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Lead in Public Housing

Toxic Tuesdays

CHEJ highlights several toxic chemicals and the communities fighting to keep their citizens safe from harm.

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Lead in Public Housing

Lead is a naturally occurring metal that has been used in many household products like paint and plumbing materials. This makes people most likely to be exposed to lead in their own homes, through ingesting or inhaling contaminated paint, dust, or water. Lead exposure affects all organs but is particularly damaging to the brain, causing defects in learning and memory. Children are especially vulnerable to lead exposure because of their growing brains, and exposure can cause defects in brain development, behavioral problems, and irreversible learning disabilities. Even though it’s been known for over two hundred years that lead is toxic, it is estimated that 800 million children worldwide are exposed to lead today. (CHEJ has previously written about the health effects of lead exposure here.)

A new study has found that access to federal housing assistance is associated with lower blood lead levels (BLLs), demonstrating how housing access influences health. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has three main housing assistance programs that help 5 million low-income households access affordable, high-quality housing:

  1. The public housing program provides subsidized housing units at a specific site that is owned by the local public housing authority.
  2. The multifamily income-restricted housing program provides subsidized housing units at a specific site that is owned by a private entity.
  3. Tenant-based housing choice vouchers (HCVs) provides subsidies for tenants to use towards finding housing in the private market.

The study authors linked HUD administrative records to data from an existing survey that measured people’s health including their BLLs. This allowed the authors to connect people’s BLLs to whether or not they were enrolled in a HUD housing program. To determine if access to HUD housing programs was associated with lower BLLs, the authors compared those who were enrolled in a HUD program to those who were not enrolled but would become enrolled within the next 2 years. This ensured that the groups being compared were similar in their socio-economic status and eligibility for HUD housing assistance. Overall, the study sample included over four thousand people.

The authors found that when controlling for demographic factors like race, ethnicity, sex, age, partnership status, and households size, average BLL was 11.4% lower for people enrolled in HUD housing programs compared to people who were not enrolled at the time. The effect was biggest for people enrolled in public housing programs. The effect was smallest for people enrolled in the HCV program. The authors hypothesize that this protective effect of HUD housing assistance is because HUD has stricter compliance and enforcement of federal lead-paint laws – such as the Lead-Paint Poisoning Prevention Act, the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act, and the Lead-Safe Housing Rule – in their public-owned housing units compared to housing units that are privately owned. Because the HCV program has recipients find housing on the private market, this may explain why there was little effect on BLLs for people enrolled in HCV. The authors also note that as housing construction has slowed in the past few decades, affordable housing options on the private market tend to be older construction that are more likely to contain lead-based paint and pipes. HUD’s required inspections, maintenance, abatement, and clearance activities seem to be effective at decreasing people’s exposure to lead. This is consistent with previous studies that have found other positive health outcomes associated with public housing.

The authors found that the association between HUD housing program enrollment and lower BLLs was strongest for non-Hispanic white people. The association was much lower for Black and Mexican American people. While the study cannot explain why this is, the authors offer several explanations rooted in historical and ongoing racism:

“Black households continue to face significant barriers to high-quality housing and high-opportunity neighborhoods that may have fewer lead hazards because of legacies of racist housing policies and urban planning practices in the United States. These practices include redlining, zoning and land use restrictions, gerrymandering of school and census boundaries, predatory lending, and urban renewal initiatives in Black and Brown neighborhoods that displaced families and built highways, airports, and other large pollution-emitting sources in their neighborhoods through eminent domain.”

Overall, this study indicates that housing through HUD programs protects against lead exposure. This is likely a success story of regulations that require inspection, abatement, and removal of lead in public housing; it suggests that requiring units on the private housing market to adhere to these same regulations could have a significant impact on lead exposure in the United States. Because lead is one of the worst toxic chemicals with the potential to do lifelong damage to children, public policy efforts that reduce lead exposure should be a priority. The fact that the lead protective effect of HUD programs is less substantial for nonwhite people demonstrates how systemic racism impacts housing and health. This study shows that housing justice and environmental justice are deeply intertwined: access to high-quality housing is crucial for health and safety. The study also shows that neither housing justice nor environmental justice can be achieved without racial justice.

