200 meters challenges your arabic system, your, your o die from and your lungs are very challenz. oh and you got to learn to breathe harder. the event is called the last run to raise awareness about the consequences of global warming. looking at the rapid melting glacier imposed by global climate and we thought we do send a strong message to the world and saying that this could be the last done on frozen bengal lake. similarly, this glaciers on the hill in mountain may not freeze and stay forever. le dark is a cold desert in the himalayas in home to many glaciers. people here have been demanding more protection for their land. they say increased human activity in the area like large developments and to resume our melting glaciers and threatening their livelihoods. these black unburnt garvin minute, we are at 11215000 feet. so fuels don't burn properly. so the

fuels go up as suit which is black cabin and fly to the glaciers and cover them up with their darkish tinge, which means the glaciers absorbed the sun even more. the event has set a world record for the highest frozen lake, half marathon runners. hope this would inspire action against the biggest threat facing a planet. pardon you met that al jazeera. ah, he without his hair. and these are the top stories us present. joe biden has stressed that the western nato remained united behind ukraine is all the huge crowd and war saw that you are sanctions imposed on russia over the war will be maintained and expanded. ross's present, lima futon is announced. moscow will suspend its role in the new start treaty at limit stock piles of nuclear weapons is the last remaining nuclear arms control

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welcome to the stream i met sabot, dean, thousands of people living near the sight of a train derailment, and chemical spill in the us. state of ohio are worried about their health and they're also questioning the response and credibility of emergency officials and news of the toxic league in east palestine is unsettling. other communities along the country's rail network. today we examined the aftermath of the disaster and asked what's needed to improve safety. ah, we're joined today by ben ratner, a resident and business owner in east palestine. ohio. julie iraq is a reporter at the lever, who has covered the immediate aftermath of the disaster. she joins us from brooklyn, new york, san car, as senior vice president for programs at earth justice, a non profit environmental law organization. he is in washington dc. and of course, you can be part of today's conversation through our youtube chat, send us your questions and comments,

and i'll put them directly to our guests. so much to discuss here been i want to start by sharing with our audience brief timeline of the events since the disaster happened on february. 3rd, we saw the train derail near east palestine, ohio. on february 6th crews began the controlled release of the chemical, as many still reported smelling the chemicals in the air and experiencing headaches, as well as burning sensations in their throats. and on february 8, they were told they could return. but since then, people have pets, for example, including cats and birds, have fallen ill since the derailment with some dying unexpectedly after the controlled release of the chemicals. so it's estimated, for example, been that $3500.00 fish have died. we've seen all sorts of concerns from the human beings living there yourself included. could you take us back to what happened in that moment and how you reacted? yeah, it's something that you're telling the story. i appreciate that something that never

would have expected to have happen in our little town here. we're actually at the high school basketball game. got home that night and started getting phone calls from people in the area asking, we're ok. and that's whatever you know, heard that there is a fire, i walk down there, i have a friend over there, so stretch. i can see the just the, how the situation was and the safety situation when trying to get to their house and fire fire department. and we had to leave and they expanded their perimeter. that's what i realize. this was more than just a fire and a trainer. and what did you start to realize? i mean, i know for you specifically for people who don't know you and your family were extra, as in a 2022 movie adaptation of a novel called white noise in 1985 novel about basically this same story, a train the railings, spilling chemicals, causing an airborne toxic event, and forcing sort of an evaluation. i'm wondering, you know, does life imitate art with art sort of imitating life for you?

