Whistleblower alleges contractor hid East Palestine contamination findings

CTEH denies allegations as EPA inspector general reviews response

A former environmental scientist who responded to Norfolk Southern’s 2023 East Palestine, Ohio train derailment alleged in a 97-page affidavit filed Wednesday that her employer, contractor CTEH, pressured workers to underreport contamination findings, concealed animal deaths, and used improperly calibrated testing equipment.

The affidavit by Peggy Dixon was filed with the EPA’s Office of Inspector General by the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower advocacy organization. “They emphasized that we wanted zeros in our reports,” Dixon wrote. “But zeros didn’t match what we were experiencing on the ground.”

Dixon worked for the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, a consulting firm that has responded to thousands of industrial accidents and natural disasters on behalf of corporations and governments. As one of the contractors Norfolk Southern hired, it worked with the EPA to develop testing plans in East Palestine. The fiery crash led to one of the worst U.S. chemical disasters in recent years, with the intentional burning of vinyl chloride in derailed tanker cars sending a cloud over the town of 4,500 people. Dixon was deployed two days after the derailment and remained for nearly three months. As an “environmental rapid responder,” she tested air in homes and other sites for volatile organic compounds and other contaminants, returning again in 2024 and 2025.

In her affidavit, Dixon alleged that CTEH managers improperly calibrated testing equipment, questioned results showing elevated contamination, and took equipment that recorded contamination out of use. “In my view, we were using improperly calibrated, sometimes faulty, and fundamentally insensitive equipment to monitor areas with known chemical hazards,” Dixon said. She alleged that managers omitted some elevated chemical readings from testing reports and told workers who produced too many detections that they would be sent home. In homes, she said, managers instructed workers to attribute chemical readings to running vehicles, freshly cut grass, and household items such as candles and pet waste.

In one incident, Dixon said she registered volatile organic compounds at 2 parts per million inside a home sitting above a creek — well above the level that triggered response teams to investigate and take action. A manager suggested her equipment might be malfunctioning or needed to be recalibrated, cleaned, or swapped out, but Dixon said she insisted on filing a report anyway. In another instance, she said she recorded a high VOC reading at a manufacturing plant next to the derailment site, a smell that sickened response workers who had to take breaks outside. A manager attributed the readings to a paint-thinner spill, but Dixon said she also found high readings 400 yards away. “The data was presented in a way that downplayed the risk to deflect responsibility,” Dixon said. “That was a turning point for me. I realized this wasn’t about public safety — it was about liability.”

CTEH denied the allegations. The company said employees are never instructed to falsify data or report “zeros,” that no data is omitted from reports, and that equipment is properly calibrated. Employees were instructed not to handle animals but to notify a team leader if any were found, the company said. “Our role is to provide accurate, objective scientific data, and we stand behind the integrity of our work,” said Paul Nony, the company’s principal toxicologist. EPA contractors typically worked alongside CTEH employees and compared readings, he said. CTEH also said it rejected any suggestion that its practices are intended to hide or minimize detections. “No employee is ever instructed to falsify, alter, or suppress data,” the company said. Nony acknowledged that VOC readings can be influenced by sources such as paint thinner, burning candles, and vehicle exhaust, and by factors such as wind direction. “Detecting VOCs 400 yards from a potential source is feasible depending on the source,” Nony said.

Dixon also alleged that CTEH told workers to conceal animal carcasses found near creeks and in woods. She said she saw more than two dozen dead animals, including raccoons and beavers. She began taking photographs and screenshots of text messages about air-quality readings, some of which are included with her affidavit. CTEH, which was acquired in 2020 by Montrose Environmental, was renamed Onterris in April.

The Government Accountability Project, a group that collaborates with whistleblowers and has obtained other findings critical of the cleanup through Freedom of Information Act requests and other whistleblowers, filed Dixon’s affidavit Wednesday as part of its push for further investigation. “Her disclosure demands hard scrutiny of a system in which EPA leans on contractors selected and paid by the responsible party to measure that party’s own contamination,” said Lesley Pacey, the group’s senior environmental officer. Last month, following separate allegations, Vance and Zeldin asked the EPA’s Office of Inspector General to investigate how the Biden administration and private entities handled the disaster.

The EPA did not respond to a request for comment on Dixon’s allegations. The agency has previously said it collected over 28,000 air samples and found no ongoing exposure in East Palestine from contaminants released by the derailment and cleanup. “We have a rigorous quality assurance process in place to post final, validated data and are confident in our methodologies,” EPA spokesman Mike Bastasch told the Wall Street Journal last month. Norfolk Southern referred questions to CTEH.

East Palestine residents have also questioned CTEH’s practices. According to a recording reviewed by the Journal, a former EPA on-scene coordinator said in a 2024 conversation with a resident that CTEH and another contractor “softened” conclusions. “Their data is good. Their interpretation of their data is in their client’s best interests,” the official said, according to the recording. The Government Accountability Project previously sent the recording to the EPA’s Inspector General.

Environmentalists and others have accused CTEH of minimizing contamination after other high-profile disasters, including the 2008 Tennessee Valley Authority coal-ash spill and the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. CTEH said its testing in both accidents was accurate. More recently, in Moss Landing, California, where a 2025 lithium-ion battery plant fire flared up this month, residents criticized CTEH’s air-monitoring findings from last year that found no hazardous levels of chemicals or threat to public health. Dixon, who worked in Moss Landing in early 2025, said in her affidavit that air testing there did not include an adequate range of contaminants or indoor air sampling, even though residents had been told to shelter in place. Brian Roeder, a co-founder of Never Again Moss Landing, a citizen group, said he believes CTEH has played down the severity of the accident. “I have zero confidence in CTEH’s sampling,” Roeder said. CTEH said its Moss Landing testing plan was approved by the EPA and that it has provided accurate data responding to disasters for more than 25 years.

Dixon, who worked for CTEH from 2021 through March, said she and others who worked in East Palestine’s contaminated creeks developed symptoms including dizziness and rashes. CTEH and EPA officials blamed elevated chemical readings on legacy pollution, according to Dixon’s affidavit. Nony said CTEH would never knowingly put employees or anyone else “in harm’s way by misrepresenting environmental conditions.” “Early on, some families seemed mildly symptomatic, complaining of headaches, scratchy throats and sinus issues. But as the weeks passed, symptoms grew worse. By the middle of March, families I visited were clearly more ill than they had been in February,” Dixon said. She said she still suffers from physical symptoms, which she attributes to her time in East Palestine. “Based on my knowledge and everything I saw and experienced, East Palestine has always been more polluted and contaminated than what the EPA ever stated,” Dixon told the Wall Street Journal. “It has always been more dangerous than what the reports from CTEH stated.”