Previously undisclosed environmental testing tied to the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, is prompting scrutiny of both the disaster's aftermath and the settlement process that followed, including whether residents gave up legal claims without seeing the evidence collected on their behalf.
Class-action attorneys had hired industrial hygienist Stephen Petty after the derailment and the subsequent vinyl chloride burn.
Petty said the initial contamination findings called for more investigation, but many residents did not see his results before a $600 million settlement was reached, according to an interview with NewsNation.
Here's what to know
In Petty's account to NewsNation (via Yahoo News), soil and water samples from East Palestine contained dioxins and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, in concentrations above the Environmental Protection Agency's cancer-screening thresholds.
"Somewhere between 50% and 70% of the data points, whether they be for dioxins or PAHs, exceeded screening levels [for cancer]," Petty said.
He added, "You have to do something. You have to do further analysis to see what needs to be done from a remediation standpoint. And you also have to do further analysis to determine what it means for people in that environment. There is a problem there."
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NewsNation also cited independent testing expert Scott Smith, who said his own work pointed in the same direction as Petty's.
"It's astounding in that it was suppressed," Smith told NewsNation.
More background
Residents told NewsNation that attorneys had described the contamination as too limited to support claims of major long-term health risks.
One resident, Beth Kosar, said: "Petty's test results were always really secret. They said it would hurt the case."
Resident Linda Murphy said that attorneys told her "the numbers weren't bad enough" and warned that releasing them could threaten the settlement.
She also shared an audio recording she said came from a meeting with lawyers, in which the speakers said, "The data is nowhere near as bad as we thought it was going to be when this first happened."
Some of the residents covered by the settlement are now trying to withdraw from it.
They alleged in the motion, per NewsNation: "Substantial evidence of fraud and misrepresentation by class counsel, who concealed critical expert findings about health risks while inducing class members to sign personal injury releases in exchange for inadequate personal injury payments."
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