what is your worry right now? i mean, are you, are you experiencing symptoms yourself? i think that the interesting tie in with the novel in the film because the speak to the level that these issues have been happening for a long time. and the safety of the railroad has been called in the question for a while. and, you know, using civil war era breaks and goes back to the mid eighty's early to hundreds. there were systems are antiquated, they need to be updated. and our legislators need to step in and make sure that that's being done properly. julia hearing, been outline, has experience there. i'm curious what comes to mind. i mean it's, it's quite mind boggling the way that this is being discussed online, a lot of misinformation, but also a lot of outrage is the, our age appropriate. i think our age is absolutely appropriate. you know, i've been a little bit surprise talking to palestine residents. i'm curious if this is your experience then just about how much anger is directed towards the rail company. of

course, it makes sense, but i think there were sort of a way in which this, this derailment played out, and people maybe experiences and an unfortunate accident, or were sort of more, more sympathetic to the company. and this, in my opinion is very clearly a story of corporate malfeasance. there's sort of no question but, but i've been surprised by, you know, sort of how, how widely that that narrative has been shared. i think, yeah. going, oh no, i was gonna say, i think early on in the situations that happen the company at all, this is generally the one control the narrative since they're kind of seen as the experts on it. and that in this situation is date. very dangerous. and also things that are talking about early on rather volatile chemicals, which they knew they could handle in a cheap, efficient way. think that they did not let out until the following week was the massive amounts of petroleum lube oil that were also spilled. and that's something that you know, can't be mitigated unless they are really working to rooms that so real quickly.

and that's going to continue. so can see environment. and so i think that the real company not showing up for our town hall kind of gave everybody more of a direction to direct their anger. and that's something that, you know, i think we needed, but it's also we need to look at a bigger picture here and make sure this doesn't happen to get in the future. no, and we're certainly going to talk about that bigger picture. in the meantime, sam, based on what you just heard, i'm curious in terms of the lack of accountability. i mean, what do you say to people who are concerned? i like bad people who have returned there, but who are either still experiencing symptoms or effects that they believe are related to this bill. and sort of the general narrative that seems to be coming from the government, from authorities but know everything's fine. well, i sympathize with the residents and with you organizations on the ground that are trying to help because the railroad industry and the chemical industry you have for a year is fought to limit information about the toxicity and hazardous nature of the chemicals that they're carrying. even the fact that they are carrying them through towns is often something the residents are surprised about until the very

last minute. so when e, p a and other state agencies are saying the numbers that they're seeing in their monitoring are within acceptable minutes, we have our acceptable limits. we have to all recognize that the limits that are acceptable are limits that have been pushed and lobbied and aggressively influenced by the industries in question. so i would say i understand that the residents are concerned, said again ben. yeah, also their methods of testing. it's been, you know, there is johns hopkins professor that came out the other day in an article said they should be doing air sampling from multiple areas around the site. i'm just air monitoring and the tools that they use for the air monitoring or not sophisticated enough to pick up the chemicals that we need to find in our air. and obviously a lot of concern and worry hear from our panel. i do want to share with our audience, with some other residents have to say about their primary concerns. take a listen to this material can talk, but he can say, hey, i got a headache or i'm dizzy or light headed or my eyes are burning. nothing like the

meal so are crying, but it could be a number of things. if we be president, i mean we need fema housing or getting we we should not have been white back into town until all this was done. you bring families that with their kids in their loved ones and then tell them to screw up with the on been when you're here that i mean, you're nodding what comes to mind. what are you feeling? i think a lot of double talk early on. ah, and you know, people still going there and i was there on thursday with a news crew. and especially when the trains come through there's a real noise of like acetone paint center that come out. and all this got noticeably ill. queasy, had to get out of there. i told the news, crows, i need to get out here. your networks. gonna yell at me. um. so that was something that it's still an issue now. and i think again, was

a real company controlling the narrative. people didn't necessarily realize how serious the situation was early on, and i do want to also share the statement that we received from norfolk southern. we are committed to east palestine today and in the future we will be judged by our actions. we are cleaning up the site and, and environmentally responsible way reimbursing residents factored by the derailment and working with members of the community to identify what's needed to help ease palestine recover and thrive. certainly sounds like they're doing all the right things. and sam, what do you make of this statement? i mean, what's the actual quality compared to kind of what they have to say? i asked because there's been a lot of people on twitter. and even in our, in our youtube chat, just give me a 2nd to find the street. for example, david rhoda, you may know him, julia thing, chemical lobby has got obama officials to exempt the ohio trained from the high hazard flammable train classification and its tough safety regulations rail lobbyist. then god trump. to repeal a rule,