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Acrylamide

Acrylamide is a clear, odorless chemical. It has many industrial uses, including treating waste water<br

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Dealing with Uncertainty When Evaluating Toxicity​

Toxic Tuesdays

CHEJ highlights several toxic chemicals and the communities fighting to keep their citizens safe from harm.

< Back to Toxic Tuesdays

Dealing with Uncertainty When Evaluating Toxicity

In a recent issue, we discussed the many challenges in evaluating the adverse health effects that result from exposure to a mixture of toxic chemicals. Despite this, scientists still estimate and assess risks by attempting to compensate for these uncertainties.

This is done by assigning an uncertainty factor (UF) to the different uncertainties. How well these uncertainty factors fill in the gap in what we do not know is a matter of controversy and opinion. Especially when you acknowledge that we only have good toxicity information on about 1% of the more than 80,000 chemicals that are in use.

Consider just a few of the uncertainties. The first step in assessing risks is to determine what substances a person was exposed to, at what concentration and for how long. Rarely is this information ever available, so assumptions need to be made to estimate this critical information. Sometimes, there is limited air, soil or water data. This data is often collected for a different purpose, such as to evaluate the need for remediation as opposed to evaluating public health risks. There are also uncertainties in how the samples were collected, the accuracies of and precision of the analytical measurements and the thoroughness of the sampling (were the samples taken at the right places, analyzed for the right substances and at relevant concentrations). At times, modeling is used to estimate how much of a chemical a person was exposed to (usually after making assumptions about even what kind of chemicals a person was exposed to), how long they were exposed and at what concentration.

The next step is to evaluate the toxicity information available on the chemical in question. This would include information from animal studies, clinical trials and epidemiological studies involving people. Since most of the data that exists is from animal studies, this step already creates enormous uncertainties. These uncertainties include extrapolating results in animals to people; the variability in response among people; the sensitivity in response among people; estimating acute or short-term responses in people when the only data you have is from chronic or long-term exposure, and vice versa. These examples just touch the surface of the many uncertainties in our understanding of how chemicals affect a person’s health. 

Another factor that comes into play is the health status of the individual who was exposed. People who are generally healthy and without pre-existing conditions respond differently to toxic chemicals than people with prior exposures, poor immune or nutritional status, or pre-existing health problems.

To address these many uncertainties, scientists have developed what were originally called safety factors, but now are referred to simply as uncertainty factors (UF). These uncertainty factors can range from 1 to 10 and often are multiplied together to yield a composite uncertainty factor that can be as high as 100 (10 x 10). These UFs are included in the estimate of the risks a person or group of people face.

Scientists give an UF to each specific uncertainty trying to compensate for the uncertainty. Doing this requires making many assumptions about areas of knowledge that very little is known about. These assumptions are made by “scientific experts” who very quickly become convinced that they “know” the health risks that a person or a group of people face. Of course, they do not really know. Instead, what they have is an opinion based on multiple assumptions, typically for a single substance.

What compounds this process is that the people who make these risk assessment estimates are scientific experts, and do not include the people who have to bear the risks of the chemical exposures. That’s not right! The people who bear the risks need to be involved in the risk assessment and health evaluation process because of the many uncertainties that exist in estimating exposures and in extrapolating what little data exist to evaluate adverse health effects resulting from exposures to low level mixtures of toxic chemicals.

For more about uncertainties when evaluating the adverse effects from chemical exposures, see Environmental Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty, by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, 2013.

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Acrylamide

Acrylamide is a clear, odorless chemical. It has many industrial uses, including treating waste water<br

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EPA Passes Regulations for Forever Chemicals: Good News and Bad News

Photo credit: Demphoto

By Stephen Lester.

Earlier month, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized drinking water standards for a group of substances known as Forever Chemicals. These chemicals include PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, PFHXs, PFBS, and GenX and are generally described as polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). PFAS chemicals are present everywhere in the environment, degrade very slowly and posed health risks to people who are exposed to them. They are called forever chemicals because they break down so slowing that they are around for centuries, essentially forever.

