And I would very strongly doubt the word of a People Team member as the conclusive evidence of any lying.
People Team are there to reduce the liability for the company, the company in this case are the very company in question for alleged environmental issues.
What actually happens vs what a trained People Team member knows to document are seldom the same thing, and people on the receiving end of the consequences of this seldom have their full wits about them at the time and are almost never lawyered up at that time.
If you had other receipts I'm sure people might consider them, but if your main gripe is based on what a People Team / HR person says... yeah, that's not conclusive either.
The one party I would trust most here are the EPA, and the author didn't fabricate (pun intended) the reports made by them.