to force rail giants to start using better breaks 2 issues that played into what happened here. what do you make of their statement in light of those facts? well, 1st of all, the tweet is, is precisely correct. and in the immediate aftermath of this, the train company kept pointing out that the regulations that were rolled back by the trump administration wouldn't have applied to this train. but what they failed to point out was that they had lobby to make sure that those regulations wouldn't have applied to this train. this is a story that we see throughout the chemical industries and high hazard, i as the industry of all kinds of people. remember the deep water horizon incident? it's the very same story. and if the, if norfolk southern wants to be judged by its actions, i guess what i would ask is, let's see how they respond to calls for additional regulation and legislation. well, they lobby aggressively to prevent regulators from adding the regulations that are necessary to improve, train safety. will they continue paying the legislators and making the donations

necessary to avoid any meaningful legislation? so i will judge them by their actions? absolutely, and everyone in this country should judge the company by the way, it responds not just and critically to the citizens of east palestine, but also on the larger regulatory front. it's angela and $1000000000.00. oh no, please please. then we'll do it real quick. yeah. 18. $18000000000.00 in stock buyback from the past 5 years ago. investments on safety. oh, that's good to something i wanted to call attention to julia. yeah, i just wanted to jump in that that's a great point on, on the buybacks and, and to add on to what sam was saying. you know, i've been covering on norfolk southern lobbying efforts and, and the broader lobbying group that norfolk southern is a member of and, and the specific point that, that's rhoda was tweeting about. and sam alluded to, is that there was an effort in the mid twenties, tends to more strictly regulate trains carrying high hazard flammable materials

like potentially vinyl chloride. although, as sam pointed out out, thanks to the lobbying efforts of both the rail industry and the chemical industry, the specific gas ended up ah, not being covered by, by the safety regulations. but there was sort of an effort. admittedly not, you know, the most expensive one by the obama administration to regulate these trains more strictly. ah, railroads thought the efforts, tooth and nail even fighting against safety technologies that they had previously bragged were very effective. and then some of the key parts of those regulations were repealed during the trump administration. so, so there's a very recent history here of ad, norfolk southern, it's interesting you bring up that statement fighting against high profile efforts to make these trans caring, hazardous materials, safer. subject them to more ah, stringent those safety regulations and disclosure requirements. and you know, i want to broaden this conversation by bringing more voices into it. live on you to people commenting a lot of emoji is,

as you can imagine reacting very negatively. shocked very horrified, but then some words derrick griffith saying we've had several such chemical accidents in america in recent months, but the authorities continue to lie about the safety risks to americans. shall be stat saying, living in ohio. and so unsettling. there was an explosion in the state last night, and stella doro saying, train, oper operators complained notified that particular runs here were unsafe for a long time scenes. their complaints were ignored, so people voicing some of their concerns, some of that lack of trust. we were talking about whether with local or federal officials and i think that's very much at the heart of this conversation. i do want to share with our audience what senator shared. brown had to say about holding norfolk southern accountable. take a look. the important thing to me is that we hold the administrator said that we hold norfolk southern accountable and that means accountable for the task for people to move back in accountable for all the clean up. it will take weeks. i

don't know how long, but at least weeks to assure people that the water safe in the air is safe and the soil is safe for their children for the 4000 plus residents here. but i'm curious when you hear a senator shared brown there, does it kind of limit or less than your worries and concerns or what comes to mind for you? i know there are economists challenges on your mind now. moving forward. are people going to leave? are people going to sell their homes? i mean, where's your head? it was with the center in particular, he was the 1st one that put together a mini town hall of these policy and events or espousing citizens to come for a small event air. their grievances had an advisor, they're taking notes that's report back to him. so that was good on his part issue with the water is the city water table has not been effective yet, but there's hundreds of people in the area that live off of just open. well, water that's subject to run off for from these chemicals from these oils. and it's

