Ohio federal lawmakers on Wednesday sent a letter to Norfolk Southern Corp. CEO Alan Shaw demanding that the railroad company immediately pay the city of Sandusky, Ohio, for costs to repair damage caused by a freight train derailment last year that spilled paraffin wax.
In the letter, US Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; US Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio; and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Toledo, is calling on Norfolk Southern to “fully compensate the city for damages due to the derailment.”
The Oct. 8, 2022, derailment spilled a significant amount of paraffin, causing significant damage to the city’s sewer system, a roadway, and electrical systems for lighting and traffic control, the letter said.
Norfolk Southern contractors caused additional damage to the area during cleanup, the letter said.
While Norfolk Southern had agreed to reimburse the city for damages incurred during the derailment and for construction repairs, the railroad has yet to “provide the compensation to the city and its construction contractor,”
; according to the letter.The Sandusky derailment was the third of seven known Ohio derailments of Norfolk Southern trains in the past year, including the Feb. 3 derailment and chemical spill in East Palestine.
“Ohioans are rightly concerned about the safety of railroads traveling through their communities. The Norfolk Southern derailments in Ohio have highlighted many known deficiencies in safety practices in the freight rail industry,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter.
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