A whistleblower told The Associated Press that the Environmental Protection Agency’s ASPECT plane could have provided crucial data about the chemicals spewing into the air around East Palestine as the wreckage burned and forced people from their homes.
Whistleblower questions delays and mistakes in way EPA used sensor plane after fiery East Palestine derailmentWhistleblower Robert Kroutil poses for a photo Monday, May 13, 2024, in Olathe, Kan. Kroutil, who worked supporting an EPA program to collect aerial data, is questioning the agency's efforts to collect data with a specialized airplane after a 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. The U.S.
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 revelations about the use of the ASPECT plane in the aftermath of the worst rail disaster in a decade raise new questions about the effectiveness of the “whole-of-government response” in East Palestine the Biden administration touts. The agency said its “air monitoring readings were below detection levels for most contaminants, except for particulate matter” in the first two days after the derailment and “air monitoring did not detect chemical contaminants at levels of concern in the hours following the controlled burn.” Officials say data gleaned from more than 115 million readings since then doesn’t show any “sustained chemicals of concern” in the air.
Kroutil said he retired in frustration in January and wants to share his concerns about the East Palestine mission. He said this incident was handled differently than the 180 other times the plane has been deployed since 2001. Some of those times, the plane was even sent out as a precaution to be nearby political conventions and Super Bowls just in case something happened.
“These kind of fires or refinery fires, fertilizer plant explosions, they don’t happen often,” Turville said. “But when they do, you got to be there and you got to be there quick. And that’s how you save lives.”
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