(The following story by Holley Gilbert appeared on the Portland Oregonian website on June 8.)
VANCOUVER, Wash. — Three train cars loaded with a highly flammable chemical overturned Monday in a downtown Vancouver residential and industrial neighborhood, spilling about 10 gallons of the toxic substance.
A fourth rail car derailed but remained upright.
No injuries were reported, but three nearby businesses were evacuated. The train was traveling from Everett, Wash., to Barstow, Calif.
The north end of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway yard at 39th Street and Fruit Valley Road was evacuated after the 3:23 p.m. derailment.
Officials at 6:30 p.m. said leaks from two cars had been stopped by releasing pressure inside the tanks. No sign of environmental damage had been observed except for seepage into the ground. A private contractor from Cowlitz County will be hired to clean the spill.
Officials said workers planned to start working late Monday to get the cars upright.
Chemical in tanks
The cars contained styrene monomer, inhibited, a chemical used in the production of some plastics. Fire officials estimated that the leaking tank contained about 20,000 gallons of the material. A smaller leak in a second car was found later in the afternoon. Fire officials estimated that about 10 gallons of the substance leaked from both cars although earlier estimates were much larger.
“I can’t think of a rail incident since I’ve been in Clark County that was potentially more dangerous,” said Chief Don Bivins of the Vancouver Fire Department, who has been in the county since 1985. Bivins said lightning associated with a storm that closely followed the derailment was a particular concern.
How the derailment occurred was unclear. The three overturned cars were one rail car north of 39th Street. The derailed but upright car was adjacent and north of them, Bivins said. The train was moving 4 to 6 mph when the derailment occurred, Bivins said.
According to a fire department chemical manual, styrene monomer, inhibited, has a fairly low toxicity but is highly flammable. Depending on the richness of the chemical, it can explode when mixed with air. The richness of the chemical in the spill was not immediately known.
Vapors can travel and, if somehow ignited, can flash back to the spill, Bivins said. The vapors settle into low-lying areas, spread along the ground, and can explode indoor, outdoors and in sewers, the manual said.
The chemical can irritate eyes, burn the skin and cause dizziness. In heavy concentrations, it can cause suffocation, the manual said. Runoff from firefighting or dilution efforts cause pollution, it said.
If a styrene monomer fire occurs in a rail car, a half-mile area should be evacuated, the book stated.
Only one of the three overturned cars was labeled as carrying styrene monomer, but rail yard workers told firefighters all three contained the material.
The derailment halted train traffic in both directions. Sixty trains, including Amtrak, use the tracks daily.
Amtrak disruptions
Three Amtrak trains — two southbound and one northbound — were affected. Southbound passengers bound for Eugene were taken off the train in the Felida area just north of Vancouver and taken by bus to Portland. Northbound passengers traveling to Seattle were taken from Portland to Felida, where they boarded a train that was stopped there. That train was turned around and headed back to Seattle.
Students had left nearby Fruit Valley Elementary in the Vancouver School District about 30 minutes before the derailment, district officials said. The Southwest Washington Child Care Consortium day care at the school was not shut down by the derailment because it was more than 1,000 feet south of the leak, said Greg Watt, the district’s director of safety and security.
A bus carrying siblings from Lincoln Elementary was turned around as it approached the area, and a family member picked up children at Lincoln, Watt said.
(Foster Church and Jason Begay contributed to this report.)