Status Coup has reported ON-THE-GROUND in East Palestine, Ohio and western Pennsylvania after the Norfolk Southern train derailment 8 times—risking our own health to show you one of the most sinister and evil corporate environmental crimes of this century. This work is important and takes A LOT of resources to do ON-THE-GROUND. PLEASE SUPPORT Status Coup’s environmental justice journalism for as low as $5 bucks a month.
In massive news that should be leading news coverage across America, a whistleblower has exposed that Norfolk Southern—the multi-billion dollar railroad company that unnecessarily chemically nuked Ohio and Pennsylvania after detonating five tankers of toxic vinyl chloride after its derailment in 2023— manipulated and falsified environmental testing data for years to mislead residents they were safe.
“I am haunted by the fact that I worked for a corporation that hid health harm,” Peggy Dixon said in a 99-page sword affidavit about her time working on environmental testing in East Palestine, Ohio and western Pennsylvania after the 2023 Norfolk Southern train derailment and chemical detonation.
Dixon, who worked for the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health [CTEH], a so-called “independent” third-party contractor—known as the go-to testing company for corporations embroiled in environmental scandals—that Norfolk Southern hired to conduct environmental testing after the company chemically nuked the Rust Belt.
She bravely came forward to reveal she and other environmental testers were pressured to come back with “zeroes” in their air and soil test results.
***WATCH MY VIDEO REPORT ABOVE BREAKING THIS DOWN***
“Zero was the most important number to them,” Dixon revealed. “We were constantly told by CTEH managers, “those zeros are the most important thing.”
More from Dixon’s affidavit:
“They would emphasize that going out there and getting those non-detect readings was critical. They emphasized that we wanted zeros in our reports — zero Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), zero analytes, zero contamination. But zeros didn’t match what we were experiencing on the ground. In reality, zeros weren’t evidence of safety. They were a marketing and liability defense strategy for the client, Norfolk Southern.”
Dixon’s whistleblower testimony reveals:
Norfolk Southern’s testing contractor CTEH pressured workers to produce falsified data to provide sick East Palestine and western Pennsylvania residents a false sense of security that their communities were safe.
Dixon: “When I made the statement to others that it was safe, it was not true,” she testified. “However, at the time I did not know neither the community nor I were unsafe. We were all lied to”. I did not realize that it was a lie until EPA’s results consistently did not match mine in home testing and also when the badges came back the way they did with no detections.”
CTEH falsely reported zero chemical detections in a heavily contaminated creek in which Dixon and other CTEH workers all got sick.
Dixon: “Many of us were literally standing in chemical runoff, stirring it with our boots and tools,
smelling acrid vapors strong enough to make us nauseated. I personally suffered from headaches,
dizziness, vomiting, and chemical odors in my urine, yet the official record claimed that exposures were zero. At that point I no longer believed the data being presented.”
Ash samples collected from several homes after Norfolk Southern chemically detonated five tankers of vinyl chloride were intentionally never sent in for testing because no agency wanted to “own the data.” TRANSLATED: CTEH hid the data because it knew it would be VERY BAD.
Dixon: I was then told that the samples had not been sent to the laboratory for testing. When I asked why, told me, “no one wanted to take responsibility” for the analysis and its potential findings, and that no agency or contractor had agreed to be “responsible for the results.” It was explained that testing the samples would require an entity to “own” the data and any liability associated with it. Therefore, the decision was made that the material would not be analyzed at all. I remember being shocked and disheartened. There were approximately twenty different companies and agencies involved at the time, and not one agreed to send the samples for laboratory analysis. Someone joked that the results would have come back showing “everything,” and group laughter followed the comment. I was then told directly not to mention the ash samples again because “it’s better if people don’t ask about that.” After that, it was as though the incident never happened.
This is…
UNSCONSCIONABLE.
Let’s be clear and unequivocal: a so-called “independent” third party testing contractor falsified, manipulated, and rigged environmental testing for its client—the billion dollar railroad company that unnecessarily chemically nuked an entire region in order to expedite re-opening its train tracks and make money—in order to sweep a chemical mushroom cloud under the rug and lie to sick residents that their testing showed their community was safe and they could go on with their lives…
As they suffered from:
Rare cancers
Seizures
Strokes
Kidney and liver disease
Dizziness
Nausea
Bloody noses
Headaches
Sore throat
Chest pains
Burning eyes
Nose burning
Numb lips and tongue
Diarrhea
Fatigue
Rashes
Sinus infections
Numbness in back of neck
Chloracne
Chemical taste in mouth
Irregular menstrual cycles in women
Forgetfulness
Confusion
Increased anxiety
Just to name SOME of the over 100 symptoms East Palestine and western Pennsylvania residents have experienced in the three-and-a-half years since Norfolk Southern chemically nuked them.
Let’s also be clear and unequivocal: this is a MAJOR CRIME and any and every individual with the EPA, Ohio EPA, CDC, Norfolk Southern, CTEH, CDC, and other agencies that was knowingly involved with manipulating and falsifying data to mislead poisoned Americans that their communities were safe…
Should be criminally investigated, prosecuted, tried, convicted, and locked up for the rest of their lives.
Let also be clear and unequivocal: I’ve been doing investigative and ON-THE-GROUND reporting in poisoned communities and corporate sacrifice zones for a decade—from Flint, Michigan to East Chicago, Indiana to Cape Fear, North Carolina to East Palestine, Ohio to Moss Landing, California.
I say this to tell you—my words can not describe how major this whistleblower is.
Meaning…
GAME CHANGER.
Dixon’s sworn testimony is MASSIVE and confirms what I’ve been reporting for a decade: that the so-called “testing” that is performed by private contractors—on behalf of either the responsible corporate party and/or the government—is part of a sinister playbook in which the federal EPA, state environmental agencies, and private contractors:
Manipulates testing data
Cherry picks testing data
Omit elevated or concerning testing results
Fail to use the proper testing equipment
Intentionally chooses not to use superior testing equipment capable of detecting higher levels of environmental contamination
Falsely tells residents in contaminated communities their testing didn’t finding any “levels of concern.”
Meanwhile, time after time, community after community, sick residents have come to journalists like me, screaming that they are sick, their loved ones are sick, their environment is contaminated, and the government/corporations/and media are covering the whole thing up.
Peggy Dixon just blew the lid off this entire corrupt system endangering the lives of Americans.
I will be continuing to report on this and dig underneath existing layers of the cover up because—make no mistake about it—this does not just effect the resident of East Palestine, Ohio and western Pennsylvania.
These lies, this unholy alliance between our government and corporate America, to mislead sick people after causing them to fall sick—is not just happening to people in Flint or East Palestine. This is a nationwide scandal in which we can simply not trust our government or corporations to honestly warn us if our communities are unsafe chemical cesspools.
Meaning, our government and corporate America is knowingly, and actively, killing people.
Status Coup has reported ON-THE-GROUND in East Palestine, Ohio and western Pennsylvania after the Norfolk Southern train derailment 8 times—risking our own health to show you one of the most sinister and evil corporate environmental crimes of this century. This work is important and takes A LOT of resources to do ON-THE-GROUND. PLEASE SUPPORT Status Coup’s environmental justice journalism for as low as $5 bucks a month.
