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Wednesday, June 8, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Critics: River route no place for oil trains after crash
By gillian Flaccus
Associated Press
PORTLAND (AP) — A
fiery oil-train derailment in
Oregon’s scenic Columbia
River Gorge drew immediate
reaction from environmental-
ists who said oil should not
be transported by rail, par-
ticularly along a river that
is a hub of recreation and
commerce.
At least 11 cars derailed
Friday in the 96-car Union
Pacific train and the com-
pany said several caught
fire. The crash released oil
alongside tracks that paral-
lel the Columbia River and
sent a plume of black smoke
high into the sky that spurred
evacuations and road closures
No injuries were reported.
All the cars were carry-
ing Bakken oil, a type of oil
that is more flammable than
other varieties because it
has a higher gas content and
vapor pressure and lower
flash point.
“Moving oil by rail con-
stantly puts our communities
and environment at risk,” said
Jared Margolis, an attorney
at the Center for Biological
Diversity in Eugene, Oregon.
It wasn’t immediately
clear if oil had seeped into
the river or what had caused
the derailment. Aaron Hunt,
a spokesman for the rail-
road, did not know how fast
the train was traveling at
the time, but witnesses said
it was going slowly as it
passed the town of Mosier,
Oregon, about 70 miles east
of Portland.
Response teams were
using a drone to assess the
damage, said Katherine
Santini, a spokeswoman with
the U.S. Forest Service.
Crews were continuing to
suppress the fire, which they
expected to do overnight.
Gov. Kate Brown activated
additional state resources in-
cluding water tenders and the
coordination efforts of the
Oregon State Fire Marshal to
assist firefighters at the scene.
Officials in Mosier closed
about 23 miles of Interstate
84 and evacuated the area im-
mediately around the spill, in-
cluding 50 mobile homes and
200 school children who were
picked up by their parents.
Residents in Mosier were
issued notices to boil their
water until further notice due
to a loss of water pressure,
potentially allowing harmful
bacteria to get into the water
supply.
Silas Bleakley was work-
ing at his restaurant in Mosier
when the train derailed.
“You could feel it through
the ground. It was more of
a feeling than a noise,” he
told The Associated Press
as smoke billowed from the
tankers.
Bleakley said he went
outside, saw the smoke, got
in his truck and drove about
2,000 feet to a bridge that
crosses the railroad tracks.
There, he said he saw
tanker cars “accordioned”
across the tracks.
Another witness, Brian
Shurton, was watching the
train as it passed by the town
when he heard a tremendous
noise.
“All of a sudden, I heard
‘Bang! Bang! Bang!’ like
dominoes,” he told The
Associated Press.
He also drove to the over-
pass and saw the cars flipped
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over before a fire started and
he called 911.
“The train wasn’t going
very fast. It would have been
worse if it had been faster,”
said Shurton, who runs a
wind-surfing business in
nearby Hood River.
Matt Lehner, a spokesman
from the Federal Railroad
Administration, said a team
of investigators had arrived
at the scene from Vancouver,
Washington.
Union Pacific said 11 cars
had derailed, but a spokesman
from the Oregon Department
of Forestry, which helped
extinguish the blaze, said 12
cars had been involved. The
discrepancy could not imme-
diately be resolved.
Including Friday’s ac-
cident, at least 26 oil trains
have been involved in major
fires or derailments during
the past decade in the U.S.
and Canada, according to
Associated Press analysis of
accident records from the two
countries.
The worst was a 2013 de-
railment that killed 47 people
in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.
Damage from that accident
has been estimated at $1.2
billion or higher.
At least 12 of the oil trains
that derailed over the past
decade were carrying crude
from the Northern Plains’
Bakken region — fuel that is
known for being highly vola-
tile. Of those, eight resulted
in fires.
Associated Press Writers
Matthew Brown in Billings,
Montana; Steven Dubois
in Portland, Oregon, Lisa
Baumann in Seattle and Alina
Hartounian in Phoenix con-
tributed to this report.