A former EPA contractor alleges the agency grossly mismanaged its chemical detection technology in the days following the fiery train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, leading to inconclusive data and falsified information.
Whistleblower Robert Kroutil said the chemical sensor plane could have prevented the giant smoke plume caused by venting and burning of the known carcinogen vinyl chloride.
EPA’s response in East Palestine “was the oddest response I ever observed,” Kroutil said in an affidavit sent in tandem with a request that EPA’s independent watchdog office investigate the situation.
Kroutil first developed and has been working on the chemical sensor technology — airborne spectral photometric environmental collection technology, aka ASPECT plane — for more than 40 years. During the derailment and its aftermath, he was the data quality project manager with Kalman & Company, the contractor EPA hired to operate the ASPECT plane. Since the program’s inception in 2001, Kroutil hasn’t missed any of the plane’s 180 missions.
