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‘There Should Have Been A Playbook On This’: Expert On Ohio Train Disaster

February 24, 2023 Bob Hennelly, Work-Bites. , , ,
While the abused residents of East Palestine, Ohio packed their local high school gym on Wednesday night to sort through the contradictory messaging from officials, freight trains with vast quantities of toxic chemicals rumbled through equally vulnerable and unprepared corridor communities across America. Invariably, these are communities that have some history of betrayal and abandonment by predatory capitalism and rely on selfless community volunteers to staff their fire apparatus and ambulances. They were the frontline infantry for COVID. They are the arms and legs of mutual aid 24-7 responding to any and all natural and man-made disasters in America’s heartland.

Low Prices, Modern Railroading And The Toxic Ohio Derailment

February 21, 2023 Kurt Cobb, Resilience. , , ,
Complex, tightly networked systems run very efficiently and can work with precision for long periods, until they don’t. Money saved on the front end can be lost in one catastrophic accident. There is no better recent example than the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying copious amounts of toxic vinyl chloride and other toxic chemicals. By now nearly everyone knows the tale of toxic fires and fears of explosion which led officials to drain undamaged tank cars carrying the same toxic chemicals which escaped the initial fires and then burn those chemicals as a precaution.

Organizations Provide Mutual Aid To Residents Of East Palestine, Ohio

February 18, 2023 It's Going Down. , , , , ,
Organizations and affinity groups across Ohio are uniting to offer support and mutual aid to those most affected by last week’s train derailment and subsequent release of toxic chemicals. We are accepting donations of both funds and supplies for communities in and around East Palestine, Ohio. This disaster is a policy decision. The Biden administration and Congress refused to support rail workers in their demands to improve safety in December 2022 and January 2023. Ohio Governor DeWine mandated the conditions to allow the toxic burn off in lieu of alternative remediations. The purpose for escalating the release of volatile chemicals was to speed up the process for trains to resume to generate profit for the companies who perpetuated this catastrophe.

Chemical Desolation In Appalachia

February 15, 2023 Jarod Facundo, The American Prospect. , , ,
East Palestine, Ohio - In the village of East Palestine, on a late Friday evening, a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed on the Ohio side of the Pennsylvania border, causing tanker cars to rupture and catch fire, releasing thousands of tons of hazardous chemical compounds into the surrounding land and atmosphere. At the time of the crash, the known chemicals aboard included the highly toxic vinyl chloride and hydrogen chloride. An EPA document dump on February 12 revealed additional carcinogenic chemicals were aboard too, as well as some highly flammable solvents and gases.

Rail Companies Blocked Safety Rules Before Ohio Derailment

February 10, 2023 David Sirota , Julia Rock , Rebecca Burns and Matthew Cunningham-Cook, The Lever. , , ,
Ohio - Before this weekend’s fiery Norfolk Southern train derailment prompted emergency evacuations in Ohio, the company helped kill a federal safety rule aimed at upgrading the rail industry’s Civil War-era braking systems, according to documents reviewed by The Lever. Though the company’s 150-car train in Ohio reportedly burst into 100-foot flames upon derailing — and was transporting materials that triggered a fireball when they were released and incinerated — it was not being regulated as a “high-hazard flammable train,” federal officials told The Lever. Documents show that when current transportation safety rules were first created, a federal agency sided with industry lobbyists and limited regulations governing the transport of hazardous compounds.

Fiery Ohio Train Wreck The Result Of ‘Precision Scheduling Railroading’

February 8, 2023 Railroad Workers United. , , ,
Railroad Workers United (RWU) condemns the dangerous and historically unsafe practices by Class 1 rail carriers that resulted in this catastrophe that will impact the community of East Palestine Ohio for many years, if not forever. The root causes of this wreck are the same ones that have been singled out repeatedly, associated with the hedge fund initiated operating model known as “Precision Scheduled Railroading” (PSR).  But risky practices, such as ever longer and heavier trains even precede PSR.  The train that wrecked is a case in point, 9300 feet long, 18,000 tons. Other hallmarks of modern day railroading include deep cuts both maintenance and operating employees, poor customer service, deferred maintenance to rolling stock and infrastructure, long working hours and chronic fatigue, limited on-the-job training and high employee turnover.

A Black-Led Bike Share Company Is Charting A New Course

January 1, 2023 Cinnamon Janzer, Next City. , , ,
Youngstown, Ohio - From protecting the planet to serving the public of entire cities with accessible and affordable transportation options, the missions of bike share services across the country and around the world are often broad. They’re intended to serve large swaths of a population, yet people of color, low-income folks, and others from marginalized communities are often left out as services bend toward wealthier and whiter neighborhoods and urban centers. Most bike shares also rely on corporate sponsorships for their existence. When this critical financial support evaporates at the whims of said corporation, as has recently happened in the Twin Cities, the service itself is jeopardized. In Youngstown, Ohio, a local family is looking to do things differently in their hometown.

Cleveland’s Circular Economy Helps Reduce Waste And Build Jobs

December 18, 2022 Lee Chilcote, Next City. , , ,
Cleveland, Ohio - While meeting with a local farmer two years ago, Eric Diamond of Central Kitchen, a food business incubator in Cleveland, Ohio, learned that the farmer wasn’t able to sell all the carrots in his fields. Some of the carrots – while perfectly nutritious – weren’t the right size or shape for grocery stores’ and restaurants’ specifications. That sparked a question, and a business idea was born. “I said to him, ‘What do you do with the carrots?’ and he said, ‘We leave them to rot in the fields because we don’t have an end market,’” said Diamond. “So, I said, ‘What if we buy the ones that don’t meet your specifications, and we process them and sell them to school districts?’” Soon afterwards, the farmer, Wayward Seed Farm in Fremont, Ohio, began taking the carrots that would otherwise have been thrown away and dropping them off at Central Kitchen.

