By Andrew J. Whelton for The Conversation.
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan for Ohio News Connection for the Public News Service-Conversation collaboration. .

Headaches and lingering chemical smells from a fiery train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, have left residents worried about their air and water - and misinformation on social media hasn't helped.

State officials offered more details of the cleanup process and a timeline of the environmental disaster during a news conference on Feb. 14, 2023. Nearly a dozen cars carrying chemicals, including vinyl chloride, a carcinogen, derailed on the evening of Feb. 3, and fire from the site sent up acrid black smoke. Officials said they had tested over 400 nearby homes for contamination and were tracking a plume of spilled chemicals that had killed 3,500 fish in streams and reached the Ohio River.

However, the slow release of information after the derailment has left many questions unanswered about the risks and longer-term impact. We put five questions about the chemical releases to Andrew Whelton, an environmental engineer who investigates chemical risks during disasters.

Let's start with what was in the train cars. What are the most concerning chemicals for human health and the environment long term, and what's known so far about the impact?

The main concerns now are the contamination of homes, soil and water, primarily from volatile organic compounds and semivolatile organic compounds, known as VOCs and SVOCs.

The train had nearly a dozen cars with vinyl chloride and other materials, such as ethylhexyl acrylate and butyl acrylate. These chemicals have varying levels of toxicity and different fates in soil and groundwater. Officials have detected some of those chemicals in the nearby waterway and particulate matter in the air from the fire. But so far, the fate of many of the chemicals is not known. A variety of other materials were also released, but discussion about those chemicals has been limited.

State officials disclosed that a plume of contamination released into the nearby creek had made its way into the Ohio River. Other cities get their drinking water from the river, and were warned about the risk. The farther this plume moves downstream, the less concentrated the chemical will be in water, posing less of a risk.

Long term, the greatest risk is closest to the derailment location. And again, there's limited information about what chemicals are present - or were created through chemical reactions during the fire.

It isn't clear yet how much went into storm drains, was flushed down the streams or may have settled to the bottom of waterways.

There was also a lot of combusted particulate matter. The black smoke is a clear indication. It's unclear how much was diluted in the air or fell to the ground.

How long can these chemicals linger in soil and water, and what's their potential long-term risk to humans and wildlife?

The heavier the chemical, often the slower it degrades and the more likely it is to stick to soil. These compounds can remain for years if left unaddressed.

After the Kalamazoo River oil pipeline break in Michigan in 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency excavated a tributary where the oil settled. We've also seen from oil spills on the coasts of Alaska and Alabama that oil chemicals can find their way into soil if it isn't remediated.

The long-term impact in Ohio will depend in part on how fast - and thoroughly - cleanup occurs.

If the heavily contaminated soils and liquids are excavated and removed, the long-term impacts can be reduced. But the longer removal takes, the farther the contamination can spread. It's in everyone's best interest to clean this up as soon as possible and before the region gets rain.

Booms in a nearby stream have been deployed to capture chemicals. Air-stripping devices have been deployed to remove chemicals from the waterways. Air stripping causes the light chemicals to leave the water and enter air. This is a common treatment technique and was used after an 2015 oil spill in the Yellowstone River near Glendive, Montana.

At the derailment site in Ohio, workers are already removing contaminated soil as deep as 7 feet (about 2 meters) near where the rail cars burned.

Some of the train cars were intentionally drained and the chemicals set on fire to eliminate them. That fire had thick black smoke. What does that tell you about the chemicals and longer-term risks?

Incineration is one way we dispose of hazardous chemicals, but incomplete chemical destruction creates a host of byproducts. Chemicals can be destroyed when heated to extremely high temperatures so they burn thoroughly.

The black smoke plume you saw on TV was incomplete combustion. A number of other chemicals were created. Officials don't necessarily know what these were or where they went until they test for them.

We know ash can pose health risks, which is why we test inside homes after wildfires where structures burn. This is one reason the state's health director told residents with private wells near and downwind of the derailment to use bottled water until they can have their wells tested.

