DAYTON — Ohio Senator J.D. Vance says he wants to get to the bottom of what led to what he’s calling a “huge mistake” after the hazmat derailment in East Palestine.
On Thursday, News Center 7′s John Bedell spoke to Vance for the first time since his exchange with the Nation Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chairwoman last week during her congressional testimony.
>> PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Controlled burn after East Palestine toxic train derailment found to be ‘unnecessary’
“The really troubling thing that came out of her testimony, but also, the National Transportation Safety Board report, is that what happened in East Palestine was probably unnecessary,” Vance said.
It’s the testimony that was hard to hear for people in the northeast Ohio town.
“Whether or not this was information that was accidentally or intentionally withheld, this now feels like a crime,” Jessica Conard, of East Palestine, said.
Conard and Misti Allison have spent much of the last year lobbying for their community.
NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy testified the controlled burn was not necessary to stop something catastrophic from happening because temperatures inside the rail cars were not increasing as was feared. Instead, she said they were cooling.
Homendy added the shippers, Oxy Vinyls, in charge of the rail cars said the temperatures were too low to cause an explosion but were left out of the room when the decision was made to go with the controlled burn.
“That was a huge mistake. What we don’t know is why they weren’t in the room, why they weren’t welcomed into that decision-making process,” Vance said.
>> RELATED: State responds to NTSB testimony saying East Palestine controlled burn was unnecessary
Governor Mike DeWine’s office previously released the following statement on the testimony:
“NTSB Chair Homendy testified (last week) that neither Governor DeWine nor incident command were ever presented with a scenario from experts that a controlled vent and release was unnecessary to prevent a catastrophic explosion. They were also not presented any scenario where, if officials did nothing, the train cars would not explode catastrophically. Governor DeWine spent hours with incident command and Norfolk Southern contractors on the day of the release and asked numerous questions to understand the facts. No one—not one single expert—opined that day about there being any other scenario occurring besides either a catastrophic explosion or a controlled release to prevent such an explosion.”
We also reached out to Norfolk Southern about the testimony again on Thursday. They referred us to the statement they released last week, which said:
“The final decision to conduct a controlled release was made by the Incident Commander, with input from multiple stakeholders, including Norfolk Southern and local, state, and federal authorities. The top priority of everyone involved was the safety of the community, as well as limiting the impact of the incident. The successful controlled release prevented a potentially catastrophic uncontrolled explosion that could have caused significant damage for the community. To date, continuous environmental testing in coordination with and alongside US and Ohio EPA has shown the air and drinking water in the community are safe.”
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