‘Go home’: Biden given frosty reception during visit to disaster site

Washington: US President Joe Biden has called for sweeping new safeguards to deal with toxic chemicals being transported across the country, as he finally visited the scene of one of the worst rail chemical disasters in recent history.

One year after a train filled with cancer-causing material derailed in East Palestine, Ohio – resulting in residents still fearing for their long-term health – Biden finally travelled to the American Midwest town on Friday (Saturday AEDT) to speak to local officials and see how the community is faring.

Owner Melissa Smith pours coffee brewed from tap water for US President Joe Biden in an East Palestine cafe.

But the visit received a frosty reception from some, who labelled the trip an election-year stunt and questioned why he hadn’t come sooner.

As the president’s motorcade rolled into the town, signs could be seen saying “Go home, sleepy Joe!” and “F— Biden,” along with less inflammatory banners declaring: “We need healthcare” and “We need aid.”

Former president Donald Trump, who is popular in East Palestine and travelled there shortly after the derailment last year, also weighed in, releasing an attack ad hours before the president arrived entitled “Too Little, Too Late.”

Biden used his visit to call on US Congress to pass new laws that would ensure greater protective measures for trains carrying hazardous waste, including higher standards for brake systems, better staffing to prevent accidents and improved derailment-detection technology.

A bipartisan Railway Safety Act was proposed last year by Ohio’s two senators, Republican J.D Vance and Democrat Sherrod Brown, but it has languished for months. The Biden administration says this is in part because of the lobbying power of the rail industry.

“While there are acts of God, this was an act of greed that was 100 per cent preventable,” Biden said, hitting out Norfolk Southern, the rail company responsible for the derailment, which has spent years resisting reforms that could make the system safer.

“We were pushing railroads to take more precautions to deal with braking and to deal with a whole range of things that were not dealt with. Norfolk Southern failed its responsibility,” Biden added.

The chemical spill took place on February 3 last year, when a 2.7 kilometre-long train came off the tracks near in East Palestine, a small regional town of about 4700 people near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.

Eleven of the derailed carriages were filled with dangerous chemicals such as butyl acrylate, ethylene glycol, and vinyl chloride – a colourless gas that is used to make plastic and is linked to higher rates of cancer.

In a bid to stop an anticipated explosion, authorities conducted a controlled burn to release toxic vinyl chloride into the air, but not long after, residents started experiencing symptoms such as headaches, nose bleeds, skin rashes, and respiratory problems.

When this masthead visited East Palestine last week after the first anniversary of the derailment, many locals believed the area was still contaminated, pointing to chemical sheen in creeks and inadequate testing by the Environmental Protective Authority, which had failed to pick up some of the toxins in the aftermath of the crash.

Some residents, such as 34-year-old mother Ashley McCollum, had spent months living in a hotel with her family because she was too scared to return to her house near the train tracks.

“Every time I went back I’d have some kind of reaction,” she said, sitting in the small room she shared with her boyfriend, son, and two dogs. “I would have rashing, I would have excessive bowel movements, stomach cramping, eyes burning, a chemical taste in my mouth, lips tingling, ear pain.”

After Biden’s visit, Tom Devine from the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower group that has been investigating the ongoing health and safety concerns of residents, said the president needed to hold the Environmental Protection Agency accountable, not just the rail company.

He said Biden should also order “credible and independent sampling” and “retract the government’s reassurances that the town is safe” given “residents’ grotesque medical nightmares belie that claim”.

“The jury is out whether he is serious, or the trip was for show,” Devine said.

Ashley McCollum in the room that she, her son and partner share with their two dogs at a Best Western hotel.

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Michael Regan acknowledged that the past year had been filled with “fear, uncertainty and disarray”.

But he added that the authority had removed more than 176,000 tonnes of contaminated soil from the community for safe disposal.

It had also shipped more than 43 million gallons of wastewater off-site, he said, and had collected more than 45,000 samples in and around the community.

A black plume and fireball rise over East Palestine as a result of a controlled detonation of part of the derailed train.

“I’m certain you all are well on your way to bounce him back to be stronger than ever before,” he told residents.

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