(The following article by Tom Shean was posted on the Virginian-Pilot website on January 18.)
HAMPTON, Va. — For decades, the nation’s railroads have touted their ability to move hazardous materials more safely than rival carriers can.
That reputation for safety was tarnished on Jan. 6 when a Norfolk Southern train collision in Graniteville, S.C., punctured tank cars carrying chlorine. Nine people died, and more than 200 sought medical care after a cloud of chlorine gas blanketed part of the mill town.
The accident, among other issues, showed the vulnerability of communities, particularly those having a large amount of dangerous materials passing through by rail. And it begged the question: Could a mishap like this occur in Hampton Roads?
“The simple answer is, “Yes, it could happen,’” said Brett A. Burdick, director of the technological hazards division at the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. “Transportation accidents can happen anywhere.”
Railroads carry an array of hazardous substances, such as chlorine, acids and petroleum products. Often, a leak or spill can be contained quickly at the accident site. The situation, however, is much more dangerous when the material turns into a gas and can’t be controlled.
The state’s emergency management department has 13 teams, including two in Hampton Roads, that respond to hazardous-materials accidents. About a third of the teams’ responses involves materials being moved by highway, Burdick said. Another third involves materials on a ship or barge, and the balance consists of accidents at fixed facilities, such as factories and warehouses.
“We get remarkably few rail-related calls,” he said.
Much of this region’s rail traffic involves coal shipments to export terminals in Norfolk and Newport News and deliveries of cargo containers to local marine terminals. Railroads routinely deliver other commodities and products, including hazardous chemicals, to industrial facilities in the region. Depending on the quantities they keep on hand, users of hazardous materials are required by law to notify municipalities of the types of materials on their premises.
The two major railroads in Hampton Roads, Norfolk Southern and CSX, declined last week to disclose the types of hazardous materials they carry in the region or the destinations.
“Because of the security and confidentiality that we offer shippers, we do not discuss routings and contents of trains in a public forum,” said Frank Brown, a Norfolk Southern spokesman.
Misty Skipper, a spokeswoman for CSX, said the Jacksonville, Fla.-based railroad can track the shipments of all hazardous materials along its rail lines but doesn’t disclose the types of materials or their routes for security reasons.
However, accident reports that these and other railroads have filed with the Federal Railroad Administration during the past decade indicate that the number of accidents in Hampton Roads involving hazardous materials has been negligible. Of the 70 accidents that have occurred in the region since 1995, two included rail cars carrying hazardous materials. Both occurred in Southampton County. Only one, in 2003, involved damage to cars carrying hazardous material.
During the same 10-year period, railroads reported 447 accidents throughout the state, including 45 that involved rail cars carrying hazardous materials, according to the filings with the Federal Railroad Administration. Of these, hazardous contents were released in seven accidents.
Edward “Loy” Senter Jr., Norfolk’s fire chief, said he could not recall a rail accident in Norfolk involving the release of hazardous materials during his 23 years in the department. “In general, we’ve experienced a very safe history” with rail transportation, he said.
One reason may be the efforts to minimize the use of dangerous chemicals, including chlorine.
Norfolk’s water-treatment plants, for example, stopped using bulk chlorine because of risks to workers and nearby residents, said Rick Saul, water production manager for the city.
An alternative, a liquid form of sodium hypochlorite, “is like Clorox bleach but much stronger, and when you mix it with water, it does exactly the same thing” as chlorine, Saul said.
Hampton Roads Sanitation District, the utility that treats sewage and waste water throughout southeastern Virginia, made the shift two years ago after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration imposed stringent requirements on employers whose workers are exposed to chlorine.
Because of the cost of meeting the additional requirements, including worker training, “we found it was cheaper to use less hazardous chemicals,” said Jennifer Rodrigues, the utility’s safety manager.
Meanwhile, shippers are relying more heavily on other types of transportation to move hazardous materials. The Department of Transportation reported last month that the use of trucks and water carriers had climbed sharply between 1997 and 2002. The volume of hazardous materials shipped by trucks increased 21 percent to 1.16 billion tons by 2002, while the amount carried by rail rose 7 percent to 109 million tons.
During that period, the volume of hazardous material moving by water climbed 36 percent to 228 million tons, according to the department’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
What distinguishes the freight traffic in Hampton Roads from traffic elsewhere is the region’s maritime terminals and abundance of cargo containers. On occasion, hazardous-materials teams from the state’s Department of Emergency Management have to board ships to assess the risk of materials leaking from a container, said Burdick. That scrutiny is important because many cargo containers end up on rail cars.