Norfolk Southern issues six-month report on East Palestine recovery efforts
Norfolk Southern Railway recently released a six-month report detailing its work to help East Palestine, Ohio, recover from the Feb. 3 derailment of an NS train that was hauling hazardous materials.
Although the railroad has made a lot of progress, its work isn’t finished, NS President and CEO Alan Shaw wrote in the report’s introduction. The company’s financial assistance and commitments so far total more than $64 million, “with more to come,” he wrote.
In addition to ongoing environmental cleanup of the derailment site and making economic investments in the community, NS is focusing on improving its safety culture.
“I’ve asked all 20,000 of my Norfolk Southern colleagues to speak up about ways we can enhance our safety culture,” Shaw wrote. “Through July, accidents on our mainline are trending down 40% from last year.”
According to the report:
• 85,000 tons of waste soil have been shipped off site;
• More than 27 million gallons of impacted water have been recovered;
• More than 100 air purifiers have been distributed;
• 10,400 families have been helped at the Family Assistance Center that NS established;
• 750 wells of drinking water have been tested;
• 5,200 feet of impacted waterways has been flushed; and
• 14 million gallons of clean water have been bypassed, eliminating the need for more than 600 storage tanks and eliminating more than 4,000 truckloads around the community.
To read the full report, click here. The Class I also regularly posts updates to its NS Making It Right website, which the company launched to keep area residents informed of the environmental cleanup and other recovery actions.
Also, NS earlier this month entered into a settlement agreement with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division-International Brotherhood of Teamsters over workplace safety issues related to the derailment.