This new regulation requires that these forever chemicals be added to the substances that EPA requires all public drinking water systems to routinely monitor. Some water companies will start testing for PFAS in drinking water as early as 2027 in 3 years, but these restrictions don’t go into effect until 2029, five years from now. This regulation does not apply to private or individual wells, just to large public water systems.

While it’s good news that PFAS chemicals will be restricted in drinking water by 2029, this decision also highlights the slow cumbersome way that chemicals are regulated in this country. Although EPA made clear that there are significant and severe adverse health effects associated with these chemicals, the agency did not restrict their production or use in consumer products, just their presence in drinking water, and not for another 5 years. So, Dupont, 3M as well as other companies will continue to make these chemicals for use in consumer products. Furthermore, this new regulation only applies to 5 of the thousands of different PFAS compounds that have been identified.

Why does this make any sense? It certainly does not make any public health sense. EPA acknowledges the adverse health effects of these chemicals at extremely low levels, to the point where some researchers feel that there is no safe level of exposure to PFAS chemicals, yet EPA takes no action to restrict the production of these substances and gives water companies five years to meet its new standards. And for the companies that manufactured these chemicals – primarily DuPont (and several subsidiaries) and 3M – there’s no action against them or accountability for producing these substances for more than 50 years, even though for decades they opposed any regulatory action by EPA.

Over these years of delay, these companies slowly began moving away from the  PFAS chemicals that were targeted as “bad actors” – PFOA and PFOS – and began producing and using other PFAS chemicals about which virtually nothing was known about their toxicity. EPA has allowed this to happen even though the adverse health effects for most of these substances are not known. Somehow EPA seems good with issuing no restrictions on the production of potentially toxic consumer products and instead offers general advice to the public on steps they can take to avoid PFAS chemicals if they choose to do so.

There is something seriously wrong with our system for regulating toxic chemicals when the companies that use dangerous toxic chemicals to make consumer products for profit get off Scot free and the EPA offers advice to individuals on how to avoid these toxic products.

Industry began using these polyfluoroalkyl substances in the 1940s in consumer products such as nonstick cookware (Teflon) and in food packaging, to waterproof clothes, stainproof furniture and in certain manufacturing processes. They were also widely used in firefighting foams to extinguished fires, especially at airports and on training grounds for firefighters. PFAS chemicals gained public notoriety about 10 years ago when they began showing up in drinking water at military bases, such as the Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth, NH. The US military estimates that there are over 600 military bases with PFAS contamination.

The adverse health effects associated with these forever chemicals include reproductive effects; developmental effects such as low birth weight, bone variations, and behavioral changes; damaged immune function such as reduced ability to fight infections; interference with the body’s natural hormone functions, including the thyroid; kidney and testicular cancer; liver damage; and increased cholesterol.  

For specific details about EPA’s new PFAS drinking water regulation, click here.

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Bridging the Gap Between Science and Action

By Jordan Martinez.

As an intern at the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, I have written several papers on the effects of different chemicals on the environment and on human health. The purpose of these articles is to provide information for chemically impacted communities throughout the country. I am working with community members in East Palestine, Ohio. Their questions led to me writing these papers, however these questions have applications beyond the community in East Palestine, and can be helpful to other chemically impacted communities around the world.

The first of these papers that I wrote was on the burning of lithium ion batteries. Lithium ion batteries, such as those in electric vehicles like Teslas, release several toxic gasses when they catch on fire. In this paper, I discussed what those gasses are, how they affect human health, and what makes them from more common chemicals used in everyday life, such as fluoride in toothpaste. This paper came from questions from residents in East Palestine, however the information shared in this paper represents helpful information for residents in other communities as well. Some communities may live near a facility that produces lithium batteries, where risk from these gasses may be higher during an accident. Some individuals may work with lithium ion batteries on a regular basis, such as  car mechanics. These papers serve to help individuals overall, and I’m glad to be making this information available to the public for free.

