(The following article by Christopher Scott was posted on the Lowell Sun’s website on June 11.)
LOWELL, Mass. — Rep. Marty Meehan is calling on Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to beef up oversight along the nation’s rail corridors, now that a federal investigation has found railroads vulnerable to terrorist attacks and catastrophic accidents.
The May report on rail safety by the General Accounting Office was triggered by a 200-gallon spill of hydrochloric acid from a rail tanker in South Lowell a year earlier. The leak, which happened as the tanker was left unattended on a trestle bridge in the Sacred Heart neighborhood, angered local residents and officials, including Meehan.
The General Accounting Office, which is the investigative arm of Congress, determined that gaps in safety and oversight must be closed to better safeguard the 90 million tons of hazardous materials shipped by rail each year, as well as the residents who live in neighborhoods along the tracks.
In a recent letter to Ridge, Meehan asks him to provide Congress with details of how he will respond to the report and its recommendations.
“We also request that you inform us as to how each issue will be resolved and the timeline for its resolution,” Meehan said in the letter.
Those issues include:
The Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, has not yet developed specific plans to address the security of individual surface-transportation modes, including rail.
Federal Railroad Administration and TSA officials recognize that security concerns have grown since Sept. 11, but little has been done.
TSA officials have not yet developed a security plan for rail that systematically determines the adequacy of security measures already in place.
The Lowell mishap on May 31, 2002, brought heavy criticism on Billerica-based Guilford Rail Systems, the owner of the tanker.
The leak came through a bullet-sized hole in the tank, and was determined to be the result of a failure of the tanker’s internal safety system.
But the way the leak was discovered by a resident, not a Guilford official and the company’s reluctance to warn the neighborhood outraged the community and was identified as an inherent flaw in current federal regulations.