Frightened Ohio Residents suspect a coverup
The unfolding chemical disaster begun in East Palestine, Ohio on February 3 is much worse than federal and state government officials claim. That’s the opinion of an attorney who represented victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on NYC and the Pentagon.“I’ve seen the pictures of the bubbling in the water. I’ve seen the pictures of the dead animals. I wouldn’t drink that water, would you?” attorney Michael Barasch told American media.
Governor Mike Dewine and EPA Administrator Michael Regan were seen sipping water in an East Palestine resident’s kitchen last week, while the governor declared the water safe. However, Mr. Barasch’s is far from a lone voice warning of an impending disaster, largely because of federal and state officials’ troubling (some say criminal) response to the crash.
Related: East Palestine Residents reporting Health Problems
Following the fire and derailment in East Palestine, federal and state officials chose not only not to control and extinguish the fire, but also to breach additional tankers full of vinyl chloride and other toxicants, dump them into the ground, and then ignite all of the spilled contents in what they would tell the locals and the world was a “controlled release.”
A “Controlled Release”?
Pictures on the ground and from clouds high above ground zero prove there was nothing “controlled” about the “controlled release.” It looks more like an atomic bomb was dropped on East Palestine, Ohio, in the heart of the heart of farm country, and good luck to all the thousands of farmers, citizens, livestock, pets, wildlife, fish, crops and all the other millions of living things below and in the air who must now face the consequences.
The officials’ puzzling decision to both dump more chemicals onto the ground – sans any protective tarpaulin or containment materials to protect the soil – and then to burn it all, released a hellish dioxin-laced cloud that killed chickens ten miles north of ground zero. It blew unspeakably dangerous and virtually indestructible dioxins onto 120,000 farms in Ohio and Pennsylvania, as well as parts of the country hundreds or even a thousand miles north and west of ground zero.
The 9/11 attorney warned of an impending mass outbreak of cancer in the affected population. He urged people not to be swayed by claims of government agencies that there is no danger. He advised them to fight for their rights and protect themselves.
Workers cleaning up the disaster have since reported to the Biden administration that they are getting sick.
Vinyl chloride, one of the components carried by the derailed train, has previously been linked to the development of various cancers. It was a chemical which even the U.S. government recognized as carcinogenic in the Camp Lejeune water contamination litigation.
“This is an explosion of cancers waiting to happen,” said Mr. Barasch. “And you won’t see it for years, sometimes 5, 10, 20 years.”
Dioxin tests on animals have shown birth defects affecting three generations, in the rare cases where births are even seen following dioxin exposure as small as parts per trillion. Spontaneous abortions are typical in pregnant mammals exposed to dioxins.
The train was carrying about 1.1 million pounds of vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, isobutylene, and other highly hazardous chemicals.
Lawsuit filed against EPA
East Palestine residents filed a lawsuit on February 27 in District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. Defendants named in the suit include the U.S. EPA, the Ohio EPA, and the governor of Ohio. The suit charges that officials did not take proper care to protect the people.
Attorney Brian Festa, who filed the suit, told Mike Adams that the federal government has a duty under the 14th amendment to not do harm to someone’s life, liberty, or property without due process of the law. He said that in this case, by not giving truthful information about these toxins and toxicants that were released into the environment not properly testing, and not providing accurate data, those officials have placed the public in harm’s way. The suit’s intent is to hold them accountable.
He said the railroad is not being included in this lawsuit, but others will bring suit against Norfolk Southern.
“This is not a mass tort action,” said Mr. Festa. “This is trying to protect the life and the health of individuals living in East Palestine and the immediate surrounding area now, because there are people whose lives are in harm’s way now.”
He said that despite the confusing and often contradictory information the government has given people in the last three years regarding Covid 19, the general public still relies on their federal and state government officials to give them accurate information.
He also said he wasn’t suing Norfolk Southern because the railroad can’t order an evacuation. There was a lot done that shouldn’t have been done, he said, and a lot that should have been done but wasn’t.
Eric Coppolino, a civilian expert on vinyl chloride and dioxin contamination who has covered science fraud since 1983, asked Mr. Festa (WeThePatriotsUSA) whether he had filed for injunctive relief demanding dioxin testing and feron testing.
“We have filed for injunctive relief,” said Mr. Festa. “We are asking for declaratory judgment finding that they’ve engaged in conduct that is a state-created danger to plaintiffs. And we’re asking for testing.
