The Highwire with Del Bigtree - REAL PROBLEMS WITH U.S. RAILROADS

Episode Date: March 4, 2023

For years, railroad corporations have been cutting key personnel in an effort to maximize profits at the expense of safety. As the Ohio disaster unfolds, a coverup appears to be taking place regarding the environmental and water contamination.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

Just before coming on air here, we have some breaking news out of Detroit, Michigan. There's been another train derailment. This one outside of Van Buren, the township. Here's the headline, train derailment outside Detroit, Michigan, with one car carrying hazardous materials. So helicopter footage shows at least six cars were off the track. One has been carrying hazardous materials. The one that was carrying hazardous materials has not been breached. We are told that's the latest news.

It has been set upright and moved away from the area. I think the roads are still closed there, but there is no leak at this time EPA officials are on the site. So that is the breaking news. Just to add to this story before we get into this. Jeffrey, how often is this? I mean, it's sort of like we watch this whole balloon story, and you get the sense that once we all got attention to it, oh, this is happening all the time. How many trains are derailing in America? Do we have any stats on that?

Yeah, I looked up some of the numbers. The Federal Railroad Administration Safety Report. shows over 1,000 each year. So the train accidents are over 1,600 each year. That includes derailments as well. So we're looking at well over 1,000 each year. It's pretty consistent for the last, you know, maybe 20 years is what we're looking at. So this isn't something that's, you know, an anomaly.

They do seem to be happening a lot more. Now, the question we ask ourselves is because of the Ohio train derailment, is everyone keeping an eye on every single derailment at this point? or is there an increasing amount that's been happening recently? And there's obviously two ways to look at this, but we're just going to look at the facts here and just try to keep this as factual as possible. And Dell, last year, we reported on a story

when the COVID restrictions were lifted, the railroad systems had this surge of shipping. Out of nowhere, now everything moves again after this artificial stopping point. And the fertilizer shipments were not getting out for the planting season. And this is what our reporting uncovered at that point, We uncovered some weak points within the railroad industry. Take a look.

Just yesterday, digging into this story, there was over eight hours of testimony in front of what's called the Surface Transportation Board. That's the United States government independent agency that governs over the rail systems and the maritime shipping lanes. And again, over eight hours, here's just a slice of what was discussed at this board meeting. Take a look. The workers represented by TTD affiliated unions have been sounding the alarm on the state of the freight rail industry for years. It is deeply unfortunate but also completely predictable that we find ourselves here today.

As both railroad employees and customers sit before you to express a shared simple fact, that today's freight rail network is simply not working for anyone other than railroad investors. We hope that the board embraces this opportunity to put the freight rail industry on a new path. The forces that brought us here today are not the result of the pandemic, the supply chain crunch, or the so-called great resignation. Rather, Class 1 carriers adopted precision-scheduled railroading and shrank the workforce and equipment needed to effectively operate a railroad without care for impacts on service or customers. As Chairman Oberman pointed out, the Class 1s collectively have reduced their workforce by 29% over the last six years. That is about 45,000 employees cut from payroll. The railroads laid off thousands of engineers and conductors over the last few years.

In fact, in the five years prior to the pandemic, BNSF cut its train and engine workforce by 27%. NS by 24%, UP by 32%, and CSX by a whopping 43%. It is no mystery why the railroads can't provide flexibility or surge capacity right now. They eliminated those employees in the pursuit of an operating ratio and higher profits and have now been caught with their hand to the cookie jar. So what we're seeing here, what was being said there, he says this isn't a result of the pandemic. It's not a result of this great resignation.

But what's interesting is it's happening right in the middle of this thing against the backdrop of the war. So this is why this is going to be, I believe researching this, a problem that's going to ripple out in the United States and be a major discussion point. Boy, you called that, Jeffrey. Man. Yep.

Look where we're at now. This is where we're at now. So the railways in the United States, the infrastructure is somewhat antiquated from my understanding. And then we have this, you know, five years prior to the pandemic and that surge issue, we have a system, a rail system that is cutting employees like hotcakes. And we're not getting the, the really the maintenance on the tracks. You're probably having people working like double shifts, triple shifts. Just really don't have the people power on these railroad.

