EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Feb. 3 is the one-year anniversary of the train derailment in East Palestine. Norfolk Southern has granted the village nearly $4.3 million for a filtration system for the drinking water.

“Here you can see the new building that’s being built," said Scott Wolfe, water and wastewater superintendent for East Palestine. "Those are the two carbon filters. They are set in their permanent location. That’s the building framing. All the metal work is done for the most part. Just waiting for some nice weather for any blockwork."

Norfolk Southern is giving East Palestine nearly $4.3 million for a state-of-the-art water filtration system for the village’s drinking water. Wolfe said the drinking water continues to be tested weekly and is still safe. These filters are precautionary.

“This is a contingency put in place by the EPA telling us ‘hey, you got to put something there if something were to happen,'" Wolfe said. "The carbon is the treatment process for any chemical of concern."

Dennis Griffith has lived in East Palestine for 53 years and has worked for the water department for 30 years.

“Everybody has questions," Griffith said. "They might not trust what we’re saying. They might not trust what the EPA is saying. Kind of along the lines of what Scott was saying: we live here. We drink the water. If it wasn’t safe, I wouldn’t have my family drinking it."

Norfolk Southern sent out a press release in September announcing the payment to the village.

“We worked with community leaders and their outside experts to develop the best path forward. Thanks to their feedback, these infrastructure upgrades will help ensure clean drinking water remains accessible for East Palestine’s current and future generations,” said CEO Alan Shaw in the statement.

Wolfe said as groundwater moves southeast over time toward the derailment site, that’s when the village’s wells could become contaminated.

“The larger outline shows the movement of groundwater in — I want to say a five-year period — to get to our well field," said Wolfe, pointing to a map of the groundwater. "The darker shaded area is how long it takes ground water to move in a one-year period.” 

Wolfe said the village would have eventually needed carbon filters for new EPA regulations.

“I’m not going to say the village was going to do this in a year, two years, five years down the road, but I would say within the next 20 years, the village was going to have to do something with carbon filters because of the new PFAS regulations," he said. "Those are those forever chemicals that don’t go away."