() Newly uncovered emails reveal authorities broke protocol when communicating risks following a train derailment and controlled burn in Ohio despite fears from residents experiencing health problems.
Three days after officials blew up five train cars of vinyl chloride in East Palestine, Ohio, the Environmental Protection Agency declared the town safe for residents and allowed them back into their homes.
People in the area complained they were getting sick, experiencing rashes, nosebleeds and respiratory issues.
Now, internal EPA emails obtained by through the Freedom of Information Act reveal internal disagreement over what to tell residents.
“If we say that the water is safe, and the air is safe, we believe it, because we’ve tested it, and the data shows it,” an email from EPA head Michael Regan read.
One email discusses the dissatisfaction people were expressing with the official response.
“It appears the messaging they are using is that there are ‘no detections of any issues’ and people are not satisfied with that answer,” one read.
Then, an EPA official from headquarters, with ties to the Democratic National Committee and the Biden campaign, took over East Palestine messaging to “combat the disinfo that’s happening on social media.”
“What really stands out to me is that this was early on in the response and this broke protocol,” said Government Accountability Project Senior Environmental Officer Lesley Pacey. “They had not done this before. This is something that is new to the EPA, and there was some pushback internally over it.”
It set off alarm bells, with a director of communications at the agency voicing concern about the takeover.
“The site is the responsibility of the region, and we are definitely breaking protocol by allowing anyone other than the PIO or on-scene folks to edit and modify these pages,” the official said. “I don’t agree with this approach and the immediacy of the request.”
Recent reporting from revealed that the White House was aware of the health concerns and potential future cancer clusters yet publicly stated the opposite.
“They assured the public that they had done massive testing, that the air and water was safe, that they were monitoring things and not to worry,” Pacey said. “But now, in light of the FOIAs that we’ve discovered with the EPA and FEMA and the White House and National Security Council, understanding the nature of the health impacts and the potential for cancer clusters, it really kind of raises more red flags. Was this part of the cover-up?”
One EPA veteran who spoke with said the decision to break protocol could have been due to the size of the disaster. But on the other hand, it begs the question of why the administration didn’t bring in health risk assessors, sampling experts and legal experts instead of a political spin doctor?
has reached out to the EPA for comment and has not received a response as of this writing.
