LYNCHBURG, Va. (AP) — Virginia state officials were still trying Thursday to determine the environmental impact of a train derailment that plunged oil-carrying tanker cars into the James River in downtown Lynchburg.
Department of Environmental Quality spokesman Bill Hayden said Thursday morning that state workers smelled oil downstream from the derailment site during a night-time survey. He said daylight would offer state officials are better look at what the potential environmental damage is from the Wednesday derailment.
CSX crews and heavy equipment contractors were on the scene Thursday trying to quickly clean up and clear what city officials described as more than a dozen derailed train cars, some carrying crude oil. Two cranes were lifting either end of derailed cars and moving them to a new track.
A few train cars caught fire Wednesday, with three tanker cars ending up in the water and leaking some of their contents. It was the latest in a string of crashes involving oil trains that has safety experts pushing for better oversight.
Nearby buildings were evacuated for a time, but officials said there were no injuries. Online photos and videos showed large flames and thick, black smoke right after the crash.
“You could feel the heat like you were standing by a campfire,” said Nicole Gibs, a waitress who was working at a restaurant close to where the derailment occurred . “It was hot.”
Lynchburg city manager Kimball Payne said about 50,000 gallons of oil were missing from the tankers, but fire officials were unsure how much had burned up and how much had spilled into the water. Those estimates are based on thermal imaging done of the three tankers that were partially in river. Each car holds 30,000 gallons of oil, Payne said.
City spokeswoman JoAnn Martin said there’s no impact to the water supply for Lynchburg’s 77,000 residents because it only sources from the James in times of drought.
Still, drinking water was the first concern for Lynchburg man Mark Lindy, a network engineer who came with his son, Zach, to look at the accident scene. He said he planned to buy a week’s worth of water for his family just to be safe.
“I’m not drinking tap water, that’s for sure,” he said.
CSX said it is “responding fully, with emergency response personnel, safety and environmental experts, community support teams and other resources.”
Concern about the safety of oil trains was heightened last July when a runaway oil train derailed and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, near the Maine border. Forty-seven people died and 30 buildings were incinerated. Canadian investigators said the combustibility of the 1.3 million gallons of light, sweet Bakken crude released in Lac-Megantic was comparable to gasoline.
“This is another national wake-up call,” said Jim Hall, a former NTSB chairman said of the Lynchburg crash. “We have these oil trains moving all across the United States through communities and the growth and distribution of this has all occurred, unfortunately, while the federal regulators have been asleep.”
“This is just an area in which the federal rulemaking process is too slow to protect the American people,” he said.
There have been eight significant oil train accidents in the U.S. and Canada in the past year involving trains hauling crude oil, including several that resulted in spectacular fires, according to the safety board.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it is sending investigators, as is the Federal Railroad Administration.
Grady Cothen, a former Federal Railroad Administration official, said given the recent wet weather in Virginia and the accident’s location near a river, it’s possible that soft subsoil may have weakened the track, Cothen speculated.
Railroads “try to catch that before it gets out of hand,” but aren’t always successful, he said.
As for oil train safety problems, in one of her last acts before leaving office last week, outgoing National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman warned the Obama administration that it needs to take steps immediately to protect the public from potentially catastrophic accidents even if it means using emergency authority.
The safety board has long recommended that the Department of Transportation toughen its design standard for the kind of rail tank cars used to transport crude oil and ethanol. The cars are too easily punctured or ruptured, even in low-speed accidents. Their flammable contents are then spilled, fouling the environment and often igniting.
“We are very clear that this issue needs to be acted on very quickly,” Hersman told reporters at the conclusion of a two-day forum the board held on the safety of rail transport of oil and ethanol.
In 2011, the oil, ethanol and railroad industries agreed to toughen standards for rail cars known as DOT-111s, which are the kind of tank cars used to transport most flammable liquids. However, since then, there have been several accidents in which cars built to the new standards ruptured. NTSB officials have said the voluntary standards don’t go far enough.
It’s most likely the tank cars involved in the Lynchburg accident were older DOT-111s or new “enhanced” DOT-111s because that is what is primarily being used to transport crude oil, said Bob Chipkevich, a former head of NTSB rail accidents investigations.
____
Felberbaum reported from Richmond. Associated Press Writer Joan Lowy in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.