The Government Accountability Project, has obtained documents from a whistleblower indicating that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) worked with Norfolk Southern to manipulate soil testing data after the February 2023 East Palestine train derailment, per a recent report.

NewsNation reports an email from March 7, 2023, allegedly shows the EPA adopted Norfolk Southern’s testing methods and instructed the company to exclude five toxic compounds from tests, according to Lesley Pacey, a group representative.

The primary concern is the EPA’s use of baseline soil samples from areas heavily contaminated by the toxic smoke plume from burning vinyl chloride tankers, which serve as reference points for assessing contamination levels.

PHOTO CREDIT: Smoke from the accident, February 3rd – By thunderlips36, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=128970663