https://twitter.com/JBaker_WTOV/status/1625973426325258241?t=8laSUHgGjx-Jy_GyZh386g&s=19
God damn it NBZ, tell them you were just kidding
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That sounds like a load of bullshit citing threats to members of the community. The threat is that they have shitty answers that the members of the community don’t like.
Some of what I say is just prophesy. Things are becoming untenable for some people and it’s only a matter of time before there’s going to be some outlier with seven sigmas of outrage who’s going to do something.
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Typical corporate bullshit
Cliffs on what he’s saying was reckless and greedy on the part of NS, and what was the reckless course of action by DeWine? Been following this very loosely.
Edit: reading the wiki page on this now.
Probably something along these lines:
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Not a smoking gun but not confidence inspriring.
This is super misleading article.
The sampling errors do need to be addressed but the “railroad funded” stuff is just idiotic. Of course the railroad funded it. That’s how it is suppose to work. They hired a consultant (AECOM) to sample and send to an accredited lab on their behalf. This is how it works for every spill that has ever happened anywhere.
We don’t want public money paying for this.
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Agree with clovis. I’ve got quite a bit of experience in this area and it’s standard for the polluter or potential source of pollution to pay for the sampling, testing and remediation if necessary. The government basically comes to us and says we want you to test your soil/water/air for x. We either do the sampling and send it out for testing ourselves or hire a consultant to do the sampling if it’s something we aren’t equipped to do. I actually send regular samples to the analytical company named in the article, not that specific location but one closer to MN.
I’m not super familiar with VOC analytical methods as most of the stuff I deal with is more focused on metals and phosphates/nitrates etc. I’m not sure how big a deal not preserving the samples is in this case but the EPA method does state you’re supposed to preserve to a pH < 2 unless the samples will be tested within 24 hours. As the sampler you better make sure you do it. If I were to submit results that didn’t comply with whatever standard I’m supposed to be testing to I’d expect to hear from the regulatory agency about it and possibility get hit with a little fine or have to re-sample and test again.
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Not only that but the lab will normally refuse to test if the chain of custody or preservation method is in error because their accreditation relies on them following regulations too. I’ve had the lab tell me they cant test tons of samples.
I think in such a public case, for public confidence the government should just do everything for the testing. Bill the company later.
If you are going to publicly say “safe” the everything about the testing should be pristine.
If I was a local municipality Id be sending out samples separately.
You are conflating a few things. Their declaration of safe does seem premature. That’s a political fuck up not a process one. I bet a lot the consultant and lab didn’t state that.
When you have an independent consultant sampling and an independent lab testing that is a an unbiased as you can get. Both are subject to regulation and professional ethical guidelines.
Even if the state did the sampling they would still send it to the same lab. Not to mention it is very common for municipalities not to have professionals qualified for the sampling.
What they should do in a high risk high profile case like this is mandate two consulting firms and two labs independently do the work.
What I am suggesting has everything to do with public perception.
On top of that if-I was local I’d be extra diligent and not totally trusting.
Eurofins had multiple locations (my clients use them all the time). Send it to more than 1.
I don’t disagree with the technical piece of what you say.
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Jinx. I just edited in the same idea at the same time. 
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Hey I’m the guy that would occasionally make up my own standards and submit to my internal analytical department as regular samples.
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All labs actually go though this type of thing regularly. They get tested with known samples. Also often when a client sends samples they send a duplicate to be tested too.