at the Knights of Columbus in Teaneck, New Jersey to mark  the 11th anniversary of the oil train tragedy in Lac-Mégantic,  Quebec by reading the names of the 47 children, women, and men who were killed in July of 2013 when a driverless oil train carrying volatile Bakken crude derailed and exploded and incinerated most of the town.

In this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we speak with Paula Rogovin, one of the lead organizers of the Lac-Mégantic observance. We get the labor perspective from Nick Wurst, general secretary of the Railroad Workers United, as well as Captain John Harvey, president of the Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters, about the occupational health implications for firefighters both paid and volunteer from an event like East Palestine.

We explore the risks that America's under-regulated railroads post to the nation's firefighters.

Of the total 29,452 fire departments in the country, 18,873 are all volunteer; 5,335 are mostly volunteer; 2,459 are mostly career; and 2,785 are all career-professionals, according to the National Volunteer Fire Council. More than half of Ohio’s departments are staffed by volunteers.

According to the US Fire Service 2021 National Needs Assessment, volunteer firefighters in towns the size of East Palestine are in short supply with an average of 6.7 firefighters available on weekdays, compared to 11.4 on the weekend.

And as it turns out, they are not that well-equipped.

When it comes to providing a Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus [SCBA] for firefighters, the US Fire Service reports, "more than half (53 percent) of all fire departments cannot equip everyone with SCBA. Departments protecting under 9,999 people have the highest rates of unmet need for SCBA equipment."

Listen to the entire show below: