This aerial view provided
by the Washington State Department of Ecology shows containment booms
that have been placed around an oil slick on the surface of the Columbia
River Saturday, June 4, 2016, after an oil tanker train derailed and
burned near Mosier, Ore., Friday. (Washington Department of Ecology via
AP)
SEATTLE—Environmental crews worked Saturday to contain a
sheen of oil that appeared in the Columbia River along the
Washington-Oregon border after a Union Pacific train derailed and caught
fire, but officials said there was no immediate indication of harm to
wildlife.
Sixteen of the 96 tank cars on the train derailed Friday near Mosier,
Oregon, about 70 miles east of Portland. Four burned, sending a thick
plume of black smoke into the sky before firefighters were able to
extinguish the flames a little after 2 a.m. Saturday.
No injuries were reported.
This
aerial view provided by the Washington State Department of Ecology
shows scattered and burned oil tank cars, Saturday, June 4, 2016, after
the train derailed and burned near Mosier, Ore., Friday. (Washington
Department of Ecology via AP)
There was no immediate word on the cause of the derailment, which
forced the evacuation of about 100 people from a nearby mobile home
park, as the site remained too hot to examine. Officials said they would
consider lifting the evacuation order Saturday evening.
“I want to apologize to the community,” Union Pacific spokeswoman
Raquel Espinoza said at a news conference, adding that the company would
pick up the tab for the response costs. “This is the type of accident
we work to prevent every day.”
The derailment, in the scenic Columbia River Gorge, manifested the
fears of environmentalists who have long argued against shipping oil by
rail — especially through populated areas or along a river that’s a hub
of recreation and commerce. The tank cars were carrying especially
volatile crude from the Northern Plains’ Bakken region, which has a
higher gas content and vapor pressure than other types of oil.
This
photo provided by the Washington State Department of Ecology shows
containment booms that have been placed around an oil slick on the
surface of the Columbia River, Saturday, June 4, 2016, after an oil
tanker train derailed and burned near Mosier, Ore., Friday. (Washington
Department of Ecology via AP)
Opponents rallied in nearby Hood River, Oregon, on Saturday to call for a halt to the practice.
“Moving oil by rail constantly puts our communities and environment
at risk,” said Jared Margolis, an attorney at the Center for Biological
Diversity in Eugene, Oregon.
At first light Saturday, crews noticed a light sheen in the Columbia
at the mouth of Rock Creek. Responders deployed about 1,000 feet of boom
to contain it. It wasn’t clear how much oil had spilled from the
trains.
By Saturday afternoon, three of the cars had been re-railed. Crews
had been waiting for the cars to cool before transferring the oil into
tank trucks.
Union Pacific officials said Saturday the company had inspected the
section of track where the derailment occurred at least six times since
March 21. It was most recently checked last Tuesday, and within the past
month, the company had used checked for imperfections and inspected the
ground along the track.
In
this photo provided by Silas Bleakley, tank cars, carrying oil, are
derailed Friday, June 3, 2016, near Mosier, Ore. (Silas Bleakley via AP)
To get to refineries on the East and West coasts and the Gulf of
Mexico, oil trains move through more than 400 counties, including major
metropolitan areas such as Philadelphia; Seattle; Chicago; Newark, New
Jersey; and dozens of other cities, according to railroad disclosures
filed with regulators.
Including Friday’s incident, 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 derailment 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. Of those, eight
resulted in fires.
Since last spring, North Dakota regulators have required companies to
treat oil before it’s shipped by rail to make it less combustible.
Reducing the explosiveness of the crude moved by rail was not
supposed to be a cure-all to prevent accidents. Department of
Transportation rules imposed last year require companies to use stronger
tank cars that are better able to withstand derailments.
The tank cars that derailed in Oregon were newer model CPC-1232s, said Union Pacific spokesman Justin Jacobs.
Critics say the upgraded models still aren’t safe enough to transport volatile Bakken oil.
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