EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — People in East Palestine who are part of a federal lawsuit against Norfolk Southern say the railroad should just start writing checks.
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Attorneys in the case have experts preparing written reports for release soon on the impact of the toxic train derailment nearly one year ago.
Bob Figley has had a front-row seat to the chaos and cleanup in East Palestine.
“We have, quite interesting,” Figley said.
His business, Brushville Supply and Hardware, is right across the street from where a Norfolk Southern train derailed last Feb. 3, sending plumes of smoke into the air and toxins into the soil and creeks.
“It feels like you don’t know what normal used to be,” Figley said.
Figley said he’s still wrangling with the railroad to clean his business, which wouldn’t be an easy task with hundreds of thousands of items and having to run a business.
“They were going to come in and clean, and it was up to us who we would use for cleaning, and then all of a sudden, at the very end, they said, we’re not going to use your guy. We’re going to use our guy,” Figley said.
Figley is part of the federal class action lawsuit against the railroad.
Attorneys handling the case brought in an independent expert for soil and water testing just weeks after the derailment.
They later returned to map out the area to reconstruct what happened.
Attorney Jo Anna Pollock said court records will lay out the type of impact and where when they’re filed in April.
“The fact that the community is still undergoing this cleanup process a year later there’s no end in sight I think is particularly staggering,” Pollock said.
Pollock has sat in on depositions with plaintiffs.
She said there’s a running theme.
“That they have been living in distress and suffering health impacts,” Pollock said.
Figley lives about a half mile from his business and derailment site.
At home, he said there’s still stress and tension in deciding whether to stay or leave.
“I really don’t want to move, but I don’t want to die with cancer.
So how do you make that, that’s a tough decision, my wife does. She’s very fearful,” Figley said.
Figley said it’s hard to tell the full impact yet on his business.
“We’ve had testing done and we know there are dioxins in front of the building,” Figley said.
He said he surveyed people who thought they were closed, but on the flip side, contractors at the derailment site became new customers.
“They’re our customer base. So we’ve had a bump in sales for that,” Figley said.
One positive he said out of a frustrating and scary time.
“The only way that they can make it right, as Alan Shaw says, is to start writing the checks and giving people an opportunity to recreate their lives somewhere else if that’s what they want to do,” Figley said.
The attorney said her team feels confident this case will go before a jury. Right now, a trial date has been set for November.
Norfolk Southern released the following statement:
Norfolk Southern's Family Assistance Center has been working with this business, as we have with many in town and continue to do so. We have a very good working relationship with the Figleys and met with them two weeks ago so they could meet and discuss their cleaning with the contractor that has been used for many home and business cleanings in East Palestine, including being part of the US EPA structure cleaning program. At the conclusion of that meeting, NS began working to schedule their business for cleaning. To date, Norfolk Southern has paid more than $21 million through our Family Assistance Center including financial assistance to this business and others in the community.
