By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on January 25, 2025
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cleanup of the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment in February 2023 cost Norfolk Southern $1.1 billion. East Palestine, which is 93.5% white, has a population of 4,457. The cleanup costs includes environmental response, legal fees, community assistance, and safety improvements.
Norfolk Southern excavated and shipped hundreds of thousands of tons of soil and millions of gallons of water to decontamination facilities. Norfolk Southern also agreed to a settlement with the United States valued at over $310 million. Additionally, Norfolk Southern offered a $600 million class-action settlement to people who lived within 20 miles of the derailment. All of this happened in less than a year.
In contrast, only $46 million has been spent cleaning up the EPA-designated 35th Avenue Superfund site in North Birmingham, Alabama. North Birmingham includes parts of the Collegeville, Fairmont, and Harriman Park neighborhoods and the Five-Mile and Harriman Park Creeks. Within the site are three public schools, two public housing communities, and 638 residential properties (as of June 2022).
Since 2011, Birmingham residents in and around the 35th Avenue Superfund site have been fighting to clean up toxic levels of multiple types of pollution in their air, land, and water, including lead; arsenic; and benzo(a) pyrene, which is part of the group of chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, commonly known as PAHs.
About $20 million of the $46 million spent to date was secured during Mayor Randall Woodfin’s 8 years in office.
The contaminated North Birmingham communities have a residential population of about 4,000, 92.5% of whom are black.
Unlike the proper, thorough, and expedited cleanup in East Palestine, the cleanup in North Birmingham has languished for 14 years. As of 2023, less than one thousand tons of the contaminated soil in the poisoned North Birmingham communities had been removed and replaced.
During his 8 years in office, Woodfin never directed his city attorneys to sue the polluters to get at least $310 million in cleanup money for the 35th Avenue Superfund site and at least $600 million or more in community assistance, healthcare funding, and burial assistance for the adversely affected residents of North Birmingham.
Unlike the mayor of East Palestine, Woodfin's No. 1 statutory duty as mayor is to enforce all laws and ordinances in Birmingham. This, Woodfin has NOT done in North Birmingham for 8 years.
Woodfin's Close Ties to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Never Resulted in Adequate Cleanup Funding for the North Birmingham
Mayor Woodfin pals around with former President Joe Biden and former Vice-President Kamala Harris. Yet, these close ties never resulted in adequate funding for the EPA cleanup in North Birmingham. The meager cleanup activities to date have been extremely slow, superficial, and insulting to the long-suffering residents of North Birmingham.
In 2014, the EPA identified five potentially responsible parties (PRPs) for the current pollution in the neighborhoods that have been the site of heavy industry for more than 100 years. The named PRPs are: Drummond Company, which owns the nearby ABC Coke facility; Walter Coke; Alagasco; U.S. Pipe and Foundry; and KMAC Services. Most of these companies are/were strategic alliance partners of Alabama Power Company, which is headquartered in Birmingham.
It is well-known in Birmingham that Alabama Power is Woodfin’s principal financial backer and political boss.
Why the Cleanup in East Palestine was Fast and Successful, but the One in North Birmingham was Not
Unlike the first-term Republican mayor of East Palestine, Democrat Randall Woodfin never pushed the Biden-Harris administration for a full, thorough, and expedited cleanup of North Birmingham. Instead, Woodfin gaslighted the residents of North Birmingham for 8 years solely to help the companies that polluted their communities avoid a $1 billion cleanup.
What is more, Woodfin spent years cozing up to Biden and Harris in the hope of getting a high-powered job in Washington for himself, in the event one of them won the presidency in 2024.
The polluters of North Birmingham, together with Alabama Power and its business alliance partners, laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributors through “dark money” 501(c)(4) entities to fund Woodfin’s 2017 and 2021 campaigns. Today, these big mules are also financing Woodfin’s 2025 re-election campaign.
In my view, East Palestine experienced a highly successful and expedited $1.1 billion cleanup from the Biden-Harris administration. North Birmingham experienced a mere $6 million cleanup during Biden's 4-year presidency for the same size of polluted land mass. The reason appears to be this: Woodfin was bought off and the mayor of East Palestine was not.
It was far cheaper for the polluters and their businesss alliance partners to contribute to Woodfin’s 2017 and 2021 successful mayoral campaigns than it was to (a) spend $1 billion in an EPA-mandated cleanup the contaminated properties in North Birmingham, (b) relocate residents who wanted to move out of the contamination communities, and (c) pay the medical bills and burial expenses of the residents who were poisoned.
Scores of residents in North Birmingham died from cancer and related ailments because of their non-stop exposure to toxic levels of environmental poisons during Woodfin’s 8 years as their mayor. Their deaths were painful, needless, and mostly preventable.
Meanwhile, in 2023, Woodfin moved from his old home in the crime-ridden College Hills neighborhood in West Birmingham to his new $1.4 million hilltop mansion in an exclusive gated community in East Birmingham. Woodfin never considered moving into a new home in North Birmingham because he knew those residential communities were still heavily polluted. Woodfin also knew that the residents of North Birmingham will continue to die every year from toxic environmental poisons until these neighborhoods in that area are properly cleaned up. For sure, Woodfin does not want to become one of these deceased victims.
Which mayor was bought-off? The one in East Palestine, Ohio or the one in Birmingham, Alabama? You decide for yourself.