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Off the Rails: Chemicals, Communities, and ‘Bomb Trains’
By Katherine Lanpher, John McCracken, Justin Mikulka, and Yessenia Funes - Grist, March 16, 2023
In the wake of the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment, many who live in railroad towns are wondering what sorts of materials are being transported through their communities and whether something similar could happen to them. Many are examining the common practices, oversights, and failures that led to the derailment in East Palestine, while others are looking beyond the Ohio disaster and shining a critical light on the industries that require the use of such dangerous, often extractive, petrochemicals in the first place.
Join Grist for a conversation about “bomb trains,” and the communities put at risk by the transport of hazardous chemicals.
Katherine Lanpher, is an award winning editor, currently working as a Senior Editor at Grist. Prior to joining Grist, Katherine worked as interim editor-in-chief at High Country News, Senior Online Features Editor for Al Jazeera America in New York, and as a past host of "America Abroad," a monthly documentary on foreign policy issues distributed by PRI/NPR, with nearly a million listeners.
John McCracken is a former Midwest Reporting Fellow for Grist and winner of a 2022 SEAL Environmental Journalism Award. He reports on industrial pollution and how climate change is impacting agriculture, culture, and rural life in the Midwest and beyond.
Justin Mikulka is a research fellow at New Consensus working on investigating the best solutions and policies to facilitate the energy transition. Justin most recently was an investigative journalist covering the finances of the energy transition and is the author of the book Bomb Trains: How Industry Greed and Regulatory Failure Put the Public at Risk. He has a degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Cornell University.
Yessenia Funes is an environmental journalist currently the climate director for Atmos, an independent nonprofit magazine covering climate and culture. She has also been published in The Guardian, Vogue, HuffPost, and more.
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