EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — It’s a foggy, rainy day, and the streets of East Palestine are quiet. The village is small and quaint, like so many other towns that dot the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, complete with locally owned businesses, churches, and American flags. 

Yet everywhere a feeling lingers that something tragic — and monumental — happened here. Yards have signs that say “EP Strong.” Some businesses have window displays with the words “East Palestine Lives Matter.” It is not just another town.

As the one-year anniversary of the devastating train derailment approaches on February 3, there are mixed feelings among community members about whether to move on or keep attention on the area. Walking along the main strip, many businesses were quiet or closed. Others were open, but the shop owners declined to talk to the Sun. They said they were ready to distance themselves from the press storm that followed last year’s disaster, as toxic chemicals from the train’s cargo were unleashed, polluting the area’s water supply, killing nearby wildlife, and leaving residents facing unknown long-term health effects. 

“We’ve been living this for almost a year now, and it’s like having an ant bite you on the foot for a whole year,” one resident, Jess Conard, tells the Sun. “We’re tired,” she says of talking about the derailment, yet “if we don’t use East Palestine as a catalyst for change, we are letting a crisis go to waste.” 

The train was carrying large quantities of hazardous chemicals including vinyl chloride, a toxic gas that is used to make a type of plastic called PVC that is used in toys, packaging, pipes, housewares, and other consumer products. 

In the days immediately following the derailment, citing fears of a possible explosion, Norfolk Southern Railroad conducted a “controlled release” of the vinyl chloride through burning, which Governor DeWine warned would “release fumes into the air that can be deadly if inhaled” as he evacuated areas where residents could face “grave danger of death” if they remained. The decision to burn the chemicals drew backlash, as some criticized the railroad for prioritizing clearing the railroad and resuming business rather than the safety of nearby residents. Some experts have said the chemicals were not at risk of explosion and that the burn was not necessary. 

Before the derailment, Ms. Conard worked in speech therapy and had no idea what vinyl chloride was, she says. Yet the incident, as well as her health effects in the aftermath, thrust her into an advocacy role with Beyond Plastics so that others don’t suffer from exposure to vinyl chloride.

“I was really ill the first week of the derailment,” she says, and while she initially thought it was Covid, she now believes that her sickness was a result of the purposeful burn. “My son, my youngest, has been diagnosed with asthma a couple of months after the derailment,” she says, and he now has to use an inhaler twice a day. 

Her other son had a serious eye irritation that at one point forced him to take four medications. 

“East Palestine is so much more than a toxic train derailment. We have a lovely community with beautiful people and we are part of the backbone of American blue-collar work,” Ms. Conard says. Yet it’s undeniably a “symptom of a much larger issue,” she says, referring to plastics production, environmental pollution, and toxic waste. “We have an opportunity to bring light into the communities that have been impacted by the petrochemical industry for 20-30 years that have been ignored.”

Yet the “silence has been loud” from the federal government, she says, and despite rampant press coverage in the initial months, much of it has been “attention without change.” 

“I think people feel forgotten. I think people feel like they don’t matter,” she says of President Biden’s absence and failure to visit in the year since the derailment. “But at this point, I think if he does decide to visit this community, he cannot come empty-handed.” 

The federal government needs to show the community members they are a priority, she says.

“You don’t show up at somebody’s house late without a bottle of wine. And this is what we need. We need him to come. We need him to provide us with the reassurance that the federal government has our back,” she adds. 

A study released this week by Toxic-Free Future found that at any given moment, 36 million pounds of toxic vinyl chloride are being shipped by railroad, putting millions at risk. The Environmental Protection Agency took the “first legal step” to ban vinyl chloride in December by starting a one-year assessment period that will evaluate if it should be designated as a “high priority chemical,” Ms. Conard says, adding that “the vinyl chloride ban is going to be a big thing for this year.”

A part of advocacy is warning others that this could happen to anyone, a co-executive director of River Valley Organizing and an environmental advocate, Daniel Winston, tells the Sun, adding that it’s “very disturbing” how many toxic chemicals are being transported at a given time. 

“This is not just an East Palestine issue. This could be your neighborhood — train tracks go through every city, almost every village, almost every township, almost every county,” he says. While train regulations are important, he says, the broader issue is the toxic chemicals themselves. 

There is “a divide” in the area, he says, mostly because people have been fighting for change but can only fight for so long. 

“There’s been a lot that happened, and it’s happened so quick. I don’t think people realize that in this small village, people weren’t ready for something like that,” he says, adding that the area in general has been abused by chemicals and pollution for years. 

Part of the fight this year is calling on the federal government to do more, he adds, including asking that Mr. Biden “put his eyes” on the area. 

“Once you see something, you actually see it in a clearer way, instead of somebody telling you about it,” he says. “When you can see the things and talk to the people face to face, ultimately I think that makes a huge difference, a big difference. So we are calling for the President to come to East Palestine this year.”