The EPA has been screening homes near the derailment for indoor air-quality concerns. How do these chemicals get into homes and what happens to them in enclosed spaces?

Homes are not airtight, and sometimes dust and other materials get in. It might be through an open door or a window sill. Sometimes people track it in.

So far, the U.S. EPA has reported no evidence of high levels of vinyl chloride or hydrogen chloride in the 400 or so homes tested. But full transparency has been lacking. Just because an agency is doing testing doesn't mean it is testing for what it needs to test for.

Media reports talk about four or five chemicals, but the manifest from Norfolk Southern also listed a bunch of other materials in tanks that burned. All those materials create potentially hundreds to thousands of VOCs and SVOCs.

Are government officials testing for everything they should?

People in the community have reported headaches, which can be caused by VOCs and other chemicals. They're understandably concerned.

Ohio and federal officials need to better communicate what they're doing, why, and what they plan to do. It's unclear what questions they are trying to answer. For a disaster this serious, little testing information has been shared.

In the absence of this transparency, misinformation is filling that void. From a homeowner's perspective, it's hard to understand the true risk if the data is not shared.

Andrew J. Whelton wrote this article for The Conversation.

This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.


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A new report found fossil fuel lobbyists in two states with strong transparency and disclosure laws were not making full disclosures, including Washington state.

Washington ranked eighth in the country with a "C-plus" in the report from F Minus, an advocacy group tracking fossil-fuel lobbying across the nation. The audit found fossil fuel lobbyists in Washington state made disclosures only 8% of the time.

James Browning, founder and executive director of F Minus, said the lobbyists frequently work for both fossil fuel and climate advocacy groups.

"Refusing to disclose their work for oil and gas companies shows that they're keenly aware that this can be bad for their image, that they can be seen as villains on climate and that's bad for business," Browning contended. "It's bad for their image."

Browning pointed to the Pacific Whale Watch Association and Chevron sharing a lobbying firm.

Browning noted the audit from F Minus has been sent to the state's public disclosure commission but he has not heard back. He was encouraged when the Public Disclosure Commission in October started asking lobbyists what legislation they worked on. However, preliminary filings are only slightly better, he added. In fact, Browning pointed out one lobbyist has been copying and pasting the same disclosure for all of its fossil fuel lobbying since 2018.

"Clearly the lobbyists don't take this seriously," Browning asserted. "It's really outrageous given the cascading climate impacts in Washington state; extreme heat, fires and just the fear we all have to live with of the climate crisis."

In the report, 27 states received failing grades over the transparency of their lobbyist disclosure laws.

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By Kristoffer Tigue, Dennis Pillion, Dylan Baddour and Marianne Lavelle for Inside Climate News.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

When a rare tornado swept through the north side of Minneapolis, Michelle Neal scrambled for cover at a fast-food restaurant. "It was unreal-we could have died," she told Minnesota Public Radio. "McDonald's saved me."

It's the kind of scenario that Julia Nerbonne, executive director of Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light, wants to make sure communities are better prepared for as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather. The faith-based nonprofit hopes to transform churches and other congregations into emergency shelters with solar power and battery storage to withstand power outages-especially in historically disadvantaged communities, like north Minneapolis, which have long been overburdened by pollution and underinvestment.

"We want to have a building," she said, "in which they can have a cooling place, in which they can refrigerate their medication-a place where they can be with the community in the midst of a crisis."

Around the country, nonprofits and other community organizations like Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light were hoping these sorts of projects would receive funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has $3 billion to spend on environmental justice community grants through Sept. 30, 2026. But the Biden administration has only been able to award about half the money so far, and experts say the unspent 50 percent can most likely be clawed back by President-elect Donald Trump-a blow to communities of color and poor rural communities that had long waited for help like this.

