The EPA inspector general is investigating why the agency did not get its specialized aircraft equipped with advanced sensors into the skies over eastern Palestine until four days after the attack. Norfolk Southern Disastrous Derailment last year.
The Associated Press reported about a whistleblower’s concerns this spring about delays and discrepancies in the way the Environmental Protection Agency deployed its ASPECT plane, which could have provided crucial information about the chemicals in the air and shown that tanker cars filled with vinyl chloride were less likely to explode than authorities feared.
The controversial decision to blow open those vinyl chloride cars and the burning of the toxic plastic ingredient generated a huge plume of black smoke over the Ohio city and fueled lingering fears about possible long-term health effects by exposure to a mixture of burning chemicals.
The notification The inspector general quietly posted a statement about the investigation on Tuesday, saying the watchdog will look “to determine whether EPA and its contractors followed ASPECT procedures for deploying flight equipment during the East Palestine, Ohio “train derailment” in the hopes of improving response to future emergencies.
The man who wrote the software and helped interpret the data from the plane’s advanced radiological and infrared sensors said this mission was unlike any of the 180 other times the plane has been used since the program began after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Robert Kroutil said he’s not sure why the ASPECT plane wasn’t used earlier and why it collected only limited information in two short flights.
The National Transportation Safety Board has in its research of the crash that caused the venting and combustion was not necessary because there was unlikely to be a chemical reaction in those tank cars, but the officials who made that decision never heard that opinion from the chemical manufacturer. And they didn’t have the detailed temperature data that Kroutil said the ASPECT plane could have provided about the tank cars. First responders on the ground had difficulty measuring the temperature because of the ongoing fire.
The EPA has defended the way it operated the aircraft and officials did not order the plane to depart the Texas base until two days after the derailment, despite the agency’s claims that the ASPECT aircraft can be deployed within an hour of a chemical spill.
EPA spokesman Nick Conger said Wednesday that the agency will fully cooperate with the inspector general’s office.
EPA officials have said they believe the way the plane was used in eastern Palestine was appropriate, and officials say they had enough sensors on the ground to track the chemicals released after the derailment and the controversial venting and burning operation three days later. Officials have said weather conditions prevented the ASPECT plane from flying on the day of the venting and burning, but it is not clear why it was not in the air sooner.
Kroutil said he resigned from the EPA contractor he worked for, called Kalman, earlier this year out of frustration over the mission in eastern Palestine & Company. Kroutil said his team labeled the mission inconclusive because only eight minutes of data were recorded in the two flights and the plane’s chemical sensors were disabled over the creeks. But he said EPA managers their report to declare the venting and combustion operation successful because the aircraft encountered so few chemicals when it finally flew.
Kroutil said that long after the derailment, EPA officials overseeing the ASPECT plane asked the company he worked for to prepare plans for the flight and backdate them so they would look good if they were later tracked down in a public records request.
The Government Accountability Project watchdog group that works with Kroutil has raised other questions about the EPA’s response in eastern Palestine, including whether the agency warned people not for gardening and whether it is a public health emergency after the derailment. In both cases, the agency has defended its decisions, saying it believes tests have shown gardening to be safe and officials believed they had done all the legal authority they had to keep the community safe and force the railroads pay for cleaning.