The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio was just the latest of a number of environmental disasters to hit Pennsylvania.
Norfolk Southern has committed to sending $7 million to Pennsylvania to replace fire department equipment and reimburse some state agencies, and senators from Pennsylvania and Ohio are pressing the rail company for an ongoing commitment to the area.
Rebuilding consumer confidence in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania's agricultural products, too, could require a greater investment, as The Center Square previously reported.
"The industrial legacy of abandoned coal mines as an example, and the waste coal piles, the acid mine drainage that comes off of those sites, is really not something most other states have to deal with at the scale we do." Abandoned oil and gas wells across the commonwealth present an environmental and human hazard, as well as PFAS chemicals in waterways and air quality issues around Pittsburgh add to the problem.
"Whether it's soil contamination in East Palestine or the health impacts that people in Pittsburgh, people across the commonwealth experience from air quality - those are costs that we're passing on to people within the state that are invisible and don't show up on the balance sheet, but they're there nonetheless." The economic costs can be steep.
The true number of abandoned wells may be much more, with estimates anywhere from 360,000 to 800,000 across Pennsylvania.
The story of Pennsylvania's natural assets isn't one of only degradation.
https://www.thecentersquare.com/pennsylvania/article_d7f48186-d322-11ed-8f72-63bfe9f5f365.html
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