Railroad is firm in refusing to give bridge information to local governments
Published 4:06 pm Sunday, September 13, 2015
MILWAUKEE — Despite urging from a federal agency that railroads hand over more information on safety conditions of bridges, a carrier moving Bakken crude oil through Milwaukee says it doesn’t plan to provide such details.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., distributed a letter from Sarah Feinberg, acting administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, in which the regulator urged railroad carriers to provide more information to municipalities on the safety status of bridges. Milwaukee officials have complained about the lack of information on the structural integrity of railroad bridges used by Canadian Pacific in the city.
“When a local leader or elected official asks a railroad about the safety status of a railroad bridge, they deserve a timely and transparent response,” Feinberg wrote. “I urge you to engage more directly with local leaders and provide more timely information to assure the community that the bridges in their communities are safe and structurally sound.”
“CP’s position has not changed,” said Andy Cummings, a spokesman for the company. “It is our policy to work directly with the Federal Railroad Administration, which is our regulator, on any concerns they have with our infrastructure.”
Communities along rail corridors used by railroads shipping of oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota are worried about the bridges.
Those worries have been exacerbated by tanker accidents. The most notable is the July 2013 derailment of tankers that killed 47 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. The tankers had been routed through Milwaukee before the accident.
On March 5, a BNSF Railway train derailed and caught fire near Galena, Illinois, after leaving Wisconsin. Twenty-one tankers derailed.
In Milwaukee, one bridge in question is a 300-foot-long structure, known as a steel stringer bridge. It was built in 1919, according to Bridgehunter.com, which keeps a database of historic bridges.
Canadian Pacific said on Sept. 1 that it would encase 13 of the bridge’s steel columns with concrete to prevent further corrosion and to extend the life of the columns. The carrier said last week that a protective layer of concrete will be applied late this month.
Since last spring, neighbors had expressed worries about the integrity of the bridge, and since July city officials have sought details on the condition of the bridge.
On Sunday, a flotilla of kayaks and canoes paddled at the confluence of the Milwaukee and Menomonee rivers to underscore the connection between trains and the city’s waterways.
Bridges must be inspected annually by railroads. But railroads are not required to submit the information to the federal agency. Railroads also are not required to make the information available to the public.
Nationally, trains carrying crude oil in the United States have jumped from 10,840 carloads in 2009 to 233,698 in 2012 to 493,127 in 2014, according to the Association of American Railroads.
