Pennsylvanians complain they’re being left out of recovery after Norfolk Southern derailment

Western Pennsylvania residents live close enough to the Ohio border that they are feeling effects from the recent Norfolk Southern train derailment, but are not receiving the same support from the government, they say.

“Nobody is doing anything to help us,” Darlington, Pa., resident Patty Barber, who lives less than a mile from the site., told NBC News in a Wednesday report. “Pennsylvania is being left out.”

Environmental Protection Agency chief Michael Regan returned to East Palestine, Ohio, to visit the spill site on Tuesday and said his agency is “here to stay and we are not leaving until the job is done.”

The EPA announced its focus would be the 2-mile radius surrounding the spill site.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro met with residents in Darlington last week and announced Monday the opening of a health clinic in Beaver and Lawrence counties — similar to one being created for East Palestine.

The EPA has maintained that the water and air in surrounding Ohio neighborhoods is safe. But residents have complained of ailments including bronchitis and headaches, along with surprising animal deaths.

Those symptoms seem to be cropping up in Pennsylvania, too.

Sherry Strozza, living about 3 miles away from the scene of the incident said she’s experienced headaches since the spill and found strange yellow-white residue in the soil on her property.

Despite attempts to call state and federal agencies, as well as local testing companies, she has not yet been able to test her soil, she said.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is testing private wells of homes within a 2-mile radius of the spill site, according to spokesman Jamar Thrasher.

The agency promised to stay in communities “as long as it takes” to assure residents that their living conditions are safe.

Leah Renee Markovitz, who lives in Clinton, Pa., said her biggest worry is the health of her children, who have experienced cold-like symptoms in recent weeks. She’s also found contaminated water seeping into her well.

“Anywhere that the wind was blowing that day [of the derailment], all those people are an afterthought,” she told NBC News.