Biden to head to East Palestine one year after train derailment after facing intense pressure to visit

By Nikki Carvajal and Arlette Saenz, CNN

Washington (CNN) — President Joe Biden will travel to East Palestine, Ohio, next month, roughly a year after a train derailment there caused an environmental disaster, a White House official said Wednesday.

Biden has been under pressure to visit the area since the derailment on February 3, 2023. The White House has said that Biden would visit the area, but that didn’t happen last year. In contrast, days after the incident, former President Donald Trump visited East Palestine – in an increasingly red Ohio – and criticized Biden’s absence.

What resulted was a political maelstrom, while residents of East Palestine said they simply wanted to know whether the water they were drinking was safe.

“In February, President Biden will travel to East Palestine, Ohio, to meet with residents impacted by the Norfolk Southern train derailment and assess the progress that his Administration has helped deliver in coordination with state and local leaders to protect the community and hold Norfolk Southern accountable,” the official said in a statement Wednesday.

The incident caused a massive fire and prompted officials to evacuate hundreds of people who lived near the site because of fears that a hazardous, highly flammable material might ignite. To prevent a potentially deadly explosion, toxic vinyl chloride gas was vented and burned, releasing a plume of black smoke over the town for days.

Other chemicals of concern at the site include phosgene and hydrogen chloride, which are released when vinyl chloride breaks down; butyl acrylate; ethylene glycol monobutyl ether acetate; and 2-ethylhexyl acrylate, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. All these chemicals can change when they break down or react with other things in the environment, creating a stew of potential toxins.

Residents were given the all-clear to return to their homes February 8 after air monitoring in East Palestine did not detect any elevated chemicals of concern. Some residents of East Palestine said they had developed rashes, sore throats, nausea and headaches after returning to their homes, and worried the symptoms were related to chemicals released after a derailment.

Residents and local officials have expressed frustration with the response following the incident.

In the weeks after the crash, federal investigators said they found it to have been “100% preventable,” but added there was no evidence the train’s crew did anything wrong.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visited the crash site about three weeks after the derailment. Buttigieg later acknowledged mistakes in his response, saying he should have visited sooner and failed to anticipate the eventual political fallout from the train’s derailment.

In a letter to Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw, Buttigieg demanded accountability and called for greater safety regulations and efforts to bolster railway safety initially showed some bipartisan promise.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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