“You can be assured that Pennsylvania will hold Norfolk Southern accountable for…all impacts to our Commonwealth,” Governor Josh Shapiro wrote in a letter.
The derailment of a Norfolk Southern Railway train in eastern Ohio earlier this month has left some neighboring states concerned for their own residents’ safety.
Officials chose to conduct a controlled release of hazardous materials that were on board the 150-car train that derailed near East Palestine, Ohio, on February 3. The decision may have avoided a potential explosion at the crash site, but some of the harmful substances on board were released into the surrounding area.
East Palestine, a village in eastern Ohio with a population of roughly 4,718, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is located less than a mile from the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, and around 20 miles north of West Virginia.
While the total ecological impact from the train derailment may not be able to be assessed until later, both nearby states have expressed concerns about how the release of hazardous materials may be impacting their own communities.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro addressed a letter to Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw on Tuesday, writing that he had “serious concerns” regarding the rail company’s handling of the derailment.
According to a copy of the letter posted by WGAL reporter Tom Lehman, Shapiro said that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency “were not immediately contacted by Norfolk Southern and learned of the incident independently in the first few hours after it occurred.
