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3/31/2023
The U.S. Department of Justice yesterday filed a lawsuit against Norfolk Southern Railway over its Feb. 3 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency seeks damages for alleged violations of the Clean Water Act, Reuters reported.
The state of Ohio earlier this month sued NS over the derailment.
Meanwhile, NS has committed to hiring Ohio companies and workers to do future repair and replacement work stemming from the derailment. NS committed to "Hire Ohio" under an agreement proposed by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, according to a press release issued by Yost's office.
"As we make progress every day, we are continuing our efforts to hire Ohio companies and Ohio workers to perform future work in the East Palestine area. We look forward to supporting local businesses," NS President and CEO Alan Shaw said in the release.
Yost's Hire Ohio agreement with NS has no bearing on the lawsuit the state filed against NS earlier this month, the attorney general's office said.
Meanwhile, NS mentioned the derailment was one factor impacting operations according to an update sent yesterday to customers. The company remains committed to a “strategy it built around reliable and resilient service for our customers as an enduring competitive advantage” for NS announced in December 2022, the update states.
"Over the last several weeks, however, an unrelated series of factors have combined to negatively affect the quality of the service we are providing customers. These include the East Palestine derailment and subsequent track removal for remediation, a bridge outage, weather-related challenges and the implementation of measures to enhance service reliability and safety,” NS officials said.
Those challenges and changes have led to a short-term disruption in terminal dwell and train speed in the merchandise and bulk networks.
"As the benefits of these changes materialize, we are confident we will see service improve over the next few months," they said.