The OILagarchy Strikes Again

"The smoldering fire went on for a few more days and there’s ongoing leaks," chemical tester Scott Smith says about EPA stopping air testing after Louisiana oil plant explosion. Residents are sick.

Three weeks after a massive oil plant explosion in Roseland, Louisiana detonated an oil bomb contaminating rivers as far as 50 miles down river, the EPA is toeing a familiar line.

Nothing to see here, everything is dandy.

The EPA’s cover-up of the latest corporate sacrifice zone comes even as residents in Roseland, and nearby communities, have complained of bloody noses, breathing problems, nausea, headaches, and burning skin. Disturbing videos and photos have found fish dying in oil-soaked river water as well as frogs.

“It’s the same playbook unfortunately, residents come forward; they didn’t have the symptoms before the incident, they’re being dismissed [and being told] everything is fine, PTSD, it’s in your head… you’re the problem, blame the victims, all those narratives are cranking up,” Scott Smith, an independent chemical tester who has conducted multiple soil sample tests following the August 22nd explosion at Smitty’s Supply oil and lubricant plant in Roseland, told Status Coup.

WATCH AND SHARE OUR RECENT INTERVIEW WITH SMITH:

Smith himself experienced health symptoms while chemical testing near the plant.

“You can feel it when you breathe, your lips go numb, you feel the burning on your skin, these residents aren’t making it up, and the bottomline…none of these residents had these symptoms before this.”

Through preliminary soil testing, Smith found elevated levels of barium, manganese, lead, and nickel as far as six miles away from the plant explosion- metals that pose a threat to human health when significantly elevated in the air, soil, or water.

Continuing the growing trend of American communities turned into corporate sacrifice zones, Smith conducted thorough testing, looking for 29 heavy metals, dioxins, and semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCS)—while the EPA only looked for eight. The EPA also haphazardly tested soot that was mixed with water in a ditch—rather than the actual soot that rained over the community from the oil explosion.

“You’re going to get dilution to it and you’re going to miss some things,” Smith told us about the EPA’s testing. “It’s what they did not test for too; they did not test for dioxins, they did not test for the other compounds, and then they declare everything safe.”

As Status Coup exclusively reported, just six days after the massive plant explosion, a nearby school—a little over a mile away re-opened for students—awash in oil. Photos we obtained showed Roseland Montsessori school filled with oil residue and potentially contaminated soot and ash. The residue was on school windows, AC units, fences, street signs, the school roof and parking lot, and other hot spots. We also obtained photos showing students with oil residue on their shoes—likely tracking potentially toxic chemicals back and forth inside and outside the school.

“Yesterday was their first day back back since the explosion at Smitty’s and the scene is horrific,” Jessica Parker, a mother of two students at the school, emailed Tangipahoa Parish School Superintendent Melissa Stilley on September 1st after the first day of school. Parker recounted to Status Coup that when she dropped off her kids on the first day of school, she complained to a staff member that the smell in the parkingklot was “terrible.” In response, the staff member complained they felt nauseous, Parker shared.

When Status Coup asked the EPA why the school was still open, the agency passed the buck:

“Decisions about school closures are made by the school district. Please contact the district and LDEQ for information regarding the basis for this decision.”

When Status Coup pointed out the growing list of serious health issues residents near the plant explosion are suffering from, the agency essentially said…call your doctor and good luck.

“Residents experiencing health problems should contact their personal physician or the Louisiana Poison Center at 800-222-1222.”

When Status Coup asked the EPA what specific chemicals the agency had tested for—and how far away from the plant they were testing, the agency replied:

Under EPA’s statutory authority, EPA’s cleanup objective is to remove all recoverable runoff material from the Smitty’s Supply site, the Tangipahoa River, and nearby impacted areas such as ponds and ditches. EPA is conducting air monitoring for VOCs and benzene, and conducted air monitoring for PM2.5 until September 2. PM2.5 monitoring was set up to monitor particulates coming from the facility fire. Once the fire was contained, this monitoring was no longer needed.

Smith blasted the agency’s response as “nonsense.”

“It’s the same disingenuous nonsense that’s meaningless. First of all, the smoldering fire went on for a few more days. There’s ongoing leaks, I saw it…there are ponds full of fresh oil and they should be air monitoring,” he told Status Coup.

The EPA also justified essentially giving the “all clear” for residents to return to their homes—and school children to learn in a building flooded with oil residue and a horrible smell—by citing CTEH, the independent testing contractor Smitty’s Supply has contracted to do chemical testing…

The same chemical testing company that multiple news outlets have reported on regarding conflicts of interest and accusations of it cherry-picking and manipulating data to satisfy its corporate clients’ desire to minimize the damage.

From the New York Times on CTEH following the 2010 Louisiana BP oil spill:

After a million gallons of oil spilled on a Louisiana town in 2005, after a flood of toxic coal ash smothered central Tennessee in 2008 and after defective Chinese drywall began plaguing Florida homeowners, the same firm was on the scene -- saying everything was fine.

Now that the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health (CTEH) has a high-profile role in the Gulf spill, local community groups and other chemical testing veterans see a troubling pattern at work. As BP continues to claim that the leaking oil has caused "no significant exposures," despite the hospitalization of several workers and the sparse release of test data, these observers of CTEH's work say the firm has a vested interest in finding a clean bill of health to satisfy its corporate employer.

"It's essentially the fox guarding the chicken coop," said Nicholas Cheremisinoff, a former Exxon chemical engineer who now consults on pollution prevention.

CTEH was also used by Norfolk Southern after the multi-billion dollar railroad unnecessarily—and based on my reporting—illegally blew up five tanker cars filled with highly toxic and cancer-causing vinyl chloride.

Unsurprisingly, CTEH’s testing found…nothing to see here. Of course, multiple independent chemical testers, including Smith, found alarming levels of dioxins and other harmful cancer-causing chemicals in the air, soil, and water in East Palestine and nearby western Pennsylvania.

And tragically, yet unsurprisingly, over two years after the East Palestine derailment and chemical detonation, Status Coup is now learning disturbing accounts of new cancer diagnoses in East Palestine and western PA strickening previously healthy residents. For these residents, they had no previous family history of having the cancers they’ve been diagnosed with (including a man who was diagnosed with double breast cancer—which is very rare in men but not uncommon when exposed to high levels of vinyl chloride).

Status Coup will continue to report on the aftermath—and apparent corporate chemical cover-up—of the Louisiana oil plant explosion. If you live in Roseland or nearby and have been effected, please email us at info@statuscoup.com

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