NEGLEY — For 102 days, the people of East Palestine have listened to what local officials and agencies responding to the Norfolk Southern derailment have had to say. On Tuesday, a group of East Palestine residents turned the tables and gave those agencies a chance to hear from the residents with a community press conference at the East Palestine Country Club near Negley, but only the Environmental Protection Agency took advantage of the opportunity.

The press conference was organized by the newly formed Unity Council for East Palestine Train Derailment, a community group made up from concerned citizens from the village and surrounding areas. Organizers said invitations were extended to local officials, the EPA and Norfolk Southern. The Region 5 EPA was the sole agency to show up and listen to the panel made up of individuals representing different communities impacted by the derailment and an independent scientist. Other residents packed the room to share their stories and join the panel in issuing a list of demands in the wake of the rail disaster that has left their small communities devastated and divided.

“The Unity Council for the East Palestine Train Derailment is a community oversight board that was created to ensure the right of the people to maintain clean air, water and soil,” said Kayla Miller, a mother of three who owns and operates a small farm in Negley. “We gathered everybody here to stand with us because what happened to us cannot be forgotten. Our demands and stories need to be heard and our homes and families need to be taken care of properly. These are tough times but we have consciously proven we are tough people.”

Hillary Flint, a panelist representing the community of Enon Valley, Pa. and a renal cell carcinoma survivor who said she fears that the chemicals her home has tested for will what “takes her out of remission,” presented the list of demands which included:

— A demand for Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to immediately issue an emergency or major disaster declaration to provide critical emergency resources to the community to ensure the public health and safety for the present and the future. “The state of Pennsylvania cannot do this,” Flint said. “This has to happen with the officials in Ohio and we are asking everybody in this room to keep that pressure on Mike DeWine.”

— A demand for a relocation program funded by Norfolk Southern and coordinated by the federal government to assist anyone who feels unsafe in their home and chooses to relocate. “This is for temporary and permanent relocation for anyone who owns or rents, and in the case that people cannot return, we are asking that those people are compensated fairly” Flint said.

— A demand for impacted residents to hire independent scientists at Norfolk Southern’s expense to complete air, water and soil testing as well as any other environmental testing that may be necessary. “We should have the choice to choose who we want to do that testing,” Flint explained.

— A demand for impacted residents to seek independent medical testing, monitoring and/or treatment funded by Norfolk Southern. “This combination of chemicals has never been released. There is no data on this currently that’s going to help us,” Flint said. “What we need to do is make sure we have that data for the future. There needs to be the option for people to find doctors that are educated in environmental toxins.”

— A demand for Norfolk Southern to start treating all residents fairly and equally and supply all residents with proper filtration devices and communicate more efficiently to be inclusive of all residents. “As of right now, most things are only available to people within one mile,” Flint said. “I don’t think chemicals stop at a one mile zone so in order to treat us fairly there needs to be more access for more individuals and I also think it’s important to note this is an aging community and only releasing things on the internet and on Facebook and not going door-to-door, they are leaving out those citizens. NFS needs to start thinking about every member of this community.”

— A demand for Norfolk Southern to dispose of all toxic waste created by the train derailment safely and far away from the affected communities. “We wish this didn’t have to go anywhere, but we also don’t want it to go right in our backyard,” Flint said of the derailment waste that is being sent to Heritage Thermal Services in East Liverpool for disposal. “We ask them to evaluate where they are sending it.”

Krissy Ferguson, a lifelong East Palestine resident, spoke about the anxiety of being displaced and the fear that comes with uncertainty not knowing she and her elderly parents will ever return to East Palestine.

“My problem right now is I don’t know where my family and I are going to live. The creek runs underneath our home. It will be polluted for many years,” she said. “My family is not safe being in our home. My mother had to say goodbye to her home without even knowing it was going to be the last time she was going to be in it. She’s 81. My stepfather is 89. He has dementia and she has Parkinson’s. My daughter, my husband, none of us know. You shouldn’t have to wonder where you are going to live.”

Ashley McCollum, another East Palestine resident, watched the fire on Feb. 3 from her back door. She lives just a block from where the train derailed. She hasn’t been back to her home since.

“The last time I looked at my house was the last time I thought I would see my house,” McCollum said. “I feel that to this day because I don’t feel my family is safe to go back home.”

Shelby Walker’s home is just 900 feet from the tracks and “ground zero.” She too feels as if she has had her home ripped away from her and her family of 11.

“How do I know that contaminated soil has not leaked closer to our home or is even in our home right now? Being that we are so close, my home is not safe. My kids have lost their home. They’ve lost their family. We are spread out everywhere.,” she said.

Walker’s 12-year-old son also spoke.

“Right now, I can’t sleep in my own bed or even spend more than five hours a week in my own home and I will never be able to play in my backyard, ever,” he said. “We live at ground zero.”

East Palestine teenager Jenna Kosa also had questions.

“I’m 17 and I’m representing the youth. My question is, will me and my sisters be infertile and if we can have kids, are they gonna have birth defects?” she asked.

Candice DeSanzo of East Palestine shared her experience of being both displaced and sick.

“I am homeless because I have independent test results that show I have 2.58 levels of dioxin in the soil around my home that has caused me and my children debilitating health effects,” she said.

Other area residents spoke about adverse health impacts they say the derailment has caused, including those outside of East Palestine.

“I’ve had symptoms. I have an auto-immune and it has made it worse. I’ll probably cry because I’m pretty emotional,” said Kim Rankin of Columbiana. “My daughter turned 30 on Sunday, her joints are so swollen and she is so tight and so swollen everywhere that she can’t walk.”

Residents of Beaver Township and Darlington in Pennsylvania shared similar stories.

The panel also included Scott Smith and Daniel Winston.

Smith is an independent scientist who has been testing and sampling the water and soil in and around East Palestine. He is chief sustainability officer at ECO Integrated Technologies and has collected data that the Unity Council reports “calls into question the public relations narrative coming from Norfolk Southern and government agencies.”

Winston, a resident of Wellsville, is co-director of River Valley Organizing, a non-profit community advocacy group. Winston is planning to organize both a bus trip for residents to both Columbus and Washington, D.C. as they continue to advocate and fight for the future of their communities.

“We might need support but we can do this. We are strong,” said event organizer Jami Wallace. “We just have to keep fighting — fighting for each other and fighting together.”