I’m currently writing about the use of the Affordable Care Act for chemically impacted communities. Within the law of the Affordable Care Act exists Section 1881A, which outlines the use of medicare benefits for individuals exposed to environmental health. I am investigating how this section of the ACA can be utilized for chemically impacted communities, and what the exact process is for utilizing medicare benefits for impacted individuals.

These papers highlight educational health and science information that may benefit communities, especially those working with CHEJ. It is my hope that scientific information can be easily accessible to communities in a digestible manner. Not everyone is a scientist, and for community leaders working to help their communities, they may not be able to read scientific papers. This may be due to not having the capabilities to read papers, since academic research papers are often filled with jargon that can be quite difficult to understand for non-scientists. Another reason is simply time. Reading papers is time consuming, and even if a community leader can read papers, there may be too many tasks that need to be done, limiting the absorption of scientific knowledge, therefore preventing the use of scientific information in helping to benefit communities. This is why it is crucial that we make inclusive science communication, so that community stakeholders can be involved in scientific knowledge without having to be scientists. I write these papers for CHEJ so I can help bridge the gaps between science and the community, and I am grateful for the work of others who do the same.

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The PFAS Fight

By Leila Waid.

Environmental justice is in a constant legal battle that, depending on the court’s philosophy, sometimes sees wins for public health safety and but other times faces significant setbacks. March saw a major regression for plastic pollution regulation and the ongoing fight to ban PFAS. On March 21, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals – a conservative-leaning court that has obstructed substantial progressive policies over the years – blocked EPA efforts to ban PFAS in plastic containers.

The company behind the lawsuit is Inhance Technology, who specializes in treating plastics. Some of their listed services include “barrier packaging” and “surface technologies,” which they use to make plastics stronger and more durable. Although not explicitly stated on their website, the process by which they treat these plastics includes PFOA, a type of PFAS. PFAS are used in various products for their ability to repel water and oil. These properties allow for the stronger and more durable plastics. However they do not disclose or make it clear to the consumer that they are using a controversial chemical that has been linked in many health studies to various diseases and even death. In fact, Inhance Technologies goes as far as to promote their company as being eco-friendly, stating on their website that they “want to make things better for the world” by reducing plastic. This and other similar statements on the company website make it seem like they are protecting the environment when, in reality, they are contributing to the plastic pollution that endangers everyone’s health – a clear example of greenwashing.

In December 2023, the EPA sent a notice to Inhance Technologies to stop using PFAS in their manufacturing process. In response, they sued the agency. The main debate in the case was if the EPA had the right to put a stop to the process since Inhance had been using PFAS for over 40 years. The EPA argued that it only discovered the usage in 2020 so it should be considered a new process. Ultimately The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Inhance, stating the EPA did not have the right to place a restriction since it was not a new process, even if the EPA just found out about it. However, what if a company never discloses the use of harmful chemicals to the EPA? Using the logic and reasoning of this case, the EPA would be unable to block that process because they didn’t catch it in time. Notedly, the court did not deny the dangers of PFAS to the human body; they only overturned the restriction because the process was not new to Inhance.

What is most frustrating about environmental justice setbacks such as these is that, while the litigation is ongoing, the PFAS, or forever chemicals continue to be manufactured and cause massive pollution. Inhance Technologies argued that they can’t be restricted by the EPA under Section 5 because they have been treating plastics with PFAS for forty years. How much pollution have they added to the environment? How much more will be added by organizations such as these that hide behind a façade of greenwashing and yet contribute to so much of the environmental and human health degradation faced today. 

Court cases can take years to win. And during those years, PFAS continues to bioaccumulate within our bodies and environment. So, while immense national-level policies, such as the PFAS ban that the EPA tried to put in place, are extremely important, we also need to focus on individual and local-level change. For example, we must educate ourselves and our communities about the dangers of PFAS and become informed consumers of what plastic-containing products we buy. If we know that a company uses PFAS in its manufacturing process or partners with companies that do, then we need to be mindful of that and boycott those products. 

