EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — It's been over a month since the train derailment in East Palestine shook the small town, and although cleanup efforts have continued throughout the ordeal, the remediation work Norfolk Southern is responsible for conducting is nowhere near complete.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine paid the town a visit Friday morning with First Lady Fran, heading to local schools, speaking with classes and interacting with the community. Their evening schedule even had a stop at the school's production of "The Lion King Jr."—but there was more on the agenda for the governor.
DeWine was in town to receive an update on the remediation efforts underway in East Palestine to clean up any contamination from the derailed train cars carrying hazardous materials and test to make sure there is no further contamination from the incident.
While the residents of East Palestine largely still don't trust the drinking water in the town despite assurance from state officials that testing results have come back clear, there are new concerns facing the area with a massive pile of contaminated soil sitting on Taggart Street.
"We have been concerned about the speed or lack of speed in hitting the soil, the dirt out of here," DeWine said. "The current pile we think is about 26,700 tons."
Soil that has been scraped down and tested, and if contaminated removed to the pile, has seen efforts to be reduced. DeWine said about 1,620 tons have been removed this week alone. But a holdup from other states refusing to take the soil has slowed those efforts.
"We had as a situation, as you know, where some states said, 'No, we're not going to take it,'" DeWine said. "Look, that's wrong. It's kind of crazy, because what we're sending from here is no worse than stuff they're taking every other day. In fact, they're taking a lot worse stuff than we're sending."
DeWine said the Environmental Protection Agency issued a statement to the states outlining their obligation to take the soil, referring to it as interstate commerce, but said that while he expects the efforts to clear the pile of soil to continue to progress, he doesn't have a timeline for the cleanup at this time.
"There's a lot of work to be done. And again, we're going to continue to do everything we can to push this thing through and to get the railroad to get the job done. But I can't predict the time," DeWine said.
Meanwhile, residents in the area who already had concerns before have been left with more questions around the pile of soil.
"Why’s it still here, where’s it going to go? I guess they’re slowly taking it out. People are not wanting it, which I can understand why," said resident Austin Huffman. "Covered up with a tarp but the areas that aren’t covered up that’s absorbing with water and running off right back into the creek, unless they’re collecting all the runoff."
The concerns that Huffman has about runoff were also addressed by the governor, who alongside the EPA's Mark Durno, outlined a map of soil testing that began over a week ago.
As part of the EPA's continued testing of water, air and now soil, a grid of residential, recreational, commercial and agricultural land has been plotted out for additional testing for contaminants.
"You can see we have a one-mile radius around the initial train accident site, and then another mile to the southeast, which extends well into Pennsylvania. We will collect up to 270 to 300 samples, depending on how much soot or ash we find," Durno said. "We don't anticipate to find much because the particles that came off this fire were very small, so if we don't see a lot of particles then the number of samples will be reduced. To date, we've collected over 100 samples. So we're making great progress on that."
While the soil results collected so far haven't returned results, DeWine said Friday that the continued testing of the air and water continue to come back "good." Healthy hellbender salamanders have been found in Little Beaver Creek, a sign of a healthy ecosystem as they can only survive in cool, clean water.
The town has seen good news in recent weeks, but even with the hold up on clearing the soil and the waiting on testing, DeWine's continuing message to those in East Palestine was the commitment to seeing the remediation continue and the railroad company, Norfolk Southern, continued to be held accountable.
"Norfolk Southern has an obligation to put this community back to where it was. We didn't ask for this train wreck. It's their train. It's their tracks," DeWine said.
As for Huffman, he and his family are happy to see some positive shifts, but are ready for the situation to come to an end.
"Just for it to be done and over with and a story we tell, like 'that was a close call,'" Huffman said. "But until we get to that story, we still have our concerns. I just want it to be over with honestly."
You can watch DeWine's full press conference here:
DeWine will also visit the East Palestine High School's government class and culinary fundamentals class during his visit Friday.
Watch our latest report on News 5 and Scripps' first-ever independent survey among residents in East Palestine regarding the government's response to their health and finances after the toxic train derailment on Feb. 3. below:
RELATED: Both Ohio senators say News 5/Scripps News survey of East Palestine residents matches what they see
CLICK HERE to read more of News 5's extensive coverage of the East Palestine train derailment.
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