Among the threatened initiatives is the EPA's Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program, which dedicated $600 million in block grants for projects aimed at tackling climate and environmental justice issues in disadvantaged communities. The money has been hailed by advocates as one of the most important federal investments ever made in closing the nation's long-standing socioeconomic and racial gaps.

The Biden administration has so far awarded nearly $266 million, according to an EPA database, leaving more than half-or just over $334 million-vulnerable to reversal efforts from Trump officials or Republican lawmakers. "EPA continues to work through its rigorous process to obligate the funds under the Inflation Reduction Act, including the Thriving Communities Grantmakers program," said Nick Conger, the EPA's communications director.

Last week, the EPA opened up the first round of applications for the Thriving Communities program, giving hopeful applicants like Nerbonne less than two months to navigate the complicated federal grantmaking process before Trump is sworn in. In fact, several EPA regions have yet to open their application processes, leaving some groups worried they won't be able to complete their applications on time.

"It just seems like an incredibly missed opportunity. I'd feel disappointed about that," Nerbonne said, when asked how she would feel if the program's funding was rescinded under Trump. "Congregations aren't talking about politics. They're ready to get to work serving their community and they're tired of politics, especially after this election."

Republicans Target Environmental Justice Funding

The IRA's idea for addressing historic environmental injustice through a community grant program was taken from the sprawling Environmental Justice for All legislation originally introduced in 2020 by Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz) and the late Rep. A. Donald McEachin (D-Va.).

"We approached it with the fundamental belief that communities know what communities need best," said Grijalva in an email.

But Congressional Republicans have been vocal about their intention to cut or limit the environmental justice grant program, characterizing it as a form of cronyism, providing support to political allies of Democrats and opponents of fossil fuels.

"The EPA is awarding taxpayer dollars to special interest groups committed to a radical energy agenda," wrote U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) in a House Energy and Commerce Committee report, released just before Election Day. "Enriching nonprofit organizations to spread radical, left-leaning ideology is an inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars. These programs demand rigorous scrutiny and meticulous oversight."

Trump himself suggested in a 2023 campaign video that he could "simply choke off the money" allocated under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Typically, Congress would have to pass new "rescission" legislation to take away unspent money that Congress previously appropriated. Republicans could use the appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2025, which began in October and now appears likely to be in the hands of the newly elected Congress and Trump, to do so. But in order to avoid the threat of a filibuster in the Senate, they instead could use a budget reconciliation bill that only needs a simple majority-the approach Democrats used to pass the IRA. Republicans are aiming to embark on a reconciliation bill soon after taking office in order to extend and expand Trump's 2017 tax cuts.

Ending environmental justice grantmaking is also part of the vision laid out in Project 2025, the policy roadmap that conservative groups drew up for Trump's second term. Although Trump professed no familiarity with Project 2025 during the campaign, he has named authors of the plan to key positions in his new administration, including tapping Russell Vought, his former budget chief, to head the Office of Management and Budget again. Project 2025 called for pausing and reviewing all environmental justice grants in light of the Supreme Court's recent decisions against affirmative action.

The Thriving Communities grant program has become a particular target of Republicans, who singled out one of its recipients and accused it of being "radical" and "anti-American." The Climate Justice Alliance, a California-based organization, is one of 11 regional grantmaker organizations that were initially awarded $50 million each from the Thriving Communities program. Those groups would then disseminate $40 million of their funds as subgrants to community organizations in their regions.

The Climate Justice Alliance is the only regional grantmaker that has not received any of its funding, sparking speculation that GOP rancor could be to blame. In May, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), the highest ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, criticized the group for its support of Palestinians in Gaza and its opposition to Israel, calling its members "radical," "anti-American," and "antisemitic."

Conger, the EPA spokesperson, said the "EPA continues to review the grant for the Climate Justice Alliance," but provided no further details.

KD Chavez, the Climate Justice Alliance's executive director, said that the group's pro-Gaza advocacy is constitutionally protected speech that is separate from the work it would fund under the Thriving Communities program. "This grant money would only be used as intended by Congress, going towards things like air quality and asthma, water quality and lead, asbestos contamination," she said.