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Commitment to Tackling Risks Posed by Toxic Chemicals

Photo credit:  Ivan Bandura/Unsplash

Reshare by EHN Curators

In a recent development highlighting a personal commitment to addressing the perils associated with toxic chemicals, the current administration has intensified efforts to mitigate environmental and health risks.

According to Chris D’Angelo’s coverage in The Huffington Post:

  • The administration has initiated measures to limit hazardous waste and chemical exposures, including restrictions on open burning of waste explosives and the evaluation of cancer-causing chemicals.
  • Despite these efforts, the handling of the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment, involving the burning of vinyl chloride, has drawn criticism for its potential health and environmental impacts.
  • The EPA’s proposed rule to limit the open burning of waste explosives aims to protect communities but does not directly address the concerns raised by the East Palestine incident.

“Toxic smoke, thick with poison, spreading through the air and into the lungs of our troops. When they came home, many of the fittest and best warriors that we sent to war were not the same — headaches, numbness, dizziness, cancer. My son Beau was one of them.”

— President Joe Biden

Hazardous waste and toxic chemicals can wreak havoc on public health and ecosystems. Chemicals that seep into soil and waterways can disrupt habitats, harm wildlife, and contaminate food chains. This not only affects biodiversity but can also compromise the resources people rely on, like clean drinking water and productive agricultural land.

EHN visited residents still picking up the pieces four months after a catastrophic train derailment dumped toxics in East Palestine, Ohio.

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Impact on Children of the Flint, MI Water Crisis

Photo credit : Brittany Greeson for The Washington Post

By Stephen Lester.

It is well understood how dangerous lead is to everyone especially children who are still growing and thus more susceptible to its toxic effects. Scientists have continued to find adverse effects from exposure to lower and lower levels of lead, leading some people to say that there is no known safe level of exposure to lead, especially for children. This evidence continued to grow this month when researchers from Princeton University, the University of Michigan and from a private research group in Cambridge, MA reported that children exposed to lead during the Flint (MI) lead crisis “suffered significant negative effects” on their academic outcome. They further reported that “we find compelling evidence that the FWC [Flint Water Crisis] reduced student math achievement and increased the rate of social needs classification.” Students (over the age of 5) with low socioeconomic status experienced the largest effects on math achievement, with boys suffering the largest effects on special needs classification.

Numerous studies referenced in this report have documented the adverse health effects of lead on children including increased behavioral problems, decreased executive functioning, decreased academic achievement, decreased brain volume, higher rates of crime offending, decreased social mobility and increased anxiety. This study adds to this knowledge and understanding by providing strong evidence that the relatively short exposure to lead in drinking water – about a year and a half – during the Flint Water Crisis had a significant impact on the educational outcomes of school-aged children in Flint.

The authors also discussed the many ways that a crisis such as the FWC impacts a community  that goes beyond the chemical exposures. Specifically, they discussed persistent psychological distress and trauma referencing the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the September 11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the DC sniper attacks among others. They made a convincing argument that “one cannot treat these crises as strictly medical phenomena.” It’s much more complex than that.

Lastly, the authors point out that the societal costs of the Flint Water Crisis which have been estimated to range from 50 to 400 million dollars are based on only the effects of lead exposure. They do not take into effect the impact of the psychological distress and trauma that the community goes through. They conclude that “Our results point toward the broad negative effects of the crisis on children and suggest that existing estimates may substantially underestimate the overall societal cost of the crisis.” They expressed hope that understanding the true costs of events such as Flint Water Crisis might help prevent the kind of thinking that led to the Flint crisis in the first place, a decision to switch the source of the city’s drinking water in order to save money – just 5 to 7 million dollars.

1 A. Reuben, M. L. Elliott, W. C. Abraham, J. Broadbent, R. M. Houts, D. Ireland, A. R. Knodt, R. Poulton, S. Ramrakha, A. R. Hariri, A. Caspi, T. E. Moffitt, Association of childhood lead exposure with MRI measurements of structural brain integrity in midlife. JAMA 324, 1970–1979 (2020).

