For the backstory on East Palestine, go here, here, and here.
The testing that Ohio authorities relied on to declare the municipal water in East Palestine safe to drink after a disastrous train derailment was funded by the railroad operator itself and did not initially comply with federal standards, HuffPost has learned.
Governor Mike DeWine
No, that can’t be true. Governor Mike DeWine just released a public statement showing that the EPA has done rigourous, thorough testing of the water and shown it to be 100% safe.
Our brave GOP hero Governor DeWine has nothing in mind but the health and safety of his personal bank account the people of Ohio.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) on Wednesday afternoon announced that new testing from five wells that supply the town’s municipal drinking water “showed no evidence of contamination” after a Norfolk Southern freight train loaded with tons of hazardous materials derailed in the area on Feb. 3.
“With these tests results, Ohio EPA is confident that the municipal water is safe to drink,” DeWine’s office wrote in a news release.
See? What did I tell you. Typical of the DEMONrats at the Huffington Post.
On its web page about the derailment, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency links only to railroad-funded preliminary test results, which it said “so far confirm that … there is no indication of risk to East Palestine Public Water customers.”
Although the drinking water in East Palestine may indeed be safe, as officials have repeatedly stressed in recent days, independent experts argue the initial batch of samples that a consulting firm hired by the rail company collected and submitted to the lab should not have been used to make such a determination. The lab report on the railroad-funded sampling indicates the samples were not handled in accordance with federal Environmental Protection Agency standards.
See, here’s the point where I have to get serious. I’d very much like for there to be a huge story here about EPA malfeasance. While I want nothing but the best for the people of East Palestine, that would be the most politically productive thing that could happen here. But Huffington Post does not come close to proving any claims about unsafe drinking water.
The issue is also not really whether or not the drinking water is safe. The issue is that a bunch of White People, through no fault of their own, had to evacuate a town, and there was zero federal help, aid, or even attention given to them. Meanwhile, Pete Buttplug was saying that there were too many White People working in construction. Only after the NJP showed up and confronted a shill congresscritter, almost two weeks after the derailment, did these parasites even talk about sending in FEMA to help these people. Again, this was after the people had been brought back and the site declared safe, so the timeline makes even less sense.
Water quality samples taken on February 15 show very low levels of two contaminants, butyl acrylate and ethyl hexyl acrylate, in Leslie Run. We have found no traces of butyl acrylate and much lower levels of ethyl hexyl acrylate in North Fork Little Beaver Creek. No vinyl chloride has been detected in any of these waterways. You should NOT drink untreated water from any of these sources.
And the Ohio EPA admits that they have found dangerous substances in some of the water in the area. Again, this is entirely different from the specific water in the wells themselves being contaminated. I said this right from the beginning, but getting bogged down in the weeds on this stuff is intentionally missing the point, and it seems very plausible to me that the drinking water is not in fact contaminated. I don’t trust that 100%, but that’s only because I don’t trust anything the Government says 100%.
Back to the Huffington Post.
The federal EPA has not done its own sampling of municipal water in East Palestine. During a press call with reporters Friday, an official in the Biden administration said “all of the sampling that’s been done in Ohio has been joint, not Norfolk Southern alone. … It’s been with the Columbiana County Health Department, collecting samples along with Norfolk Southern and sending those as split samples to two different labs for verification.”
The Ohio EPA is also not the federal EPA, which is run by this guy. That they haven’t bothered to go down to East Palestine is a far more damning truth. Again, it doesn’t matter so much the specific facts of what water is contaminated and by how much. What matters is that the federal government does not give a single fuck, because all the people in that area are White.
In recent days, Ohio officials have repeatedly said testing of East Palestine’s municipal water system “show no detection of contaminants.” The analytical report of Norfolk Southern’s testing, however, shows very low levels of dibutyl phthalate, a common chemical used to make plastics more flexible, in three well water samples.
Erickson said it is possible that the dibutyl phthalate could have been in the air — the result of incomplete combustion during the controlled burn — and entered into water sample containers when they were collected.
“I can’t say that with any conviction, but that is not a contaminant that we typically see in drinking water wells,” he said.
Dibutyl phthalate is not linked to cancers in humans, but exposure can cause headaches, dizziness, eye and throat irritation, nausea and seizures. It has been shown to cause reproductive harm in animals.
So there is trace amounts of mildly toxic and non-carcinogenic contamination in the water supply. Not ideal, but once again, not really the issue in the first place compared to having their lives uprooted and being given no state assistance.
The people of East Palestine, Ohio have every reason in the world to be pissed. There is very good reason to believe that there is more contamination than has been admitted. The NJP guys were going on about how bad the town reeked of chlorine. And even if that’s totally harmless, having your town smell terrible is still obnoxious, and no one in the federal government gives a fuck.
I have also heard plenty of anecdotes about people feeling shortness of breath and skin issues. The woman above says as much, and the NJP guys said that they were having trouble breathing after a while in East Palestine, and this went away after they left.
In short, you should as fedposty as this woman was at the Norfolk Southern executives, everyone in the federal government, Governor Mike DeWine, and the WMD Liars for trying their best to ignore this story.
But QAnon tier unsubstantiated claims about drinking water contamination do far more harm than good. That’s probably why you’re seeing this stuff on HuffPost. If they were over the target, they wouldn’t be publishing it.
from my knowledge of chemistry, it’s contaminated. It’s going to take billions of dollars several years and a massive amount of manpower and clever engineering to ever clean it up. Much easier for the faggots in charge to officially say it’s fine and ignore it. The epa has a proud history of downplaying massive catastrophe, and turning around and ruining a farmers life for making a pretty pond for his horses with his tractor.