If the group's political views are the reason for the holdup in funding, Chavez said it could put at risk any social justice or progressive work that receives federal funding. "This could really be setting up a horrific First Amendment precedent moving forward for any type of organization across civil society," Chavez said.

Other groups involved in the EPA grant program pushed back against the GOP attacks as well. In addition to the 11 regional grantmaker organizations, another 18 institutions were chosen to act as technical assistance centers-known officially as Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers, or TCTACs-to help community organizations navigate the often complicated federal grant application process.

Bonnie Keeler, a University of Minnesota public affairs associate professor who runs the Midwest region's TCTAC, said it's a misrepresentation of her center's work to say it channels federal funding to "left-leaning activist or extremist organizations," adding that the program deserves broad bipartisan support.

"The TCTACs do not advance a particular policy agenda, we respond to requests for assistance wherever they come from," Keeler said. "To date, we have responded to over 400 requests for technical assistance from urban, rural and tribal communities seeking assistance with everything from energy efficiency goals, to cleaning up brownfields, to managing hazardous waste, to reducing indoor air pollution."

How Far Will Trump Go?

In the early 1970s, then-President Richard Nixon had a problem. A Democratic-controlled Congress wanted to fund highway improvements, drug rehabilitation and a number of other initiatives that the Republican president believed were "undisciplined" and "fiscally irresponsible."

So Nixon decided to withhold funds in the budget that he didn't agree with, sparking a constitutional struggle that resulted in the passage of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act. That law, which is still in effect today, prohibits a president or other government officials from refusing to release congressionally appropriated funds and essentially substituting their own funding decisions for those of Congress.

The legislation also defines when federal funding has been "obligated," a legal term for when a contract has been signed between a federal agency and the recipient of federal funds, such as an organization applying for a grant, said Jeremy Kalin, a finance attorney for the law firm Avisen Legal. That means the $266 million dedicated to environmental justice under the Inflation Reduction Act, which Congress passed in 2022, and already obligated is protected from being rescinded, Kalin said.

But legal experts, including Kalin, aren't sure if Trump and his officials will respect that federal law and refrain from trying to seize or rescind obligated funds, pointing to statements made by Trump and Vought.

Vought and members of right-wing think tanks he is associated with have argued that the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 is unconstitutional, saying that Article II of the Constitution, which obligates the president to "faithfully execute" the law, also allows a president to forbid enforcement of the law.

Trump appears to agree with that interpretation. In a statement announcing Vought's nomination last week, Trump bragged about Vought's experience as a deregulator, saying, "Russ knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government."

"Russell Vought," Kalin said, "may stretch the bounds of the Impoundment Control Act ... and just force people to stop it through the courts."

If that's the case, Kalin said, some funds-even those protected as "obligated" funds under the Impoundment Control Act-may be subject to reversals by the Trump administration, and only funds that get fully dispersed to organizations before Trump takes office may be safe from those efforts.

Trump has already tested this theory. During his first term in office, he withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine while pressuring President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to open a corruption investigation into Joe Biden and his family. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, or GAO, later ruled that Trump's actions violated the Impoundment Control Act.

Trump will have an opportunity to appoint a new head of GAO next year when the 15-year term of the current Comptroller General ends, giving him a chance to choose who will have direct oversight of any decisions he makes to withhold funding.

If Trump decides to withhold funds, it will most certainly trigger legal fights that could go all the way to the Supreme Court. The high court has never directly weighed in on the subject, however, but the court's conservative majority has indicated it is willing to take an expansive view on presidential power.

"Time Is Just Not on the Side of the Grantees"

The short amount of time, roughly seven weeks, before Trump takes office, could also be discouraging some community groups from applying for federal environmental justice grants at all. In some cases, nonprofits see it as a reason to rely less on federal support to do their work.

