Steve Mellon

2 weeks ago | unionprogress.com | Steve Mellon

Monday’s remembrance ceremony for those whose jobs killed them during the past year was brief and focused. The reading of names, a Workers Memorial Day tradition, took 7 minutes and 15 seconds. It’s chilling to think it may take longer next year. What do we expect to happen with drastic cuts to agencies tasked with making certain that people in this country can work to support themselves and their families and not get killed in the process?

3 weeks ago | unionprogress.com | Steve Mellon

We saw an interesting news report the other day while sitting in a Columbiana, Ohio, restaurant and watching Marilyn Leistner share memories of Times Beach, Missouri, with a dozen people from the East Palestine area. University of Pittsburgh researchers, we learned, are conducting a study to determine the impact of all those chemicals released during the 2023 East Palestine train derailment and burn off. The Morning Journal published a detailed report on the study and what it seeks to accomplish.

3 weeks ago | unionprogress.com | Steve Mellon

Marilyn Leistner, the last mayor of a Missouri town demolished after it suffered a toxic contamination more than four decades ago, will tell the story of Times Beach this week during two presentations, one in Ohio and another in Homestead. Leistner guided her town through one of the worst environmental disasters in the nation’s history. She’ll be joined by toxicologist George Thompson, who will discuss the toxic chemicals released during a 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

3 weeks ago | unionprogress.com | Steve Mellon

You can lose your town and home and pretty much everything you own and become part of a nightmare story so big it’s on all the TV networks, and then four decades later people won’t even remember your town’s name, much less the heartache and loss you endured. Forgetting the bad stuff is our national pastime. In the case of Times Beach, Missouri, once considered one of America’s most toxic sites, the forgetting seems almost malicious. All of the homes and buildings and streets and people are gone.

1 month ago | unionprogress.com | Steve Mellon

This is one of a continuing series of stories about people dealing with the aftermath of the February 2023 toxic train derailment and burn-off in East Palestine, Ohio. It’s a few minutes before noon and Morgan Parker once again slumps onto a couch near her dog, Yeti, and settles with the realization that the letter isn’t coming in the mail today. This depressing daily routine has been going on for months.