 Wow Look at it. It's all in the bottom of the creek bed Now look at it, but they burned all the chemicals off of there, right? That's what I heard. Yeah Residents in East Palestine Ohio were told that the water in their town was safe after a train derailment poisoned them Now they're not buying it and I think for good reason the video that we just watched demonstrates that it very clearly is is Not normal at a minimum, right? But the governor is trying to do everything in his power to convince them That it is safe and everything is copacetic when in actuality when he made this declaration He didn't have the full picture and we'll get to that But first as Chris D'Angelo of HuffPost explains the testing that Ohio authorities relied on to declare the municipal water in East Palestine safe to drink after a disastrous train derailment was funded by the railroad operator itself and did not initially comply with federal standards HuffPost has learned Although the drinking water in East Palestine may indeed be safe as officials have repeatedly stressed in recent days Independent experts argue the initial batch of samples that a consulting firm hired by the rail company collected and submitted to the lab Should not have been used to make such a determination The lab report on the railroad funded sampling indicates the samples were not handled in accordance with federal environmental protection agency standards Sam Bickley an aquatic ecologist at Virginia scientist community interface an Advocacy-focused coalition of scientists and engineers alerted HuffPost to the sampling errors and called the report extremely concerning There results that claim there were no contaminants is not a reliable finding He said via email I find this extremely concerning because these results would not be used in most scientific applications Because the samples were not preserved properly and this is the same data They are now relying on to say that the drinking water is not contaminated David Erickson a hydro geologist and the founder of water environmental technologies an environmental consulting firm in Montana called the sampling sloppy and amateur now experts are saying that the reason Why these results aren't trustworthy is because in one of the samples there was an air bubble now The reason why that's bad is because additional contaminants can get trapped within that air bubble And if they are well, then they will go undetected which means that that is a massive sampling error But Norfolk Southern is saying well, it's just a recording error. No It's not just a recording error. That is a sampling error that throws the results into question now Citizens in East Palestine aren't buying it and I think rightfully so in this close to the the train derailment I don't trust it. I am frustrated here. I am. I just moved seven months ago I busted my ass to make this place look like it does and I got to move Because i'm not safe being here. There is no way we are safe being here Deb Blair a cashier at the sparkle market in east Palestine says bottled water has been flying off the shelves Water is the big thing here right now. Everybody is wanting water. They don't want to drink the water They don't want to give it to their animals, you know, this is worse than what everybody thought it was And the people in town are afraid and they're scared for good reason Now republican governor Mike DeWine rushed to declare the state's water safe Before they even had the states results back in so he was satisfied with The samples from norfolk southern and immediately as quick as he could Said yep, everything is fine now When that was wrong because when the state's results came in It confirmed the suspicion of residents as common dreams explains The biden administration said in a press call friday that norfolk southern has not been solely behind the testing That's been conducted so far with the spokesperson telling reporters It's been with the colombiana county health department collecting samples along with norfolk southern and sending those as split samples to two different labs for verification The state EPA however did not receive the health department's results until after de wine declared the water safe Based on a comms flawed testing The lab report shows low levels of the chemical dibutal phthalate Which is not linked to cancer in humans, but can cause headaches nausea dizziness irritation of the eyes and throat and seizures Some of the residents who were told days after the derailment that they could safely return to east palestine have reported symptoms Including headaches nausea dizziness and shortness of breath. So do you understand the issue here? Residents are being told that the water is safe but The water contains contaminants at least in the short term That's making them sick as former state representative rob whip were put it the loss of credibility by public health agencies has and will continue to have disastrous real-world consequences And he is exactly correct about that. Remember how corporations pressured the cdc to loosen testing requirements In order to ease the labor shortage during the second year of the pandemic. Well, they did that they complied with big business Americans remember these things They remember how time after time the government sides with corporations and their profit motives over the people And it's sickening. This is just another example of that now transportation secretary peep buddha judge Is pretending to be powerless, but don't you worry because as abc news reports He wrote a strongly worded letter to norfolk southern And i'm sure that they are shaking in their boots after reading that now to be fair The lever reports that the department of transportation is expanding rules that seemingly require more transparency From these types of companies, but transparency alone is insufficient These companies need to know that it will cost them greatly If they cut costs at the expense of the communities that they're supposed to be serving They need to fear nationalization They need to fear so many fines That they will be put out of business if they do not do what is necessary to maintain safe standards but They know that the worst that they have to fear oftentimes is a little slap on the risk and a pure disaster that can be cleaned up with time Americans will forget with time They know that the government doesn't represent the people and the government is squarely in the camp of these large multinational corporations Just last year congress voted to break a strike at the behest of these railroad companies who refused to give their workers a single Day of paid sick time So we all know Who the government represents it's not Us it's it's these large Multi-billion dollar companies who put profits over people and that is sickening and this is just another example that proves that This is the way that it is