He calls out mistakes in how EPA used sensor plane after Ohio derailment.
FILE - Portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed the night before burn in East Palestine, Ohio, Feb. 4, 2023. The U.S. government has a specialized plane loaded with advanced sensors that the EPA brags is always ready to deploy within an hour of any kind of chemical disaster. But the plane didn’t fly in eastern Ohio until four days after last year's disastrous derailment.
Robert Kroutil said even when the plane did fly, it only gathered incomplete data. Then, when officials later realized some of the shortcomings of the mission, they asked the company Kroutil worked for, Kalman & Company, to draft plans for the flight and backdate them so they would look good if they turned up in a public records request, Kroutil said.
The Government Accountability Project that represents Kroutil and has been critical of EPA's response in East Palestine sent a sworn affidavit detailing his concerns to the EPA inspector general Tuesday and requested a formal investigation. The group provided a copy of the affidavit and Kroutil agreed to an interview with the AP ahead of time.
The head of the NTSB has said her agency's investigation determined the vent-and-burn wasn't necessary because the tank cars were actually starting to cool off, confirming that a dangerous reaction wasn’t happening inside them — something the chemical company had tried to tell officials. But the people who made the decision to blow open those tank cars said they were never told what OxyVinyls' experts determined. Instead, they heard only about the fears the tank cars might explode.
“You want to fly over a train derailment in the first five to 10 hours after the incident and while the fires are still burning. It is really advantageous if you have a plume. That big black plume ... is when you want to get in and collect data," Kroutil said. "The EPA ASPECT airplane should have made passes over the derailment site right away but certainly before the vent-and-burn. I think they chose not to know.
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