By Renee Hickman

April 17 (Reuters) – A whistleblower organization filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday, alleging that the government agency improperly withheld records about food supply contamination by toxic chemicals tied to a train derailment in Ohio in 2023. 

The nonprofit Government Accountability Project, which filed the lawsuit in the District of Columbia, also published a report saying records it obtained through a FOIA request indicated USDA officials knew toxic chemicals could contaminate the food supply near the disaster in East Palestine, a village on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.

Despite that, the Environmental Protection Agency failed to conduct targeted testing for dioxins, a toxic chemical, in garden produce, meat, eggs, or wild game, the group alleged.A USDA spokesperson declined to comment citing pending litigation.

On February 3, 2023, a train operated by Norfolk Southern Railway heading from Illinois to Pennsylvania derailed, setting off a huge fire that forced the evacuation of hundreds of nearby homes. Railroad crews then drained and burned off a toxic chemical cargo from five rail cars in the wreck.

   The EPA said then that its tests of drinking water and air inside homes near the wreck did not show any contamination.         

But experts voiced concerns about possible contamination of the region’s agricultural land by dioxins, a carcinogenic byproduct of the controlled burn by railroad crews.           Lesley Pacey, the Government Accountability Project’s senior environmental advisor, said in an interview on Friday that the USDA records the group obtained were heavily redacted and some documents were withheld. The lawsuit seeks to release those documents.  But Pacey said what was produced by the agency “shows that internally they were recognizing that there were contamination pathways that were very realistic and concerning.”

Nonetheless, Pacey said the agency did not follow through with comprehensive testing or communicate the risks to residents.        

(Reporting by Renee Hickman; Editing by Alistair Bell)

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