(The Associated Press circulated the following article on July 24.)
FORT WAYNE, Ind. — Thousands of train cars roll through well-populated areas of the city each year, drawing concern from some officials that it’s nearly impossible for residents to know if they contain hazardous materials.
About one in 20 of the cars carries hazardous materials, The Journal Gazette reported Sunday, citing federal statistics. The trains each year haul millions of tons of poisonous gas, corrosive acids and explosives past homes, businesses, schools and child-care centers.
Nearly 36,000 people live within a few blocks of the railroad lines that cross the city. An additional 10,000 live close enough to the busy tracks in New Haven, just east of the city, to be in danger.
Local officials say they get general information about the types of materials that move through the city but not specific information on how much or when.
Mayor Graham Richard said residents have a right to know what dangers they’re facing.
“I come down in this case on the side of encouraging higher levels of knowledge,” Richard told the newspaper.”
Spokesman Rudy Husband of Norfolk Southern, which moves train through the city, said the company provides information about cargo to the local emergency planning committee upon request.
He said Norfolk Southern leaves notifying the public to public officials “since ultimately they’re the ones responsible for public safety.”
Fred Millar, a homeland security consultant in Washington, said telling the public of the dangers nearby lets the public make decisions on whether to accept that risk. Hiding it from the public, he said, denies them that opportunity.
“Doesn’t it make you proud as an American that we can export democracy around the world, but we keep Americans in the dark about what’s moving through their cities?” Millar said.
Millar helped the Washington City Council devise a law banning railroads from moving the most dangerous materials through that city, a move that spurred both lawsuits from the railroads and similar proposals in six other cities. A federal court upheld Washington’s law, but the railroads have appealed.
The railroads say the chances of an accidental release are remote.
“It’s as close to 100 percent (safe) as it probably could be, as far as hazardous materials being shipped without incident,” Husband said.
Fort Wayne Police Department spokesman Officer Michael Joyner has for years watched tank cars sit near or roll past the Three Rivers Apartment high rises, the water filtration plant, the City County Building, the Allen County Jail and St. Joseph Hospital, and worried about what a leak or explosion would do.
A disaster could wipe out the city’s water supply, cut off the main north-south routes through town, require the evacuation of prisoners, destroy the emergency communications center and even take out the hazardous materials response team at Fire Station No. 1 that would be needed for such an emergency. An explosion or fire could also render the burn unit at St. Joseph Hospital inaccessible or worse.
“You could in effect bring this whole city to its knees,” Joyner said.