Sunday, March 08, 2015

Following up an oil train spill

On Friday I wrote about another oil spill from a train. It seemed to be relatively minor. But further work by the EPA found that the spill was an “imminent and substantial danger” of contaminating the Mississippi River, as it contained 630,000 gallons of crude oil. Plus, it threatens the Galena River, a tributary of the Mississippi, and the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, one of the most complex ecosystems in North America.

I'll take this occasion to report another oil train spill. This one was in Ontario, Canada on Saturday.

Previous oil spills had been attributed to older tank cars, the DOT-111 specifically.  However the new tank cars, the CPC-1232, which are supposed to be safer than previous ones, have failed in at least four derailments this year and at least two in 2014.

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