A young mother asks, ‘Why is it that if something goes wrong the burden falls upon our communities?’

We spent much of our Saturday at a riverfront park in the Beaver County borough of Rochester, a 45-minute drive northwest of Pittsburgh. A half dozen of us volunteered at a benefit concert called  “Back on Track.” The money raised will provide direct relief for people whose lives were turned upside down by that awful train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, a few years ago.

You don’t hear much about it in the news these days, but that 2023 train derailment continues to cause a lot of problems. Some affected people continue to struggle with costly health care issues, while others have moved out of homes that now make them sick and are trying to find stable housing. A number of people wrestle with post-traumatic stress disorder — memories of a fire that seemed to consume the town, the sudden rushed evacuation, then the mushroom cloud that rose above town when officials decided to burn off several tons of highly toxic vinyl chloride.

Goldy, one of our union officers, stepped up to help move a porta-potty the size of a small barn and nearly got crushed for his efforts. For the rest of the night he smelled aggressively sanitary, like one of those perfume cakes placed in urinals. Bob grabbed a red flag and, along with Goldy, helped guide cars into a parking lot. Erin, Natalie, Helen and Ed manned a strike table and explained our labor action to the curious, then Natalie wandered over to help at the ticket table. All afternoon, we talked with people who live in the “blast zone” — those communities most affected by the toxic effects of the derailment.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette strikers feel a certain kinship with these folks. The Norfolk Southern train flew off the tracks a few months after we’d walked away from our jobs because we felt strongly that someone had to stand up to an employer brazenly violating federal labor law. It was a rough time. We were still trying to figure out how to pay our bills and wrap our minds around the fact that we were in for a long and difficult fight when, on the night of Feb. 3, 2023, we turned on the TV news and saw the grisly flames and the overturned, broken rail cars. We’d been publishing this strike paper since the beginning but were stretched pretty thin. It took us a few weeks to get to East Palestine and start our reporting.

At community meetings and in living rooms and back porches, we met people struggling with the new reality they faced — their lives were turned upside down, their communities broken apart by disagreements over what to do, who to blame. They wondered about the odd health symptoms they were experiencing: nosebleeds, coughs, rashes, brain fog, breathing problems, heart issues. Meanwhile, the companies at the heart of the disaster resumed with their business as if everything was normal. The trains rolled on.

We returned, every few weeks. Since we’re an online newspaper published by striking workers, we feel a duty to recognize the struggles of working-class people who’d been stomped on by corporations whose overriding goal is to generate as much profit as possible, no matter the consequences to those who happened to be living nearby when recklessness leads to disaster. We have no editors to tell us, “You’ve written enough of that story, we need to move on.”

Our connection to the people in East Palestine and the surrounding communities grows as the strike continues (it’s soon to enter its third year) and our frustrations mount. Despite winning our case at each level, we still don’t have a successful conclusion, thanks to the company’s insistence on appealing and thus avoiding consequences. Some folks in East Palestine may have been heartened by a $600 million settlement with Norfolk Southern, but few have seen any real money. The attorneys got paid. Now we’re reading about allegations of fraud. We understand the residents’ frustrations. The world has moved on, but they’ll be asking questions and managing their frustrations for decades, if not generations.

We could go on about why we continue to write about these communities, why we volunteer for fund-raising events such as the Saturday concert, and why we deliver produce and other groceries each month for a food drive in Darlington, Pennsylvania, just a few miles from the derailment site. But we could never articulate the cause as well as Carly Tunno, who, shortly before 7 on Saturday night, stepped up to a microphone on the Rochester stage.

Carley is a young mother who lives in Chippewa Township, Pennsylvania. Before the derailment, she and her husband lived a normal life, raising three children (two are twins) and working part time at a local restaurant. Pictures of Carly from that era show her with thick brown hair falling past her shoulders. Now she wears a black beret because all of that hair has fallen out – something she explained during her brief emotional speech.

She started by sharing her childhood memories of her grandfather, who insisted she read newspaper stories aloud to him. “Become educated and you would become dangerous,” he said to her.

For years she paid little attention to that advice. The came the train crash. A short time later, she began losing that thick dark hair and began asking questions. Carly sat the same kitchen table she’d shared with her grandfather and read statements and reports by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She read news stories; she learned about substances such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. One compound known as TCDD is especially toxic, she learned. Testing in her yard determined it contained TCDD at the level of 6.6 parts per trillion. There is no universally accepted safe level of exposure to the compound.

“I no longer wonder why certain variants of trees in the impact zone near the creeks are dying from blight,” Carly said. “I no longer wonder why my hair has yet to grow back.”

Worried about her family’s health, and the health of her community, she took on a new role – as an activist. She’s spent much of the past two years reading, learning, calling various agencies and politicians, attending meetings, telling her story. Still, she feels she’s being gaslit. After her hair fell out, she endured a variety of tests. Doctors said her hair should grow back. It hasn’t.

“The truth is, they refuse to admit that I, along with everyone else, was dosed with more toxins than my system could handle,” she said. “I vomited for days after the vent and burn. The stomach bile I threw up had an oil sheen to it. We inhaled that stuff for days, and what everyone fails to realize is the dangers of dioxin, specifically TCDD, because it has been covered up by industry and government for decades.”

She wonders why her questions to officials go unanswered, why no other entity is helping in her quest for assurances that, should another derailment occur, authorities will handle it more effectively. During her speech, Carly could see the Shell plastics plant, a massive facility a few miles away that has, on a number of occasions, released more pollutants than is allowed. Many of the trains passing through Beaver and Allegheny County communities service that plant.

“Why is it that if something goes wrong the burden falls upon our communities?” Carly asked. “We get no royalties for each tanker hauled through our backyards.”

This made us think of the other communities contaminated by companies engaged in a headlong pursuit of profit. We thought of Clairton, in Allegheny County, as well as Roseland, Louisiana, and Conyers, Georgia.

Some people tell Carly she and her family should just move to a new town — get away from the contamination if you’re so concerned, they say. Just move. It’s a comment heard by lots of residents who express alarm about the level of toxins in their communities.

Moving is not a possibility for most people – they just can’t afford to pack up and relocate to another town. Even if residents do have the resources to move, why should they be forced to leave their homes and neighbors, their churches and schools and businesses, in order to keep their families safe?

“The roots I have personally in my community are deep and cannot be shaken,” Carly said. “Packing up and leaving is not an option when everyone you know and love lives within your community.”

Like so many others we’ve met in the towns and communities rattled by the derailment, Carly threw herself into advocacy and activism. These are working-class people taking on uncomfortable roles because they see no other choice. They feel everyone has let them down – the government that was supposed to protect them, the companies that abused their communities, the legal system that was supposed to bring justice and compensation for all of the damage people have suffered. In the end, they realize they have only each other.

“I am proud to say I am union bred, union fed and union wed,” Carly said. “I have it instilled in me: When we fight together for better conditions we have a chance of getting results.”

Ohio Valley Derailment Mutual Aid’s “Back on Track” concert raised more than $3,700 in donations, and folks can donate here: https://givebutter.com/OVDMA.