Ohio Attorney General Sues Charity Claiming Its Helping East Palestine Residents With Spill Recovery
Truck carrying 40,000 pounds of toxic soil from East Palestine train derailment overturns on highway.
We continue to follow the developments following the train derailment and subsequent major chemical release and controlled burn in East Palestine, Ohio.
This week, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost sued a man accused of exploiting the disaster with a sham charity he used to collect more than $100,000.
According to Yost, Mike Peppel said his organization, Ohio Clean Water Fund, was a non-profit acting on behalf of Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley and wanted to help the residents after the Feb. 3 Norfolk-Southern toxic train derailment.
Yost said Peppel pocketed at least $131,000 of the roughly $141,000 raised from more than 3,000 donors.
“The idea that somebody would so brazenly exploit a disaster situation and the good hearts of people who want to help is unconscionable,” Yost said. “I’m mad as hell about this, and we’re going to make sure this sham charity gets shut down.”
Yost added representatives of Second Harvest Food Bank had not authorized the partnership cited by Peppel.
Yost is seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to halt Peppel’s illegal activity, prohibit him from engaging in additional charitable solicitations and preserve existing charitable assets.
The remediation efforts around East Palestine are continuing. Chris Hunsicker, Norfolk Southern’s regional manager of environmental operations, recently gave the media a close-up view of clean-up efforts.
Hunsicker said the company has removed, tested and shipped out more than 25,000 tons of solid material and more than 12 million gallons of liquids in its remediation efforts along what it calls track #1, where the derailment occurred. Once rail traffic shifts back to track #1, remediation work will begin on the soil under and around track #2, Hunsicker said.
The company also is tackling remediation of Sulfur Run and some of its unnamed tributaries, which run along the train tracks in parts of East Palestine. Nobody wants the chemicals in the soil going downstream, Hunsicker said.
“Today is a big milestone for us,” he told reporters at the site, where a line of Norfolk Southern-led rail cars noisily passed by. “We’ve been working … with the regulators to define areas that were affected and come up with a plan on how we’re going to address them and manage those materials.”
…The site no longer resembles the fiery hellscape that was captured in dramatic photos taken by area residents and the news media in the days after the derailment. The plumes of smoke from the chemical burn, which forced hundreds of people to evacuate, are long gone. The site doesn’t have even a hint of the acrid, chemical-lined smell that permeated East Palestine for weeks after the derailment and controlled burn.
Also long gone are the rail cars that derailed. They were shipped elsewhere to get clearances before returning to Norfolk Southern’s fleet.
Unfortunately, a truck carrying around 40,000 pounds of contaminated soil from East Palestine overturned on a highway this week.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency said that roughly half of the soil that was on the truck ended up spilling along the highway.
The tractor trailer, which had an open top, was traveling north along SR-165 on Monday when the accident occurred sometime after noon local time in Columbiana County. According to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the vehicle’s 74-year-old driver, Phillip Falck, had gone off the right side of the road, hit a ditch and utility pole and overturned. When officers arrived at the scene, they found the truck “on its side, off of the right side of the roadway.”
About half of the soil onboard – roughly 20,000 pounds – ended up spilling out of the truck, prompting responses from the local fire department and Ohio EPA, which said that “the spill was contained and is not a threat to nearby waterways.”
Falck was “cited for operating a vehicle without reasonable control,” the highway patrol said.
Meanwhile, Biden hasn’t gone to the site of this chemical disaster yet. Instead, he is working is special brand of magic in Ireland.
The actual transcript from Biden's Ireland event today on the Official White House website reads:
"And let’s go — let’s go la- — lick the world. Let’s get it done. Thank you."
Go check it out before they change it.https://t.co/u21Vk85e67 pic.twitter.com/dpXpwbqiqi
— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) April 14, 2023
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Comments
Funny coincidence….go to google street view for 1186 Oh-65.. That is the exact point where the truck carrying the contaminated soil dumped its load all over the place. When you pan around at that site, you will see a barn with a “F*ck Biden” sign.
Great research, J-Man. I guess we now know why Biden hasn’t shown up there.
Maybe if Biden and Buttagig got off their lazy asses on day one of this tragedy, some of the damage could have been avoided. But they both ignored it!
74 year old man runs truck off road and overturns….
Why do we have an Octogenarian driving the country?
Because the truck driver is only a septuagenarian?
Biden knows that the Irish really appreciate good malarkey.
Gotta do a bit of research before donating to charities b/c a-holes like this guy use heartstrings to grift.
Right out of the liberal playbook. Nothing comes before the State. Only the State can run your life.
White House has already memory-holed the original version.
Revised version now reads, “Let’s go sniff the world.”
“The idea that somebody would so brazenly exploit a disaster situation and the good hearts of people who want to help is unconscionable,” Yost said. “I’m mad as hell about this, and we’re going to make sure this sham charity gets shut down.”
Could’ve been worse. Coulda been the Red Cross.
Yost should be going after the morons who decided to dump five tank cars of vinyl chloride on the ground, and then set it on fire. The senior EPA official on scene was legally in charge of the whole operation until the hazardous material was taken care of. It’s unlikely they can do anything to this official personally, but they could surely hold the EPA liable for all expense involved in cleanup, health problems, resettlement, lost income, and everything else resulting from this instance of official stupidity.