So that is a major data point here as these train derailments are happening. And another point too, you know, we're looking at this, hazardous materials, gas transportation. What's more dangerous? We're talking pipelines or rails. That's always been the question. You know, Jeffrey, and this is what I'm glad you brought that up because, you know, I still say I am an environmentalist, although I want to change that word because it's been commandeered by a bunch of lunatics that want to enslave us. But I want protections. I want healthy air. I want clean air. I want clean water. I want my children be able to feel. fish in a river and eat it and not just look at it like something from outer space and say, don't touch it, honey, it's deadly to you like a puffer fish. You know, I want a clean world.

But when we see these discussions, you know, when it was the Keystone Pipeline, the argument's like, oh, this is dangerous, it leaks, you know, pipelines leak. Well, I mean, what the hell is this? Is our train cars any safer? You know, I mean, so we really, we've got to be honest in these risk, reward benefit ratio conversation. So, you know, is it, is it, is train cars safer than pipelines? You know, I pulled some stats on that just to look at it. And this is what it says right here. Now, we're basically looking at rails or pipelines, which mode of transportation,

transporting hazardous liquids or gas is better? And it says, in general, the information we've reviewed leads us to the following conclusions. Pipelines spill more, both based on sheer volume and a per ton mile or per barrel mile basis. Rail transport accidents cause more injuries of humans on a per barrel mile or per ton basis, a per mile basis. But that also says the probability of a spill from rail is greater on a per barrel mile or per ton mile basis. Though the majority of spills, ready for this, tend to be quite small in volume. So I guess they didn't include the Ohio one in that one, but that may change their reporting. So that's kind of what we know on that piece. But I want to jump into another angle of this story coming out of Ohio.

And that's the water quality. So obviously the issue was the air. water. Those are the two things pretty important to human beings. And now we're dealing with the water issue. As this thing settles on the ground, as it hits the watersheds and the waterways, all this material going in there, we talk about water quality. So we look at this. This is a map by looking at the water sampling location. So you see there the big cluster in the middle. That's where the incident happened. And then you can see out in the periphery, they're doing some water sampling testing. But take a look at this at the top right. You see here, private firm, C-T-E-H. This is the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health.

This company, they were hired by Norfolk Southern. And Norfolk Southern is over a $12 billion revenue company as of 2022. This company that they hired, this private firm, has a history of minimizing environmental disasters. They were the firm that was at the center of the deep water horizon oil spill in 2010. So these are not neutral players that have come in here. This is kind of an important data point piece to this story. So when we're looking at the water, and then you see headlines coming out like this, even more questionable, East Palestine drinking water safe to consume.

This is official saying that. Now, they're still giving out water with a short radius of the incident. But, you know, we see this. I understand. You get water. If you're one mile, if you're one mile in five feet, they're not handy water as though. That's some great expense that a multi-billion-dollar company, they can't. handle it. And I want to say, you know, I know where going. I heard one of them saying that they're

being offered $1,000. Can I just, you know, just throw it out here to those of you that are watching maybe that are living there? Don't take the $1,000. I don't know what they've got you signing. I'm assuming you're going to sign away all liability for a peanut compared to what this could all end up being in the future. Hold on to those filters. I believe you will see a massive class action lawsuit. And maybe I can will be helping with that. But please, $1,000, I know these are hard times, but that is a ridiculous offer to anybody. And signing things at this moment under duress is not always the best idea. I would just do what you can, call relatives.

This is where we reach out to our community and families to get through situations like this. Right. And governor there, Governor of Ohio Mike DeWine, he went out and did a press conference just days ago with the scientific head there in Ohio, talking about specifically the water. This is what it looked like. Take a look. By the time we were at the decision point for potentially bringing the people who had evacuated back into the impacted area, we had on hand air testing that told us that the air

really looked pretty much like it did before this event ever happened. The majority of people who live in the East Palestine community are in fact on municipal water, and those municipal sources are deep wells that they were able to intentionally reserve using the most distant ones only for feeding the water supply. But nevertheless, there are quite a number of people who are on private water systems, mostly private wells. we have strongly encouraged all of those people on private wells to get their wells tested, and that will be done at no cost to them. We are strongly recommending those who have not yet had their water source checked to use bottled water.