Caleb Roberts applied for a $1.5 million grant earlier in November from another IRA-funded environmental justice program. He hoped to use the money to hire more employees at his nonprofit, Dallas-based Downwinders at Risk, to conduct door-to-door screenings to check residents' homes for conditions that cause asthma. But now he's unsure he'll ever see that money.

"We think we'll definitely run into some funding issues," he said. "Starting day one after inauguration, those things are probably under fire."

Another nonprofit, Alabama-based We Matter Community Association, said it plans to apply for a Thriving Communities grant to purchase 1,200 acres of land in the city of Prichard, on which it plans to build community amenities, including a community center, athletic fields, commercial space and affordable housing. But Carletta Davis, the group's president, said the organization will likely rely less on federal support in the future.

"[The election] is the reason why We Matter is really solely focused on trying to create a way to sustain itself without having to go through governmental grants," she said. "I think that our model is probably going to be the model going forward for EJ organizations."

Some organizations aren't sure if applying for a federal environmental justice grant is worth the effort at all. Applications for the Thriving Communities grant program, the largest single program of federal environmental justice block grants, haven't even opened in the EPA-designated area that includes Texas and Louisiana, home to the nation's largest petrochemical complexes and environmental justice communities.

"At this time, the groups we know of that may be interested still need more time to understand the grant program and whether they will apply," said Vanessa Toro Barragán, a senior program officer at the Houston-based Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice, which isn't involved with the grant program.

But time may not be a luxury community groups can afford at the moment, should Trump officials and Republican lawmakers follow through with their threats.

Employees of organizations that work closely with the Thriving Communities program, also expressed concern that community groups would struggle to complete a complicated federal grant application before Trump takes office in just seven weeks, agreeing to comment anonymously to safeguard their prospects as potential grantees.

"Time is just not on the side of the grantees," one employee told Inside Climate News.

Still, organizations involved with the federal grant programs are encouraging community groups to apply and hope to see a big turnout.

"The fact is that this program, it still exists, and it doesn't make sense to turn away from an opportunity that is still there while it is still there," said Chandra Taylor-Sawyer, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, one of the partner organizations helping to recruit applicants to the Thriving Communities program.

Keeler, who runs the Midwest technical assistance center at the University of Minnesota, expressed a similar sentiment. "The future of these programs is uncertain," she said. "That said, all we can do is continue the work we've started. We get new requests for support every week and we'll keep responding to those requests for technical assistance as long as we are able."


Kristoffer Tigue, Dennis Pillion, Dylan Baddour and Marianne Lavelle wrote this article for Inside Climate News.


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A new report says fossil-fuel lobbyists in two states with strong transparency and disclosure laws are not making full disclosures - including in Maryland.

Maryland ranks seventh in the country and gets a grade of C-plus in the report from a group called F Minus - which tracks fossil-fuel lobbying efforts across the U.S.

James Browning, executive director of F Minus, said Maryland has strong laws requiring lobbyists to disclose their salaries and the bills they're working on.

But its audit found these disclosures are being made less than 50% of the time. Browning said some lobbyists also appear to have major conflicts of interest.

"What we also found is this rampant culture of lobbyists being sort of double agents for oil and gas companies," said Browning, "at the same time they're working for climate-conscious institutions."

Browning pointed to Johns Hopkins University's lobbying firm actively opposing a climate bill on behalf of the American Petroleum Institute. The lobbying firm didn't disclose that conflict.

Browning said the audit from F Minus has been sent to the state's ethics commission. He said he hopes that will spur additional audits on lobbying practices in the state.

He added that new policies on reporting would help keep their activities during legislative sessions transparent.

"There has to be a reality check in the middle of Maryland's three-month session - let's say at the end of February - where everyone has to disclose what they're doing," said Browning. "The way the law is written now, lobbyists can wait until May. The session is over in April."

Twenty-seven states received failing grades in the report for the overall lack of transparency in their lobbyist disclosure laws.



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