Norfolk Southern has agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in a deal with the Biden administration to restore the Ohio town devastated last year by a fiery train wreck and chemical spill.
EPA and the Department of Justice announced the $310 million settlement with the rail company Thursday for long-term environmental cleanup and health monitoring for East Palestine, Ohio, the epicenter of the February 2023 train derailment. Under the agreement, Norfolk Southern will have to bolster rail safety measures that exceed $200 million in costs and that officials say could have prevented the accident if they had been in place then.
Overall, the company is estimated to spend more than $1 billion to address the contamination and other environmental damage from the train wreck, which led to residents evacuating their homes and reporting unusual symptoms such as rashes and headaches.
The settlement announced Thursday is the latest effort by the Biden administration to do right by the people of East Palestine. Its response has come under widespread scrutiny from Capitol Hill and the national media as EPA and other agencies went into high gear to address the catastrophe, which included burning off spilled chemicals, sending an ominous black plume over East Palestine for days.
