(The following story by Carlye Malchuk appeared on the Huntsville Forester website on July 2.)
HUNTSVILLE, Ontario — The downtown location of a CN “siding” yard in Huntsville is currently the site of drop-offs and pickups of rail cars containing extremely hazardous materials, and the Huntsville Fire Department wants to see that change.
At the last Huntsville safety and enforcement committee meeting on June 6, fire chief Steve Hernen informed committee that his department has been discussing the situation surrounding cars containing ethylene oxide being periodically stored in the downtown yard of the national rail company.
Although the company is legally allowed to do this at the site, Hernen said the town has been after them for some time to change the location to a less populated area.
“We have spoken to CN Rail about it several times over the last four or five years. Their position is, because it’s a legal siding, they can leave it there,” he told the Forester.
A siding is the term given to any rail that is not part of a main line, explained Frank Binder, spokesperson for CN. He added that if there are a large number of sidings in one area, it’s then referred to as a yard.
He confirmed to the Forester that cars containing the chemical are stored at the Huntsville siding, adding that the rail company “fully complies with all Transport Canada regulations that concern the movement and placement of dangerous goods.”
Binder added, “At this time we are reviewing (the) service with our customer to see if there’s other options, but I think what we need to stress here is that the current service is safe and meets all applicable regulations pertaining to the rail industry.”
The review will include looking at the possibility of moving the storage of the ethylene oxide cars to a siding outside of the heavily populated area, said Binder, which lies at the heart of Hernen’s concerns.
“It’s a hazardous material and it’s stored in a populated area,” Hernen said. “I appreciate they’ve got to store this stuff somewhere (but) I would prefer to see it out at one of the sidings outside of town.”
He added that he brought the issue up again with CN as recently as three months ago, but was given the same response as always.
According to information on the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety’s website, ethylene oxide is primarily used to manufacture other chemicals, or is combined with nitrogen or carbon dioxide and used as a sterilizing agent for medical devices and surgical instruments, as a disinfectant and as a fumigant.
The website notes that it is a colourless gas with a sweet odour that is extremely flammable, dangerously reactive and is a cancer, reproductive and mutagen hazard, the latter meaning it can cause inheritable genetic damage.
Binder could not comment on how many cars are stored at the Huntsville siding yard during any given period of time.
“You have to appreciate that we service customers, so if the customer has a lot of cars, we give them a lot of cars, if they have very few cars — it could vary because of the time of year, if they have a shut down — it’s really customer driven,” he said.
Binder refused to comment on who requires the ethylene oxide, saying anything related to their customers is a private issue.