Scientists Wary Of East Palestine Water After Train Derailment

When HuffPost confronted railroad giant Norfolk Southern about the flawed water sampling its contractor conducted in East Palestine, Ohio, in the wake of the disastrous train derailment, the company shrugged it off as an issue of erroneous recording on the part of the lab that analyzed the samples.

Similarly, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency the state agency that relied solely on the results of those railroad-funded samples to initially declare the municipal water in the village safe to drink said subsequent laboratory validation reports will be prepared and will address this issue, but the results are valid.

But the final water quality analyses are in, and they detail many of the same issues found in the preliminary reports, namely samples that were not acidified to federal EPA specifications and containers with large air bubbles in them.

Sam Bickley, an aquatic ecologist who first alerted HuffPost to the sampling issues, said the final reports do not alleviate any of his initial concerns.

Im not sold, said Bickley, who works at Virginia Scientist-Community Interface, an advocacy-focused coalition of scientists and engineers. And if I was living in town, I certainly would not be sold.

The final reports, which Ohio EPA posted to its website over the weekend, are the latest in a messy, railroad-led sampling effort that has only helped to fuel distrust in a community desperately searching for answers about how the disaster is impacting public and environmental health.

The nearly 2-mile Norfolk Southern train derailed and caught fire on Feb. 3 while carrying toxic and flammable materials, including hundreds of thousands of pounds of vinyl chloride, a common organic chemical used in the production of plastics. Fearing a catastrophic explosion, authorities conducted what they described as a controlled burn of the vinyl chloride three days after the crash a controversial decision that has left area residents terrified.

To be clear, the water in East Palestine may very well be safe for consumption at least for now as federal, state and local officials have repeatedly stressed in recent days. In an effort to reassure the community, EPA Administrator Michael Regan, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) and others drank the towns tap water during a series of home visits on Tuesday.

DRINKING EAST PALESTINE WATER: with EPA Administrator Michael Regan & Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (2/21) pic.twitter.com/8fnYYkKZgQ

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DRINKING EAST PALESTINE WATER: with EPA Administrator Michael Regan & Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (2/21) pic.twitter.com/8fnYYkKZgQ
Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) February 22, 2023

As HuffPost first reported late last week, Ohio officials only had preliminary data from a railroad contractors sampling when they gave the residents of East Palestine the green light to drink the village water. Making matters worse, the initial lab report flagged that many of those samples were not preserved or handled in accordance with federal EPA standards errors that independent experts slammed as sloppy and amateur.

In the wake of the train accident, AECOM, the Dallas-based consulting firm contracted by Norfolk Southern, sampled untreated water from five municipal wells that supply the towns municipal drinking water, each more than a mile from the derailment site, as well as treated municipal water. The samples were analyzed by Eurofins TestAmerica Laboratories, an environmental testing lab in Canton, Ohio.

The Columbiana County Health District separately tested the villages public water system, but Ohio EPA acknowledged to HuffPost that it did not receive those preliminary results until several hours after the governors office declared the water safe. Instead, the state took the railroad-funded preliminary results and ran with them. State officials have repeatedly said the county results confirm AECOMs findings that the water is free of contaminants associated with the derailment, but as of Thursday morning those results had still not been made public.

Twenty days after the derailment, the only publicly available data on the quality of East Palestines municipal water was collected by the railroads contractor.

Norfolk Southern has downplayed the issues with AECOMs sampling and pointed the finger at the lab. Reanalysis of the samples ensured method compliance and again produced a result indicating safe water, Norfolk Southern spokesman Connor Spielmaker told HuffPost last week. The lab did not update the comments to note the retesting and erroneously included the comments from the initial test.

But the final lab reports only further confirm that the railroad contractor did not comply with EPA protocols for testing drinking water for volatile organic compounds. Of the 10 total water samples it analyzed, the lab flagged issues with five. Four had pH (acidity) levels that exceeded the 2 pH limit allowed under the EPA method listed in the analyses. Two samples also contained a large air bubble in its vial, while the EPA method requires that sample bottles should not have any trapped air bubbles when sealed, the lab report notes.

Failing to properly acidify samples or eliminate air bubbles can bias the results, lowering or even masking levels of contaminants. Eurofins website includes specific guides for collecting both treated and untreated drinking water in accordance with EPA methods.

Jason Marshall, an AECOM spokesman, said the company stands by the quality of its work and indicated it is following an entirely different set of sampling protocols.

AECOM field staff are trained to collect samples in accordance with the Potable Water Sampling Plan that was developed by the Ohio EPA, Ohio Division of Health and the Columbiana County Health District in accordance with prevailing industry standards, he said via email.

Marshall did not respond when asked where the plan could be found. And when HuffPost asked the Ohio EPA one of the agencies that purportedly developed the plan for a copy, its spokesman responded, I have forwarded your request to our records staff for processing. HuffPost was unable to locate the plan on the Ohio EPAs website. Marshalls description would suggest the plan was developed in the wake of the derailment.

Nicole Karn, a chemist and associate professor at the Ohio State University, called the final lab reports on AECOMs sampling unclear and uncomfortable.

It just doesnt seem like things were done with care, she said, emphasizing the need for both immediate re-sampling and long-term monitoring.

Karn has been reflecting on the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, which whistleblowers and citizen scientists exposed while government leaders insisted the water was safe.

As a scientist, I am trained to be skeptical and critical of work thats being done especially when the work is being funded by the people who are responsible for the problem, Karn said. That makes me extra concerned.

Karn had never heard of the Potable Water Sampling Plan that AECOM referenced and said it is unsettling that the public is in the dark about what sampling guidelines are being followed.

We need more transparency, she said.