Newly released data shows that the soil in East Palestine,
Ohio where a Norfolk Southern train carrying
hazardous materials derailed contains dioxin levels.
That is hundreds of times above levels that the EPA says causes cancer, okay.
Now, there's an issue here because apparently,
when it comes to the threshold of what is deemed acceptable dioxin
levels by the Federal government is far higher than what it should be.
And when you look at certain states, they actually have much stronger
regulations that ensure that the levels of dioxin are much lower.
We're gonna get into that, that disconnect between Federal government regulations and
what some states are doing.
But it's important to understand that unfortunately, Ohio is going along with
the ridiculously high threshold that was implemented by the Federal government,
which I'll tell you the details of in just a moment.
But first, what is dioxin?
Why are we talking about dioxin right now?
Well, dioxins are a class of chemicals that are the byproduct produced
when chlorine is burned,
which is a common industrial process in making products like PVC.
The chemicals are highly persistent and can accumulate and stay for
years in the environment or human bodies.
They cause cancer, diabetes, heart disease, nervous system disorders,
among other serious health problems.
Now, the Federal threshold for dioxins is just too high.
In fact, other states have way better regulations with far lower limits.
So The Guardian wrote a pretty good piece on this to give you a sense of what
the disconnect is between the Federal government and states.
The levels found in two soil samples are also up to 14
times higher than dioxin soil limits in some states and
the numbers point to wider contamination.
Okay, so at first, the EPA resisted calls to test for
dioxins in East Palestine, which is insane.
Because considering the fact that they did a controlled burn of vinyl chloride,
that does end up releasing dioxins into the environment.
So later, the EPA is like, okay, fine, they want us to test,
we're gonna have Norfolk Southern, okay?
The rail company that owns the train that derailed,
we're gonna have them do the testing, which is ridiculous.
I wouldn't trust them to do their own testing on it.
I don't care who they contract to do the testing.
You really do wanna have an independent body to do this.
And since the state of Indiana has a landfill dedicated to toxic materials,
they're the ones that are essentially storing the toxic
materials from the derailed train now.
There was a second party doing testing as well and
we have some of the results of those tests, okay?
So it was conducted by a laboratory that is deemed reputable.
And through that testing, we know this.
Now, first, regulators established the toxicity of dioxins
in a soil sample by calculating the toxicity equivalence
of all dioxins in the soil compared with called 2378 TCDD, okay?
The East Palestine soil showed levels of that toxicity
equivalence at 700 parts per trillion.
The level at which the EPA will initiate clean up action in
residential areas is 1000 parts per trillion.
So they're under that Federal regulation threshold, but
that Federal regulation threshold is just too high.
In fact, back in 2010, the EPA under the Obama
administration proposed lowering that threshold considerably.
Because they argue the threshold not only is so high that even at lower levels,
the existence of these dioxins have been linked to cancer.
So we need to bring the threshold much, much lower.
The Obama administration scrapped that.
In fact, a common tool that was used by the Obama administration was the Office of
Management and Budget.
This was something that New Republic wrote about at the time.
Essentially, what the Obama administration would do
is they would have the Office of Management and
Budget calculate what the cost of certain environmental regulations would be.
And if the costs were just too high, they would scrap the proposed regulations.
And in this case, you had the EPA again back in 2010 saying we need to lower
the threshold for dioxins.
Obama administration scraps it.
In fact, at some point,
the head of the EPA under the Obama administration decided to step down.
Because she's like, this administration promised that we were gonna do something
about climate change, promised that we would regulate the chemicals that
are released into the environment by corporations.
Obama administration is doing no such thing, I'm stepping down.
So that happened under the Obama administration.
Now, fast forward to what we're experiencing today.
The chickens have come home to roost and the people of East Palestine need to
know about the reality of the high levels of this toxin in their environment.
Because fact of the matter is if they're just relying on what the Federal
government is saying, what the Federal threshold is for these toxins.
They would be making or taking, I should say, a pretty big risk with their health.
Now, let's get to what the EPA said specifically back in 2010.
Actually, before we do, remember,
the Federal threshold is 1000 parts per trillion.
But other states have stricter regulation.
How strict?
Well, the cleanup triggers are much lower in many states.
90 parts per trillion in Michigan and 50 parts per trillion in California.
Again, the current Federal threshold is 1000 parts per trillion.
Now, let's go to the EPA scientists in 2010 because they put the cancer
risk threshold for dioxins and residential soil at 3.7 parts per trillion.
And the agency recommended lowering the cleanup trigger to 72 parts per trillion.
So just let that sink in.
That is what the EPA said back in 2010,
Obama administration scrapped that proposal.
And now we're dealing with the situation in which
East Palestine soil samples show that there is as much as 700
parts per trillion in terms of dioxin levels in their soil.
So Stephen Lester, who's a toxicologist, and
who has researched dioxins for 40 years said this.
When you run the numbers and do your best state of the art risk calculations,
okay, that's the number you get for the cancer risk.
That's why dioxins are described as one of the most toxic chemicals ever created.
Instead of making adjustments for the high risk of these chemicals,
the Federal government dropped it.
They just walked away from it and that's the crazy part of this story.
Experts also cautioned that the levels may be safe for Indiana's purpose,
which is again, they're storing the toxic waste in a landfill.
But they also want to ensure that they are constantly testing the soil in
nearby residential areas.
Any residential area near that landfill to ensure that these
toxins aren't seeping into the soil, into the water in that area as well.
And it's just incredible because we have no real oversight of our
environment when it comes to corporations who, of course,
have the ability to provide limitless campaign donations.
Otherwise, known as legalized bribes to our government officials,
to our candidates.
Well, they have more of a say over our environment than we do.
And so we have this gross situation in which the people of East Palestine
are being told by the Federal government that everything's all fine and dandy.
Because according to these EPA thresholds, they haven't gotten to a point
where the situation is unsafe and there needs to be a clean up effort.
But again, according to the EPA, back in 2010, if they had gotten their way,
if they had passed the regulations that they were insisting on and
had the Obama administration allowed them to do that.
There would absolutely be a need for
a cleanup effort in East Palestine today just based on dioxins alone.