And bottled water is being made available again. Same phone number that you can call if you need access to that. This is going to be particularly important if you are pregnant, if you are breastfeeding, or if you are preparing formula for an infant. I just sit here thinking, but yet it's not safe enough for our EPA to go in, which is how did you come to a conclusion, all this? And when I imagine this water testing, and I know maybe we are, I mean, I haven't seen anyone do a report this long on this issue, but Jeffrey, it's just a mirror of everything we've been through with COVID. This is the entire corruption of our government and how this whole thing works. They are siding with industry. All of our regulatory agencies, their knee-jerk reactions to protect the industry against the citizens.

And that is the problem. They're no longer doing their job. They are absolutely being controlled by the very industries they're supposed to be protecting us from because anybody with half a brain knows that they would be saying stay back. And instead, when we look at, oh, we've tested it. Well, who's tested it? As you've pointed out, an environmental group that works for industries to make it look like it's not that big a deal. And I think you were showing me earlier, if we have it, the release form for people to get their water tested,

and the people that that release form is being protected by it. Can we bring that up really quickly? This is the release form that if you want to get your water tested for free, and look what it indemnifies. The legal and rightful owner or option hereby authorized no are folks, Southern, its affiliates, subsidiaries, contractors, associated environmental professionals, and any of their personnel monitoring team to access the property for air monitoring or environmental sampling, landowner agrees to indemnify, release, and hold harmless, unified command from and against any and all legal claims, including for personal injury or property damage, arising for the monitoring team's

performance of air monitoring or environmental sampling and the property on the date of signature below. This is literally the company that just poisoned your city is now. doing and I don't think this is actually I don't think that these tests and this is how I would be looking at it if North Folk Southern is sending in their people they're not testing to see if you're safe they're testing to build their argument to to sort of say look the water was clean here the water is clean here they don't care about you you are they're walking your house and under your property to put together their legal case to fight you to make sure that you aren't able to prove that you

got sick from this thing I hate to be you know that pessimistic about it but But this is not our first rodeo. I mean, that's what this is all about. No, not at all. In fact, watching this story reminds me one of the first stories I investigated as a journalist in 2014, 2015, was the Flint water crisis. And obviously, much different circumstances that was corroded pipes that were leaking lead in there. But 12 died. Many children at that time were exposed to lead.

And the former health director in Michigan was charged with involuntary manslaughter. Several others were charged with criminal offenses. And so when I see that health director in Ohio step up there and say, you know, the water looks like it's pretty safe to drink. If you have a private well, you might want to test it. That reminds me of when Obama stepped up on the podium and said, this water is safe. And he took a big drink of the water and showed that the water from Flint, Michigan was safe when it actually was not at that point. So this is what we're talking about here. When the government, you know, the water is a big issue.

And when the government is involved and private firms are involved with, with questionable histories, we really have to look at the entire. entire picture here. And like you said, you have to look after yourself first and not trust really the first statements from them. And, you know, researching the story, some other stories came up regarding water. This was one of them. Just to cap this segment off, this is Holtec to release radioactive water. It goes into this information on this article, Holtec International, the company decommissioning the Indian Point nuclear power plant near Peakskill. That's right north of New York City announced at the February 2nd meeting of the state board overseeing its work that it plans to release radioactive water into the Hudson River before autumn says although filtered

now this is where ties in right with Ohio listen to the language although filtered the water will contain tritium a radioactive form of hydrogen difficult to remove the firm says the release will cause minimal problems because the water will disperse and an engineer on the Indian point decommissioning oversight board said it may be the least worst option to empty the plants cooling pools. Wow. I mean, I love that least worst. I mean, I think that should be the next presidential campaign, you know, America leading the least worst decisions in the world, you know. I mean, it's really unbelievable. And by the way, this is where, you know, I know in the movement and around the vaccine conversation, things we have, there seems to be this divide over, you know,

being an environmentalist folks. We should all want our rivers to be clear. We should, it should, It shouldn't be Republican or Democrat or libertarian or from Mars. I don't care. We should all agree we don't want radioactive materials, even if they dispersed, to be dropped into our rivers. We have got to be able to be in control of that. We have, you know, these are, this is, we have such an ability with modern technologies to start making sure that things are cleaner. Is it perfect? No.

But we also can't be fighting progress here. I don't believe in enslaving people. I don't believe in carbon credits, but I do believe in holding industries accountable at all costs. You don't get to just sell your property, say, oh, sorry, we contaminated it. And now it's everybody else's problems. We dump it into the river. I'm not down with that. I'm always going to fight for the health of humanity.

That's what this is about. There's got to be better ways forward.