Mr. Coppolino cautioned: “They’re going to test for the wrong thing in the wrong place. That’s how EPA works. These are not ordinary chemicals.”
The attorney said he and his group have hired experts with years of experience in environmental safety that are going to be able to testify specifically to what the federal government did wrong in East Palestine.
Mr. Adams warned Festa that if they say “Not detected,” it’s a lie, because there is always some dioxin if you look close enough and use the right instruments. It is always just a question of how much, and the right instruments and samples are needed to get legitimate results.
“If we can’t go to a court of law to redress these wrongs,” said Mr. Festa, “where else can we go?
Related: Norfolk Southern Railroad Lawsuit
Adams said he will donate lab testing and instrument time. He also said it costs more than $1,000 to test a single sample.
Mr. Coppolino said that officials will not find dioxins in the air and are unlikely to find dioxins in water now. He said officials need to test into the pit where they breached and dumped the train cars’ toxic contents following the derailment and smaller fire. He also said they’ve destroyed evidence by backfilling that pit. They must go into the pit and dig it out and produce a point-source sample, so that we know what exactly was in that fire.
“We need thousands of samples in an expanding radius around ground zero,” said Mr. Adams. “And if you keep finding contamination, you have to keep moving farther and farther away from ground zero to search for more.” He believes samples will need to be taken 1,200 miles to the west and north of ground zero.n
Mr. Adams, who runs an FDA-certified food laboratory in central Texas, said that just the instrument needed to examine the samples costs $600,000 – for a triple quad mass spec and a GC interface: “Not to mention the lab, the sample prep, the trained chemists. . . It’s a multi-million dollar effort needed to examine the samples.”
Mr. Coppolino is still calling for an evacuation of East Palestine, because he said there is certain to be dioxins there.
“The pregnant women and children need to get out immediately,” he said. “There’s no reason for anyone to be there right now.”
Kristen Meghan called into the podcast from East Palestine. She said cadmium (a cancer-causing heavy metal), hexavalent chromium, and other toxic metals were released in the burn and they also need to be tested for.
“A lot of people are coughing in East Palestine,” she said. Her own symptoms in East Palestine were fatigue, and what “feels like acid reflux all the way down your airway,” along with an odd fizzing of the tongue.
Purposefully Wrongful Testing
“They need to stop the absolute negligent and purposefully wrongful testing,” she added.
Mr. Adams said they need to sample surfaces.
Attorney Festa said: “I’m not a scientist, but in my opinion this is the worst chemical disaster on our soil in our lifetimes at the very least. As far as the human cost I think this could be the greatest disaster we’ve ever seen. We could see it for decades.”
Mr. Coppolino said, “This was completely uncalled for and it should have been planned for. Nothing like this has ever happened. We need medical monitoring for 20 or 30 years. If we’re just talking dioxin, it’s a three-generation poison. We need to monitor food throughout the entire region. There’s 125,000 farms in Ohio and Pennsylvania, many small family farms, grass fed farms you depend upon, and they are very concerned and don’t know what to tell their customers, and they want to be honest with their customers. They don’t know what to say.”
Mr. Adams said that EPA has caused the damage to all those farmers by not doing the testing and not releasing any results.
“If indeed there are no dioxins in that area,” he said, “why wouldn’t they share the test results?”
A union representative for the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said in a Wednesday letter to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine that around 40 workers were ordered by Norfolk Southern, which owns the train that derailed, to clean up the wreckage.
Union rep Jonathan Long said he had received reports that the workers were not given proper personal protection equipment to help clean up the wreckage, not being offered respirators, eye protection, protective clothing.
Mr. Long also said many employees “reported that they continue to experience migraines and nausea days after the derailment, and they all suspect that they were willingly exposed to these chemicals at the direction of [Norfolk Southern].”
The railroad challenged the claim that it didn’t provide proper PPE at the scene.
Norfolk Southern said in a statement that it “on-scene immediately after the derailment and coordinated our response with hazardous material professionals who were on site continuously to ensure the work area was safe to enter and the required PPE was utilized, all in addition to air monitoring that was established within an hour.”
Cleanup workers have reported that they are getting sick with migraines and nausea days after the derailment.
Meanwhile, a citizens’ group has made demands that include:- Relocation for everyone in and around East Palestine.
- Independent Lab Testing of water, air, surfaces all around the affected area
- Medical testing for everyone impacted by the fire
- Safe disposal of the remaining contaminants
- Norfolk Southern must cover total cleanup costs
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