The Environmental Protection Agency should perform additional soil tests near the place a toxic train derailment in Ohio and are warning those who it is probably not protected to garden there after independent tests showed high levels of chemicals in locally grown garlic, a watchdog group said on Thursday.
The nonprofit Government Accountability Project argues in a petition to the U.S. federal agency that the EPA must have already tracked testing of gardens and crops within the town where the Norfolk Southern rail derailment occurred.
“It is irresponsible that the EPA has not conducted its own testing of East Palestine’s garden crops or sampled local produce for dioxin,” Lesley Pacey, the nonprofit’s chief environmental officer, told the Associated Press ahead of the petition’s filing. “Yet the EPA has instructed local residents to garden and eat their local produce as usual.”
The Associated Press sent emails to EPA officials on Thursday searching for comment on the petition.
The agency has been telling people it’s protected to garden for nearly three months after the February 2023 derailment, based on tests conducted by state agriculture officials at 31 locations in the town and on surrounding farms. Officials tested winter wheat, malting barley, pasture grasses and rye from area farms.
“Soil sample results from residential areas are within the typical range for the area, and garden plants are generally considered safe for consumption,” the EPA told the general public.
In the past, agency officials have rejected the independent tests cited by the Government Accountability Project, citing quality control concerns. The tests were conducted by Scott Smith, a businessman and inventor who has led a crusade to assist communities affected by chemical disasters since his own factory was inundated by contaminated floodwaters in 2006.
EPA officials say they can not say whether his data is valid without reviewing all of the reports on his methodology and results. Smith offered to share his files with the agency last summer, but provided that the agency shared its information with him. An agreement was never reached.
The EPA has stated that previous tests conducted by contractors hired by the railroad after the unique evacuation order was lifted didn’t show elevated levels of dioxin or other chemicals outside the train derailment site and subsequently no additional testing in individual yards and gardens was crucial.
The only place that EPA reported About two weeks after the accident, high levels of carcinogenic dioxins were present in the immediate area of the derailment. This soil was among the many nearly 179,000 tons (71,668 tonnes) of fabric excavated and disposed of last yr.
But some residents are usually not taking any risks.
Marilyn Figley didn’t dare plant a garden last yr after the derailment, although she and her husband do every thing they will to be self-sufficient, including gardening and keeping chickens for meat and eggs. However, she harvested some garlic she had previously planted after the derailment. Some of it had dioxin levels greater than 500 times higher than a sample of garlic grown and harvested in another person’s garden the yr before the derailment, in response to Smith’s tests.
Figley said they decided to plant a garden again this yr after using one among her husband’s tractors to remove the highest three inches of soil and replace it with fresh soil.
“I’d rather eat dioxins than starve, I guess,” Figley said. “I’m pretty worried, but what can you do?”
Dioxins are a Main concerns for the residents of Eastern Palestine because the authorities decided blow up five tank wagons of the derailed train and burn the vinyl chloride contained therein. The chemical is used to supply a wide range of plastic products, including pipes, wires and packaging materials, and is contained in polyvinyl chloride plastic, higher generally known as PVC. Thousands of residents were forced to temporarily evacuate their homes after the derailment and while the vinyl chloride was vented and burned, sending an enormous cloud of toxic black smoke over the town.
Last summer, the local farmers market made some extent of importing produce from several states due to concerns about locally grown produce.
“I certainly didn’t eat any tomatoes or cucumbers,” said Tamara Lynn Freeze, whose freshly grown garlic was also tested by Smith and located to have five times the dioxin levels of the garlic she had in her garage for a yr before the derailment.
Freeze says she developed chronic sinusitis and joint pain after the derailment – symptoms that appear to subside when she stays away from the accident scene for greater than a number of hours.
Smith has visited East Palestine greater than two dozen times because the derailment to check soil and water for dioxins and other chemicals. He isn’t a trained scientist, but he has been traveling to chemical disaster sites for years. His tests are reviewed by a team of scientific advisers, including a former top Ohio EPA expert, and he sends all of his samples to a lab the EPA and others consider reputable.
Smith can be an inventor and holds 25 patents, including for a special foam that repels water and absorbs oil, which he developed at his previous company, Cellect Technologies. He has offered to sell the product in among the affected communities he has visited, but says he isn’t making a make the most of his work in eastern Palestine.
Smith’s first experience with disasters was when chemical-contaminated floodwaters entered a Cellect factory, destroying equipment and shutting down operations for months. Since then, he has conducted investigations into dozens of environmental and health emergencies, including the BP oil spill within the Gulf and that Lead water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
In Flint, a few of Smith’s findings were utilized by a nonprofit group related to actor Mark Ruffalo, which questioned whether protected bathing in the town’s waterSmith’s actions brought him into conflict with scientists conducting their very own tests, in addition to with EPA response coordinator Mark Durno, the identical official who oversaw the cleanup in eastern Palestine.
Despite their differences, Durno noted that Smith “certainly understands how to use appropriate laboratories for both the chemical work he does and the biological work he does.”
“From that perspective, he seems qualified to collect samples and collect and share data,” Durno said in a Video interview He gave for an unfinished documentary about Smith’s work.
But in East Palestine, Durno has repeatedly questioned the standard of Smith’s testing. Since last summer, he has refused to satisfy with him or conduct tests with him because he believes the EPA’s testing plan already provides an objective, valid sense of the extent of contamination locally. He added that testing at individual sites around the town, just like the one Smith is conducting, wouldn’t provide useful data unless it was part of a bigger sampling plan.
Smith said he had the Lessons from Flint by ensuring that his scientific advisers review all of his data before he makes it available on to the general public.
He argues that his test results, even in the event that they are usually not perfect, should result in further investigation by the EPA.
“I’m basically calling for more testing,” Smith said. “I don’t want to create panic. My point is that it would be very easy for the EPA to just test the garlic and report on it. We can find no evidence that they have ever tested residents’ backyard crops.”