Water Protectors Protest Proposed Salmon Farm

December 16, 2022 Delaney Ruth, ABC 13. , , ,
Toledo, Ohio (WTVG) - The Toledo Lucas County Port Authority board has approved a $400 million bond for a salmon fishing facility in Williams County, but many locals are not happy with the decision. A group of advocates attended a Port Authority board meeting Thursday morning to talk about how they believe this facility could harm drinking water. The AquaBounty facility will be allowed to take more than five million gallons of water per day out of the Michindoh Aquifer, a large freshwater source. The water will then be dumped back into the St. Joseph River. Those two sources provide drinking water for thousands of people. Sherry Fleming is the chair person of the Williams County Alliance and says this is a huge concern for her community. “Fresh water is such a critical, essential resource for survival for all life,” says Fleming.

Why Grassroots Activists Are Turning To The Wonky World Of Monetary Policy To Fight For Economic Justice

November 2, 2022 Pamela Haines, Waging Nonviolence. , , ,
Ohio - How many people would like to cut the cost of local mass transit improvements in half, divert local tax dollars from big bank use to supporting low-income housing at home, see one-time federal relief packages for struggling families continue? All that and much more becomes possible without costing taxpayers a dime, if we choose a more efficient and democratic system for handling money than our current one, which systematically benefits the rich at the expense of the poor. To learn how, we’ll need to explore a different “plumbing system” for handling our money supply. In a groundbreaking move in this direction, a League of Women Voters group has been doing exactly that, calling us to consider how something we take for granted — the money supply — can be reinvented in a way that promotes democracy, justice and the planet.

Media Spreads Call For Violence As Protests Erupt In Ohio Youth Prisons

October 29, 2022 Peter Gelderloos, It's Going Down. , , ,
Massillon, Ohio - On the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd of October, at least two protests broke out at the Indian River youth prison in Massillon, Ohio. In one protest, a guard was struck in the head and beaten down with a radio, and in another a dozen kids broke out of their cells, armed themselves, and set up barricades, which they defended until the following morning. Other protests and fights have occurred over the previous months. In response to the riot, local media responded with systematic spins and manipulations to help spread calls by the guards for more physical violence against the children. Two area papers, the Columbus Dispatch and the Canton Repository, as well as the local TV station, WKYC, referred to the children locked up at Indian River as “inmates,” “criminals,” or at best, “juveniles.” They referred to their cells as “rooms.”

Students For A Democratic Society Convention: ‘Not Another Step Back!’

October 24, 2022 Chrisley Carpio, Fight Back News. , , ,
Kent, Ohio - On October 15 and 16, members of the New Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) from across the United States gathered for their annual national convention at Kent State, Ohio. Roughly 90 students from SDS chapters and affiliates listened to speakers and gave workshops, summing up their victories and losses over the past year. The convention was united under the slogan of, “Not Another Step Back!” in reference to the year-long fight to keep rights such as the right to an abortion, but also to win even more. They featured national SDS’ commitments to, “Fight for Black lives, defend Roe v. Wade, and stop homophobic and transphobic attacks.” The location was particularly poignant to New SDS, as local students and faculty membered the four students who were killed on campus by the National Guard in 1970 for protesting the Vietnam War.

Columbus Police Execute Donovan Lewis

September 10, 2022 Abayomi Azikiwe, Popular Resistance. , , ,
In the midwestern city of Columbus, Ohio, 20-year-old Donovan Lewis was shot to death while lying in his bed during the early morning hours of August 30. Police claimed they were serving an arrest warrant on multiple charges although there was no threat from Lewis who was unarmed. The police in Columbus say that Lewis raised his arms and therefore this justified the bullet fired into his body causing him to die at a hospital shortly afterwards. The officer involved in the killing of Lewis, Ricky Anderson, a 30-year veteran of law-enforcement, has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal and judicial investigation. This act of blatant police violence represents a continuation of the legacy of law-enforcement brutality and killings across the United States.

Teachers Union In Ohio Went On Strike For Students—And Won

August 31, 2022 Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams. , , , ,
Columbus, Ohio - Students, teachers, and support staff in Ohio's largest school district returned to the classroom on Monday after the Columbus Education Association won a new contract and ended its weeklong strike. Gathered at the local minor league ballpark on Sunday, CEA members voted 71% to 29% to approve a three-year contract with Columbus City Schools that satisfies most of the union's demands, which revolved around improving students' learning environments and opportunities. "We are so excited to get back to where we belong—our classrooms—doing what we do best: educating our students and shaping the future of our great city," CEA spokesperson Regina Fuentes said at a press conference.

First Columbus Teachers Strike In Almost 50 Years

August 25, 2022 Emma Lee, Left Voice. , , ,
At 7 o’clock Monday morning, teachers and education workers of the Columbus Education Association union in Ohio went on strike, marking the first time teachers have gone on strike in the city since 1975. Columbus City Schools is the largest school district in the state of Ohio and the school year was originally scheduled to begin today. The 4,500-member union — representing teachers, librarians, nurses, counselors, psychologists and other education professionals — met for more than three hours to vote on Sunday. Over 94 percent of members voted to reject the Columbus City school board’s latest “final” offer and in favor of going on strike. The school district has hired 600 substitute teachers to cover for the 4,500 education workers who are currently on strike. The district is telling the parents and guardians of the nearly 47,000 students in the district to log in virtually for synchronous and asynchronous learning for the first day of classes or risk truancy — putting families at risk. In other words, the school district is trying to coerce Columbus families to cross the virtual picket line.
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