(The following story by Krista Kielsmeier appeared on the Des Moines Register website on April 1, 2009.)
DES MOINES, Iowa — Hazmat teams responded to a March 28 train derailment in Pleasant Hill in an effort to prevent vegetable oil from leaking into Four Mile Creek.
None of the oil reached the water, even though four of the train’s cars settled in the creek, said Pleasant Hill Fire Chief Reylon Meeks.
Emergency management officials and Meeks joined representatives from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Pleasant Hill Fire Department, Pleasant Hill Police Department and Runnells-Camp Township Fire Department on the scene.
The train derailed around noon near Pleasant Hill Boulevard and Vandalia Road.
Pleasant Hill Police Chief Tim Sittig said the derailment did not interfere with traffic along the nearby U.S. Highway 65 bypass.
Steven Forsberg, spokesman for BNSF Railway, said 19 out of the more than 120 cars on the train had derailed. Seven of those cars were loaded – five with soybean meal and two with vegetable oil. Forsberg said the train had departed from Des Moines on its way to West Quincy, Mo.
He said no one was injured in the incident, and a cause had not yet been determined as of press time.
“We’re looking at a possible problem with the track condition, but no definite conclusions have been reached yet,” Forsberg said.
He said BNSF crews aimed to have the track open again by today (Wednesday, April 1).
“They did have some grain spillage,” said Kate Bason, environmental specialist for the DNR. “It did not go into the water that I saw. It was all on the ground.”
She said the thousands of gallons of vegetable oil could have suffocated fish and killed other wildlife if the oil entered the creek and started to degrade.
“We just had some concerns that they be handled very cautiously and back away from the water,” Bason said of cleanup for the rail cars.