EXCLUSIVE: Erin Brockovich travels to East Palestine, vows to help those impacted by derailment

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Famed environmental advocate Erin Brockovich is fighting for the people of East Palestine.

Brockovich is part of a town hall meeting set for Friday at the high school.

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Channel 11′s Rich Pierce spoke with her one-on-one ahead of that meeting.

Pierce: “What have people been telling you? What’s their fear about this whole situation?”

Brockovich: “Their fear is just that. What’s their future? We’ve seen it too many times. We hear about these communities; I work in these communities and ten years later they call and say ‘my daughter has cancer.’”

Pierce: “What advice do you have for them when it comes to making sure that they’re being taken care of?”

Brockovich: “Norfolk is not your friend. They never will be and they’re not. They are there to protect themselves.”

“What I want the community to know is they already know. They are already responding. They’ve got good instincts, good common sense. They know what happened. They were there.”

Pierce: “How would you rate the response so far, government, Norfolk, everybody?”

Brockovich: “I honestly don’t, I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s been slow.”

“It just seemed slow, almost concealed for a moment - or, certainly not pushed out there for us to talk about. Then, the frustration from the community.”

Also appearing at the town hall will be trial attorney Mikal Watts.

“There is very specific case law as to what needs to be proved in order to recover for fear of cancer, which these people obviously have because of the Vinyl Chloride release,” Watts said. “My main message tomorrow night is going to be get your blood tested. Get your urine tested.”

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The meeting is at 6 p.m. at East Palestine High School. Registration ahead of time is required to attend. You can do that by clicking here.

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