Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan, visiting Ohio on Thursday, vowed to “get to the bottom” of the Feb. 3 train derailment in the town and to continually monitor the area for potential health hazards.
“The community has questions and we hear you, we see you and … we will get to the bottom of this. Anything the state needs, we will be here to help,” Regan said in a press conference. “We are going to get through this as a team, we are absolutely going to hold Norfolk Southern [Railway] accountable.”
The EPA head said the federal agency’s air monitoring efforts have not detected anything to prompt health concerns in the area thus far. Of more than 480 voluntary home screenings, he said, the EPA has not detected vinyl chloride or hydrogen chloride in any of them.
His comments come as locals and some environmental advocates express frustration over the response to the incident, saying they’ve received mixed messages from both federal and state officials about the safety of the area.
Gregg Brown, who lives outside the limits of East Palestine but works in the city and has children enrolled in its school district, said residents have been frustrated by the pace and transparency of the response so far.
“It’s been very poor; I think that’s the nicest way to put it,” Brown told The Hill. “You have people testing the air and water and you’re getting air quality updates and saying this is what we found how many particles are in the air [but] not specifying what they’re finding in the air.”
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