A lawyer for victims of the 9/11 terror attacks is warning residents who were evacuated from East Palestine, Ohio, following a chemical spill not to return to their homes despite the EPA giving the all-clear.
Speaking to Breitbart News, attorney Michael Barasch whose firm represented over 25,000 victims of 9/11 with chronic health conditions, said the EPA’s “air is safe” declaration sent “shivers up his spine.”
Barasch noted despite the EPA claiming the air at Ground Zero was safe, his clients “are dying every single day from 9/11 toxic dust.”
“21 years ago, the government at least had a reason: they wanted to reopen Wall Street,” Barasch stated, comparing the Ohio chemical disaster to 9/11.
Following the train derailment earlier this month, residents nearby have been falling sick, and animals – some even kept indoors – have been dying as the odor of noxious chemicals and plumes of black smoke permeated the region.
“They should have just been honest with people then and said, ‘Look, if you don’t have to be downtown in your office, stay away until the fires go out,’” he said. “And that’s what they should have done here.”
According to Barasch, officials “telling people the air is safe when they don’t really know one way or another” should instead have put out orders to “clear out the area — a 20 mile radius — for two to four weeks and consider it a toxic area until independent scientists can verify that it’s really safe.”
“Otherwise we’re going to see in another twenty years exactly what I’m seeing now — with people developing illnesses and dying from post-9/11 toxic air — only on a lower scale,” the lawyer predicted.
“They can’t” say the air is safe, Barasch noted, adding, “And it’s such a disservice to our communities.”
Barasch added that for him the EPA’s “lost their credibility,” and said the EPA’s lies transcend the right-left paradigm: “it was the Bush EPA that said the air was safe to breathe 21 years ago, [whereas] now its the Biden EPA.”
Rather than give the OK for people to return to their homes, Barasch said clean-up crews should have “erred on the side of extreme conservatism and tell people to stay away.”
“I know it’s going to suck but they have to do that… Otherwise, in 10 or 20 years, you’re gonna see people getting cancer in this area,” the lawyer stated from experience.
Addressing the people of East Palestine, Barasch encouraged them to “stay away and don’t believe the EPA.”
“They don’t deserve to have credibility — not now, they don’t; not after a disaster like this; not when they keep so many other things secret from us,” the lawyer told Breitbart.
“Why do they treat us like children? Just come out and say, ‘Some really bad stuff spilt and we had to create a fire.’”
“[At least] tell everybody the truth: that it’s going to spread the chemicals in the air, miles and miles away,” Barasch said. “Let people know this.”
Barasch said while he’s highly critical of the federal government’s response to the two crises, he’d praise them if they’d “do the right thing.”
“I was very critical of the EPA 21 years ago, but I’m [also] equally complementary of Congress when I said they did the right thing by passing the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, created the World Trade Center Health Program and Victim Compensation Fund, limited non-litigious attorney fees to ten percent, and provided free healthcare for illnesses linked to the toxic exposure,” he said.
Breitbart reports Barasch has been instrumental in getting justice for scores of 9/11 victims injured by toxic dust:
Barasch spearheaded the efforts to reach hundreds of thousands of uninformed 9/11 victims still owed benefits after having suffered from harmful consequences of toxic exposure to post-9/11 World Trade Center dust, noting that “9/11 didn’t end on 9/11” as many individuals continue to suffer as a result of their exposure to harmful toxins.
Statements on the EPA’s website updated as of Sunday, Feb. 19, claim indoor screenings of some 500 people’s homes in East Palestine show “no exceedances for residential air quality standards.”
Likewise, the EPA claims, “The Village of East Palestine’s municipal well water sample results show no water quality concerns,” despite videos showing people finding chemical contamination of nearby creeks.
While it’s somewhat too little too late, FEMA on Friday did say they would provide emergency federal aid to East Palestine, albeit shortly after an announcement by former President Donald Trump that he would soon visit the area.
Meanwhile, lawsuits have begun mounting against the Norfolk Southern rail line, with one complaint claiming, ““Residents exposed to vinyl chloride may already be undergoing DNA mutations that could linger for years or even decades before manifesting as terrible and deadly cancers.”
H/t: Breitbart
Follow the author on Twitter: @adansalazarwins (I’m back!)
Truth Social: @adansalazarwins
Gettr: https://www.gettr.com/user/adansalazarwins
Gab: https://gab.ai/adansalazar
Minds: https://www.minds.com/adan_infowars
Parler: https://parler.com/profile/adansalazar/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/adan.salazar.735
Source: News Wars Rephrased By: InfoArmed