the eventual long term effects for our city offers. but right now i think it's so much it's up in the air. people definitely are mixed feelings about wanting to be face and also feeling like they might have belief. but this town deeply deeply rooted. there's people that have been here multi generational for 4 generations. people growing up in their grandparents home. so it's hard for them to think about up routing, and then i'm also wondering who might buy that property. i mean, who's going to? yeah, i mean, we've seen this happen and flimsy middle safe selling a property to. they know that that happened here. they would be very hard for me to try to sell my house even if i want to go and just kind of, you know, discloses information and hope that i don't get low balled on an offer. but even still, like i said, our roots are deep here and it's hard, hard to fathom leaving. and when we talk them about the public trust issues with officials, especially in a highly charged political landscape, i want to share with people. you know,

there's this right when commentators do peters who treated this out saying this is ohio's chair noble here. let me just make this a bit bigger for you there. this is a video, obviously he's playing, you know, it's very dramatic, very shock thing. but then we see, and i'm going to flip here to vox, this is an article, a headline thing. well, no, it's not a term noble, you know, the rack is an environmental disaster. but what do you make of the sort of the way this is being discussed online, the alarm? rightfully but then also some of the misinformation or conspiracy that you will? sure. well, i think what matters is someone's perspective, i think for the residents who live there, it doesn't matter whether you describe it as sure noble or not. sure noble. it's a massive disruption. a huge public health threat. i don't think it's fair for anyone outside of that community to be judging how it feels for the folks inside that community. i do think that if your question is, how shall we be responding? yes, sure. noble that requires

a response from the government and from the rail industry. of course it does. we have massive amounts of rail traffic all around this country. currently, the oil and gas and chemical industries are moving tremendous amounts of highly hazardous materials in train cars all around the country and simultaneously working to defeat meaningful regulation that would improve the safety of that. if that's not something that the american public politicians should get behind changing, i don't know what is and then i'm curious. i mean we've seen so many different people commenting on this. for example, if you look at robert right here, tweeting thing, unionize, rail workers warned them and taking time bomb they called out mem, athlete often overburden workers. they watched in horror as safety regulations were blocked. now toxic chemicals from ohio's trained around then could poison the area for years. at the given moment. do you have faith that if area is in fact poisoned, that the clean up for is one that the government or the local authorities are

capable of doing in a way where the community feels invested involved and protected? it's a very good question, i think just until recently that was very much up in the air and more towards the negative. i think just in a couple of days there's been a lot more of a response today. there was actually a pretty positive conference where everybody but basically just gave on, on the other and from federal e p, a to state also pennsylvania governor. so i think that's something where people are, there's a lot more eyes on this. hopefully there's more independent testing and they said that they're going to be watching the clean up and apparently it's not done properly. they're going to step in charge them triplicate of that and do it the right way. which sounds great, but i know just the slow pace of our legal system and things like that. i'm not sure what kind of teeth that, that a threat julia. you were going to jump in before you do. if i may,

i want to share with you a tweet here that's quoting east palestine mer trent conway, who was defending his statement when he said the biggest slap in the face he felt was when president biden visited ukraine, while ohio is dealing with chemical fallout from the train derailment, he said he's very frustrated and still stands by those comments. now, mainstream media really focusing on biden's trip to ukraine, a worthy, good point of discussion, obviously. but if i'm not mistaken for president biden, and, you know, pete boot is, as many people criticizing them for not talking about this or acknowledging it for more than a week. maybe 10 days. yeah, i think the by the administration has, you know, an east palestine problem on their hands and then it may be a much bigger problem on their hands. you know, there's the media problem of neither biden, nor the transportation secretary ah, people to judge said anything about east palestine, i think for 10 days,

