Norfolk Southern and East Palestine announce $22 million settlement after 2023 derailment

East Palestine and Norfolk Southern have announced a $22 million settlement resolving all of the village’s claims arising from the disastrous 2023 train derailment near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border that prompted a national reckoning on railroad safety.

The settlement is to be used for priorities the village identifies in connection with the derailment, but it also recognizes about $13.5 million that Norfolk Southern has already paid to the village to pay for upgrades to the water treatment plant and replace police and fire equipment among other things, according to the joint announcement posted Monday on the village's website. It also reaffirms Norfolk Southern’s commitment of $25 million to ongoing improvements to East Palestine City Park that is in addition to this settlement.

The freight train derailment in the village near the Pennsylvania state line included 11 cars transporting hazardous materials. Area residents evacuated and, days later, officials fearing a possible uncontrolled blast intentionally released and burned toxic vinyl chloride from five rail cars, sending flames and black smoke into the sky. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board later determined that it wasn't necessary to blow open those vinyl chloride cars and burn the plastic ingredient.

Norfolk Southern and the village agreed that a proposed $20 million regional safety training center in the village is not feasible, so it won't be built, according to the statement. Norfolk Southern agreed to transfer about 15 acres (6 hectares) acquired for the center to the village and it remains committed to providing training for East Palestine’s first responders at other facilities in the region.

The railroad routinely provides hands-on training to firefighters all across its network, but Norfolk Southern had touted this training center as a way to bolster that training and help prepare cities and towns to deal with a disaster like this derailment. Norfolk Southern didn't say whether it still plans to build the training center elsewhere or has entirely abandoned the project.

The derailment prompted regulators and members of Congress to propose safety reforms, but the bill that was coauthored by Vice President JD Vance when he was still an Ohio senator stalled and was never approved. The major freight railroads all promised to re-examine their procedures and add hundreds more trackside detectors that are designed to catch mechanical problems before they can cause a derailment, but the head of the Federal Railroad Administration said those changes didn't lead to meaningful improvement in the industry's safety record.

Additional legal actions are pending. A handful of residents challenging Norfolk Southern’s $600 million settlement related to the crash have asked a court to reject a judge’s order requiring them to put up an $850,000 bond to continue their appeal for higher compensation and more information about the contamination.

Nearly $300 million of the settlement has been on hold because of the appeal, even though a judge approved the deal in September. The holdout residents are urging the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to stop them from having to put up the huge sum to continue with their claims.

In addition to that class-action settlement with residents, a separate settlement with the federal government is awaiting approval from a judge. That deal includes $25 million for medical exams and another $30 million for drinking water monitoring in the decades ahead but doesn't include any money to treat health problems that might develop. The railroad also agreed to pay a $15 million fine and follow through on its commitments to pay for the $1 billion cleanup in East Palestine and invest roughly $244 million in safety upgrades across its network spanning 22 states in the Eastern U.S.

Some individual businesses and other government entities in the area have separate lawsuits pending against the railroad, and Norfolk Southern is still pursuing claims against other companies like the chemical manufacturer that made the vinyl chloride and the owners of the tank cars to get them to share the cost of the cleanup. Ohio and Pennsylvania have their own lawsuits pending against the railroad.