This weekend’s first anniversary of the Norfolk-Southern Railway derailment in East Palestine carries with it a load of success and failure. One year after the calamity that garnered international headlines, it also has become clear that returning the community to normalcy and minimizing chances of a repeat tragedy remain a journey far from complete.

To be sure, in the immediate aftermath of the derailment, local, state and federal authorities as well as the railroad company itself responded rapidly and have not abandoned the community. To date, at least 175,000 tons of contaminated soil and 39 million gallons of liquid waste have been removed from the derailment site.

Most studies and environmental experts agree that no signs of any major public health risks remain in the aftermath of the fiery derailment and controlled burn of toxic chemicals during the first weekend of February 2023.

State and federal EPAs, local emergency management teams, the Federal Railroad Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board and Norfolk-Southern have worked together cooperatively to lessen and eliminate dangers in the community.

For its part, NS spent $1.1 billion in the community, according to its fourth quarter 2023 financial report. Of that total, $836 million was spent on environmental-related expenses and $381 million for community assistance and legal fees. Those emergency expenses played a lead role in profits for the major American freight hauler tumbling a whopping 33% last year.

Today some in the community rightly express their appreciation for the efforts. As Daniel Newman reported in this newspaper last week leading up to Saturday’s anniversary, longtime Brittain Motors owner Tom Brittain said the assistance NS provided over the past year has greatly benefited the community, regardless of the tragedy’s effects.

“They’ve answered our questions from the beginning to the end, and they’ve done the research and testing continuously. They’ve never left,” he said.

Others are not so sure. Joy Macher, owner of Flowers Straight From the Heart, characterized the yearlong fallout from the effects of the derailment as “a mess.”

“I feel the government has let us down greatly, and it’s still an ongoing thing being cleaned up. It will continue, so they say.”

Clearly the work remains unfinished. We therefore continue to hold Norfolk-Southern to its promises to remain vigilant in ensuring the village and its environs are made whole again this year. It cannot use the dismal financial numbers from its most recent report as an excuse not to finish the job – completely.

But perhaps an even deeper concern is that Norfolk-Southern plans to lay off 7% of its managers this year and find ways to run more trains with the same number of crews by speeding up how quickly cargo moves across the railroad to help reduce its costs.

That flies in the face of safety experts who argue that reduced rail speeds reduce the likelihood of high-speed derailments.

Instead of risking compromised safety for its fleet of freight trains, Norfolk Southern would show true corporate responsibility by wholeheartedly supporting rail-safety legislation that sadly has been languishing for almost a year now in the halls of the U. S. House and Senate in Washington.

The nonpartisan legislation was drafted by U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Cleveland, and J.D. Vance, R-Cincinnai, both of whom merit commendation for vigilantly working to provide federal resources to the community and for holding Norfolk-Southern’s feet to the fire.

Their Rail Safety Act of 2023 would, among other taut features, enhance safety procedures for trains carrying hazardous materials, establish requirements for wayside defect detectors, create a permanent requirement for railroads to operate with at least two-person crews, increase fines for wrongdoing committed by rail carriers.

Such safety enhancements minted into federal law would ensure that the legacy of the East Palestine rail disaster in American history books would be one of transformation of this nation’s railways into the safest and most secure in the world.

Congress has the opportunity to reach that desired end. It’s past time for U.S. representatives and senators of all political stripes to ignore powerful rail lobbies blocking the bill and act expeditiously to approve this much-needed groundbreaking legislation.