• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
EXCLUSIVE: Hydrogen is Up, Pieridae is Out as German Chancellor Preps for Canada Visit August 15, 2022
Historic Climate Bill Passes U.S. House, Goes to Biden for Signature August 15, 2022
BREAKING: U.S. Senate Passes Historic $369B Climate Package August 7, 2022
Researchers Point To ‘Dangerously Unexplored’ Risk of Global Climate Catastrophe August 2, 2022
Koch Network Pressures Manchin, Sinema as Advocates Praise ‘Game Changing’ Climate Deal August 2, 2022
Next
Prev

Railroad Plays ‘Second Round of Russian Roulette’ After Oregon Oil Train Derails

June 10, 2016
Reading time: 3 minutes

Coast Guard PFC Levi Read/wikimedia commons

Coast Guard PFC Levi Read/wikimedia commons

 
Coast Guard PFC Levi Read/wikimedia commons
Coast Guard PFC Levi Read/wikimedia commons

The town of Mosier, Oregon caught a break last week when a Union Pacific train carrying oil from North Dakota’s Bakken field derailed and caught fire near a school and 50 homes.

Residents were evacuated, and an oil spill polluted the Columbia River, a source of irrigation water for thousands of farms and drinking water for riverside communities. But “the troubling aspect of the Mosier accident is that it was pretty much the best case scenario for oil train safety,” DeSmog Blog reports, in a post republished on Resilience.org.

“The train ‘wasn’t going too fast’, the tank cars were the ‘best’ of the group of existing cars that are scheduled for retrofits to improve safety, the oil had been ‘conditioned’ as per North Dakota regulations to supposedly make it less dangerous before it was put in the tank cars, the tracks had recently been inspected and defects had been fixed.” And “about a month ago, there had been an oil train safety training exercise involving two railroads and local first responders at this very location in Mosier,” DeSmog writes.

“And yet, with everything possible going right in Mosier, a train derailed and the Bakken oil provided its signature explosions and fires.”

Local reaction was swift and furious. “Mosier really dodged a bullet in the last 24 hours,” said local fire chief Jim Appleton. “I hope that this becomes the death knell for this mode of shipping this cargo. I think it’s insane.”

“I’ve been very hesitant to take a side up to now,” Appleton added. “But with this incident, and with all due respect to the wonderful people I’ve met at Union Pacific, shareholder value doesn’t outweigh the lives and happiness of our community.”

Union Pacific may not have caught up with that sentiment, however. “Mosier city officials quickly passed an emergency motion calling on Union Pacific to remove all oil from the damaged cars before the line was reopened, but Union Pacific just pushed the disabled cars to the side of the track and restarted operations,” Grist reported Monday.

“Restarting trains before the high-risk carnage of their last accident is even cleared from the tracks is telling Mosier they are going to play a second round of Russian roulette with our town,” said Mayor Arlene Burns.

“We feel it’s still unsafe for trains of any kind to come through the area when these oil bombs are sitting on our front steps,” she later told The Oregonian.

Later that day, the railroad announced a temporary suspension of oil trains through the Columbia River Gorge. “We do not intend to run crude oil unit trains and will inform the community of when we intend to resume operations,” said spokesperson Justin Jacobs.

But “the company’s announcement leaves open the possibility that crude oil will continue moving in what are called mixed-manifest trains—those that haul a few tank cars of oil interspersed with other commodities,” The Oregonian explains. “A ‘unit train’ of oil, the wording the railroad used in describing the shipments it was temporarily halting, carries only crude. Those trains can move more than three million gallons of oil apiece and stretch longer than a mile.”

Minutes before the Union Pacific statement, Governor Kate Brown, U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, and Representatives Earl Blumenauer and Suzanne Bonamici had called for a temporary moratorium. “A train full of toxic crude oil derailing, burning, and exploding near homes, schools, and businesses is a worst fear realized for people who live in Mosier and in other communities along the tracks throughout the Gorge,” they said. “They deserve to know that the causes of this derailment have been both identified and fixed, and there should be a moratorium on oil train traffic until they get those explanations and assurances.”

On Tuesday, the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration said the train had met government standards limiting vapour pressure inside the tanks, reports the North Dakota Bismarck Tribune. Union Pacific’s Jacobs said there were early indications the derailment had been triggered by “an unusual failure with a fastener that connects the railroad tie to the rail.”



in Cities & Communities, Climate & Society, Demand & Distribution, Fossil Fuels, Health & Safety, Jurisdictions, Pipelines / Rail Transport, Shale & Fracking, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Suncor Energy Plant_Max and Dee Bernt:Flickr
Ending Emissions

Fossils Would ‘Bust the Paris Agreement’ with Inadequate Decarbonization Plans

August 18, 2022
2
Ken Hodge/Flickr
Oil & Gas

No Path for Canadian LNG Exports to Europe, IISD Analysis Concludes

August 18, 2022
3
Steve Jurvetson/flickr
International Security & War

The Other Kind of Climate Change: Even a ‘Limited’ Nuclear War Would Trigger Starvation, Kill Billions

August 18, 2022
75

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Brocken Inaglory/wikimedia commons

State-Wide Megastorm Driven by Global Heating Could Drench California for a Month

August 15, 2022
1.1k
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coal_Carbon_Capture_Technology_In_Use.png

Carbon Capture a ‘Dangerous Distraction’, 500 Organizations Warn Canada, U.S.

July 23, 2021
617
TGEGASENGINEERING/Wikimedia Commons

EXCLUSIVE: Hydrogen is Up, Pieridae is Out as German Chancellor Preps for Canada Visit

August 15, 2022
1.1k
Vinaykumar8687/WikimediaCommons

Solar On Track for ‘Staggering’ 30% Growth This Year

August 15, 2022
315
Early stages of construction on the Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor in France

Failing French Nuclear Plants Drive Up Electricity Costs as Heat Waves Cut Production

August 14, 2022
753
rawpixel

Common Medications Foil Body’s Ability to Cope with Hot Weather

August 15, 2022
205

Recent Posts

Suncor Energy Plant_Max and Dee Bernt:Flickr

Fossils Would ‘Bust the Paris Agreement’ with Inadequate Decarbonization Plans

August 18, 2022
2
Ken Hodge/Flickr

No Path for Canadian LNG Exports to Europe, IISD Analysis Concludes

August 18, 2022
3
Steve Jurvetson/flickr

The Other Kind of Climate Change: Even a ‘Limited’ Nuclear War Would Trigger Starvation, Kill Billions

August 18, 2022
75
kris krüg/flickr

Guilbeault Considering Alternatives to Releasing Toxic Tailings into Athabasca River

August 18, 2022
2
Ford F-150 LIghtning

U.S. Utility Plans to Draw Power from Ford Electric Pickups

August 18, 2022
2
power pylons sunrise grid

Midwestern U.S. Grid Investment Supports Massive Increase in Renewables

August 18, 2022
3
Next Post
Natural exploitation of sunlight by maple leaves is only a tenth as effective as the new artificial variety. Image: Martin LaBar via Flickr

Bionic leaf can fuel energy revolution

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}