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Unveiling the Impact: Working with Chemically Impacted Communities

By Jordan Martinez.

Since working with the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, I have met and worked with Jami Wallace, President of the Unity Council for the East Palestine Train Derailment. I have found working with both Stephen Lester and Jami Wallace rewarding and impactful. As I got to learn about Jami, I also learned more about the tragic derailment and the health and policy issues her and her community have been facing, even a year after the event. I had heard about the EP train derailment in the news when it happened. However, after working with Jami, I’ve quickly realized the gravity of the situation and the prevalence of chemically impacted communities.

My interest in environmental health started from another one of my interests: neuroscience. I’m a student at Tufts University studying biopsychology, and the interactions between the brain and the environment are interesting to me. One week while participating in a journal club, I read a paper on Gulf War Illnesses, which are hypothesized to be caused by chemical exposure to sarin nerve gas on U.S. soldiers during the war. This got me interested in environmental causes of neurological disease. This interest was further fueled by Stephen Lester, after a visit to my university, where he talked about his experience working in Love Canal with Louis Gibbs. It’s a pleasure to now work alongside him.

In my work with Stephen, I create digestible science communication papers for residents in East Palestine, based on scientific research I find online. So far I have written about the environmental and health effects of burning lithium ion electric vehicle batteries, and I am currently writing about the effects of burning semolina, a type of wheat used to make pasta, couscous, and sweet puddings. Lithium batteries and semolina were purported to be in some of the train cars that caught on fire after the derailment, so writing these articles has helped answer questions for the residents of East Palestine about the toxic chemicals involved in their exposure.

For Jami and the residents of East Palestine, I’ve helped gather chemically impacted communities from around the country for the inaugural Chemically Impacted Communities’ Coalition meeting. I did research on chemically impacted communities worldwide, and from my research and reaching out to affected communities, I realized that two things each of these communities had in common was frustration due to a lack of being heard and exhaustion from the work they’ve been doing. After the first successful meeting, Jami, the Unity Council team and I have been working on a mission statement and getting the impacted communities together for a second meeting. However, while Jami seeks the support of other communities, she also fights a battle at home. She’s fighting a battle against corporate greed, which has influenced the government and politics of her area, minimized the real harm done to her community, and acted as a barrier to the work she’s doing for the community. It’s a challenge getting information out to government officials. When President Biden visited 2 weeks ago, even getting a letter out to him proved to be a challenge. But change is being made, even if it is a long process. And Jami and I have learned a lot from each other along the way.

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From Texas to New Jersey – The perilous transport of Vinyl Chloride that puts us all at risk

Photo source: https://www.post-gazette.com/local/2023/02/07/vinyl-chloride-east-palestine/stories/202302070109

By Leila Waid.

Recently, Toxic Free Future (TFF) released a research report on how much vinyl chloride is transported through the U.S. daily. Vinyl chloride is a carcinogenic chemical used to make PVC plastic products. Over the past year, vinyl chloride has constantly been mentioned in the news, partly due to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, last February. The toxic burn of vinyl chloride and other hazardous material resulted in the immediate evacuation of residents within a one-mile radius and has plagued the community with fears and uncertainties about their health since then.

Notedly, the Norfolk Southern train derailment was not the only time a vinyl chloride contamination occurred due to a train accident. In 2012, Paulsboro, New Jersey, experienced a similar disaster. In that community, residents also faced exposure to vinyl chloride after a train accident occurred.

TFF set out to quantify how many people live in the vicinity of the trains that carry this toxic material every day. How many people live their day-to-day lives not realizing that the disasters that hit East Palestine and Paulsboro are not some far-away tragedy that couldn’t possibly happen to them but are instead closer to home than they could have ever imagined? TFF’s report highlights the shocking reality that many live near these train tracks where this toxic material is constantly being transported. The study analyzed the train route of OxyVinyls – a company that was involved in both of the train derailments discussed above – because they have the furthest distance between the procurement site, in Texas, and the PVC manufacturing plant, in New Jersey.

