As everyone knows, the past couple of years have had more train derailments and crude oil spills than at any previous time in recent history. More crude oil was spilled from rail cars in 2013 than in the previous four decades combined, and 2014 was equally bad. Transporting crude oil by rail has caused many explosions, fires and deaths.
Last year the U.S. Department of Transportation put some rules in place that were intended to make the crude oil trains safe. Some of the “rules” were to be followed voluntarily by the railroad companies. Requiring slower speed limits, for instance, in sensitive and high population areas. But a new kind of tank car was looked on as having great potential to keep towns and people safe from the fiery explosions that occur all too often when a crude oil train has an accident! The cars were to replace the older ones that easily rupture in a derailment. The new CPC-1232 cars have thicker ends so they are less likely to rupture, and they have better valves on the top to control pressure. The railroads were quick to tell the public that the new cars would make transport of crude oil safe, in fact no more dangerous than, say, canola oil.
So tell me then, how did a train made up of the new CPC-1232 cars and traveling at in-town speeds, manage to derail, rupture and spill flaming crude oil into Virginia’s James River? And why, in January 2015, did a train of CPC-1232 cars carrying crude oil from the Bakken field have to leave behind a car in Idaho when it was discovered to be leaking oil? When the train made it to Vancouver, they found another seven leaking cars. They had to be left behind! The train then traveled northward toward Anacortes, and in Auburn another six cars were also found to be leaking and had to be left behind! The train continued its leaking way to Anacortes!
I don’t know about you, but I fail to see how the new cars make crude by rail safe! Safe for what? Safe for who? Safe for fish? Safe for kids on the school playground? Crude oil trains are unsafe at any speed, and the trains filled with Bakken crude oil are the most dangerous of all! We should not let crude by oil come to our harbor!
Jude Armstrong
Hoquiam
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