which is pretty wild and obviously contributed. i, you know, to the feeling and his policy. and i'm sure ben could speak to of conspiracy and, and feeling a little bit abandoned if i for, if i'm honest, interject sorry, why would the federal government be that silent? i mean, where's the benefit? they just don't have the capacity or the transportation secretary pete booted us. i mean, what do you think that's about is that negligence? i think to her a couple of possible explanations. you know, one is that there was news coverage of the event, but not very much in those 1st 10 days. there was, you know, great, great local media coverage. and the very few national stories saying this derailment happened. but there wasn't a lot of sort of thorough contextual reporting on it, which i think allows officials to be let off the hook. i think, you know, there's, there's this other point which i, this is a good time to the other point. there are more than a 1000 train derailments happening every year and tens of americans live in

evacuation jones for trained carrying hazardous materials. so if the bye didn't administration comes in and says, you know, this is a disaster in east palace. the norfolk southern has been fighting safety regulations. they've been flashing their workforce is they've been spending all their money on my backs that points a finger at the administration as well to do something about it. right. and so i have to wonder if part of the silence was you know, a desire on the part of the administration not to be held accountable as well. i appreciate a good sound. i, sam, i know you were going to jump in there. i do want to share very quickly video comment that was sent to us from chris to avenue where we had asked our community essentially what could have or should have been done to prevent this. and this was, his response will come to you on the back of accidents like the trained u. realm and east palestine are absolutely preventable. rail companies, historically prioritized profit above workers and communities when it comes to safety and that must change. norfolk southern must stop fighting new regulatory

requirements like updated electronic braking systems and wayside detectors. if accidents do occur, companies must provide all information to state and federal agencies immediately. especially when hazardous chemicals are involved in allow emergency responders to be the leaders in the situations. lawmakers must hold norfolk southern cobble, both for the impacts to families in the environment. in for obstructing real safety reform in the past. are elected officials must act right now to prevent future disasters. some salient points there, but sam, i want to ask you, i mean we heard from julia that thousands of d derailments. we know that this particular train in ohio didn't have the modern braking system. i'm you through or drilled it since october or the 3rd derailment is hearing from been there since october. great. you know, high or low. yeah. and you know, earth justice having filed the lawsuit with the department of transportation back in 2018 about this issue of modern braking systems. in part, i mean i understand that they responded to you and you had appealed and now you

just heard back. anything you can share with us about what, what, what you know? well, what we do know is that in the immediate aftermath of this, we revisited our, our request that the department of transportation strengthen its rules about trained braking systems. we've heard back that they are going to consider that request and they're evaluating those options. people also announced a $33.00 part plan, but unfortunately, one part of that plan is voluntary requests for the train industry to do some more . another part of that request is to ask congress to pass some legislation. and one of the things that we see across the board here is that the government agencies in particular that we're relying on to protect us have been systematically undermined through underfunding and through demoralization at the hands of various political interests. we know, for example, that p a is at the lowest staffing levels that have been seen in decades. and that is at a time when, as the other commentators and pointed out the threats to our health are even higher

. not to mention the global concerns that we have as well. so it is ironic that at the very time when we need all of these protections and we rely on these agencies to help us out, right. they are operating on scale and staffs with minimal budgets. while i run x one word, the governor use the word absurd in some of his comments. take a look. listen to what he had to say. this train apparently was not considered a high hazardous material tre, therefore, the railroad was not required to notify anyone here in ohio about what was in the rail cars coming to our state. even though some real cars didn't have hazardous material on board. and while most of them did not, that's why it was not categorized as a high hazardous material train. frankly, if this is true and i'm told it's true, this is absurd. absurd is certainly one word here. you have some news if we thought

this couldn't get worse. president will. former president trump's visiting east palestine, ohio this week. not sure if that's going to help or hurt the situation. there are perhaps revealing some of my skepticism. forgive me. i was just looking at you for your reaction. there been julia sam. yeah, thank you for sharing your insights with us. sadly, that's all the time that we have for today. but really an important conversation that as our guests said was not necessarily getting the attention it deserved perhaps at the beginning. but you can always find these important stories here with us at the stream you could follow us online at stream, got al jazeera dot com. thanks for watch. ah ah

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