From Sacrifice Zone to Death Zone

Long before last month's train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that area qualified as a sacrifice zone, but the environmental toxins unleashed by the train crash and subsequent burning of leaking chemicals has transformed it into a death zone.

Sacrifice zones are areas that face environmental and/or economic hardships because of exploitative industrial activity, pollution, and disinvestment. These areas typically face abandonment by political leaders as well. In such zones, death flourishes as physical and mental health and economic well-being deteriorate, and people find themselves cut off from resources that could help them.

Once supported by various manufacturing jobs, East Palestine's economic fortunes and population have declined for decades. These trends mirror those in other areas around the country and particularly in the Midwest, marking East Palestine as one of many sacrifice zones in the United States.

Yet the February train derailment put the town in another class entirely: East Palestine almost immediately became a death zone. Within weeks, more than 43,000 animals had died because of toxins from the crash. Now, a new report has revealed alarming levels of dioxin, a known carcinogen, in East Palestine's soil. Dioxin is a byproduct produced by the burning of vinyl chloride, one of the chemicals the derailed train was carrying. While cancer risk from dioxin is present at 3.7 parts per trillion (PPT), the soil tested after the East Palestine derailment showed 700 PPT. Amazingly, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will initiate a site cleanup only in response to results indicating dioxin levels of at least 1,000 PPT, which is 270 times the threshold the agency itself set for a cancer risk.

As it turns out, people with the power to help will abandon death zones just as readily as they abandon sacrifice zones.