Shockingly, TFF’s report found that over three million individuals, of which 670,000 are children, live within a one-mile radius of the train routes carrying this extremely toxic chemical. Over one year, 1.5 billion pounds of the toxic chemical are carried across train tracks. And 36 million pounds of the chemical is being transported at any given point across the entirety of the U.S.

Of course, someone might think to argue, “I don’t live near the train tracks, so this doesn’t affect me.” However, even individuals not directly in the vicinity of the train tracks still experience adverse effects from the production and use of vinyl chloride. The first reason this affects everyone is that vinyl chloride production releases air pollution, which can travel great distances and cause various health issues. The second reason this issue should concern everyone is that vinyl chloride and PVC production releases over three metric tons of greenhouse gas, further exacerbating the climate crisis. Even the extraction process necessary for vinyl chloride is harmful to the environment. Hydrofracking has a variety of environmental contamination concerns and also releases methane – a potent greenhouse gas. Even abandoned fracking wells have been found to emit methane.

So, how do we address this issue? First, advocate your policymakers for stronger railroad regulations so that other accidents like those in East Palestine or Paulsboro do not occur. Second, pressure government action and stronger EPA regulation around vinyl chloride production. And third, vote with your wallet. Do not purchase materials made out of PVC plastic and pressure retail stores, such as the Home Depot, to phase out selling PVC products.

Click here for a link to the report.

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One Year Anniversary of the Train Derailment in East Palestine, OH

Photo credit: Abigail Bottar / Ideastream Public Media

By Leila Waid.

It’s hard to believe that it has already been one year since the Norfolk Southern train derailed in the small and quiet community of East Palestine, OH. The community members have faced uncertainty and fear of how their health has been impacted by the exposure to toxins, such as vinyl chloride, present at the burn site. Burning vinyl chloride can produce dioxins, a chemical that poses immense danger to human health. Over the year, many residents have spoken out about the health risks they are experiencing, such as increased asthma in their children, skin rashes, bleeding from the ears, and new diagnoses of cancer. Also, residents have pointed out how the train derailment has impacted them financially. One of the residents, Ashley McCollum, talked with ABC News about how she has been displaced from her home for the past year. Unfortunately, Norfolk Southern, who had been paying for her and her family to stay in a hotel, said they would no longer fund her accommodations. Now Ashley and other displaced residents have a hard choice to make – return to the community they believe will make them sick or come up with alternative living arrangements with their own finances.


This harsh abandonment that many residents have experienced feels all the more infuriating when considering how much Norfolk Southern has spent on lobbying. According to Public Citizen, “the company and its subsidiaries spent $2,340,000 lobbying the federal government in 2023 – up 30% from the $1,800,000 it spent the year before.” Interestingly, no new railroad safety legislation was passed by Congress after the Norfolk Southern train derailed. One would imagine that when such a severe accident occurs that threatens the health of thousands of people, the policymakers would immediately work in a bipartisan manner to make sure that such an accident never happens again. Notedly, both the House and the Senate introduced bills to increase railroad safety, but a year later, those bills have not moved forward. House of Representatives member Marcy Kaptur directly connects the lack of action by Congress on the bills to the lobbying being carried out by railroad companies, such as Norfolk Southern.


Without stricter regulation, who knows when and where the next derailment might occur and which American town could be the next East Palestine.

Frustrated by the lack of answers and support, the impacted community in East Palestine created the Unity Council for the East Palestine Train Derailment. One of the most recent actions the Council undertook was a “ceremony of solidarity,” an event held on the first anniversary of the train derailment to raise awareness about the suffering the community is still going through. The Council wanted to showcase to the country that what happened in their community could happen anywhere in the country.


The ceremony was conducted in partnership with We Refuse to Die, an environmental justice campaign utilizing art to communicate the message. Artists and activists have a long history of working together effectively to enact change. By moving people emotionally, artists can tap into the feelings and emotions of individuals that motivate them toward change. In this case, the campaign was focused on showcasing that, just because individuals in East Palestine may have been forgotten about by the railroad industry and politicians, they are still here and will continue to fight until they can rebuild what was stolen from them by the explosion.