(The Canadian Press circulated the following story by Terri Theodore on July 3.)
VANCOUVER — Almost two years after a caustic soda spill nearly sterilized the Cheakamus River in southern B.C., there’s little confidence from the community that a similar disaster could be averted again.
And despite a Transport Canada warning against long trains in the twisting and steep corridor, the company responsible for the spill insists that train length is not responsible for derailments.
“CN has no evidence that supports a correlation between the lengths of trains and derailments,” said Kelli Svendson a spokesperson for Canadian National Railway (TSX:CNR).
That contradicts a Transportation Safety Board presentation made to the Railway Safety Act Review Panel that said the board believed long, heavy trains, or the issue of train marshalling, was a factor when the tank cars loaded with sodium hydroxide spilled into the river.
When trains are marshalled with light cars on the front and heavy cars in the back the greater momentum in the tail end can cause cars to derail.
“I think most of us along the corridor are quite assured that we will end up with another derailment at some point,” said Edith Tobe, executive director of the Squamish River Watershed Society. “We’ve had three (derailments) since then along the corridor. So you know it’s not good.”
Raj Kahlon, a Squamish councillor, said he is not confident a similar accident could be prevented.
“This is a unique area,” he said. “It was a disaster waiting to happen, the way they (CN) were running and not listening.”
Kahlon lives a few hundred meters from the river, and has done a lot of homework since the spill.
He said former B.C. Rail workers who once plied the same rail line say it was designated for trains no longer than 100 cars.
After the accident and other derailments, including a derailment in Lillooet, B.C. that killed two CN workers, Transport Canada limited the length of trains on the Squamish route to a maximum of 114 cars.
CN was already fending off angry public reaction in 2005, when 43 cars loaded with bunker fuel spilled into Lake Wabamun west of Edmonton.
The company faces charges under Alberta’s Environment Protection Act for the spill and could face similar charges in B.C.
Two days after that wreck, the caustic soda spill near Squamish, B.C. killed about half a million fish in the Cheakamus River.
Kahlon said the District of Squamish is considering a lawsuit against CN Rail for its losses.
The Squamish Nation, whose people have fished and hunted along the river for centuries, has already filed legal action.
Squamish Chief Gibby Jacobs said he has no doubt a similar accident will happen again in the corridor.
“It’s just the magnitude, right. By just having tonnes of steel moving, I’m sure something will happen again. It’s best to just take the necessary steps as far as operations go to avoid it.”
He said the river was renowned for its salmon and even boasted a fishing visit by English royalty in the early 1900s.
The restoration of the river is in full swing and CN is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to restore the fish that were lost.
Victor Elderton, the principal of the North Vancouver Outdoor School, called the effort to revive the river “a grand experiment.”
He said it could take a few decades to get a clear understanding of the efforts to revive the river.
His school uses the Cheakamus River to teach students about the environment, the fishery and other life along the river.