LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Just behind Kennedy Montessori Elementary School in western Louisville sits a seemingly unsecured rail yard where tanker cars of toxic chemicals are stored on their way in and out of the Rubbertown industrial complex, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.
Large gaps in fencing allow anyone to stroll into the yard, which its owner, Norfolk Southern Corp., calls the K-Yard. There are no gates across railroad track entrances there, and only one of two gates at either end of Gibson Lane, which runs through the yard, is locked.
Tank cars extend under an Interstate 264 overpass along Gibson, near the school’s entrance. And ”No Trespassing” signs were posted only after a CourierJournal reporter began making inquiries earlier this month.
At any given time, the tank cars at the K-Yard can include 90 tons of chlorine with the potential, if damaged, to kill anyone nearby and sicken others within a radius of up to 14 miles — across downtown Louisville and into Southern Indiana.
This combination of schoolchildren and easy public access to potentially deadly vapors has been a part of the neighborhood near Rubbertown since the school was built in 1963.
But since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, parked rail cars with hazardous chemicals have come to alarm some west Louisville leaders.
”We don’t want them sitting anywhere near the school or near the neighborhoods,” said Arnita Gadson, executive director of the West Jefferson County Community Task Force, a group that works on Rubbertown air-quality issues. ”This is something that we need to address, and more than in just a mild way.”
It’s a concern being echoed across the country, leaving the nation’s railroad companies grappling with the need to efficiently transport materials essential to a modern society and the economy, while addressing new-found fears.
Citing a potential vulnerability, the U.S. Department of Transportation is moving to adopt rules that will — for the first time — require railroads to develop and carry out security plans.
Without such rules, rail yards are even more vulnerable to terrorism than chemical plants, said C.B. ”Buzz” Melton, a former Baltimore fire battalion chief of hazardous materials who is now a consultant to industry and government. ”Why would they (terrorists) break into a chemical plant to find tanks of chemicals when they can go to any rail yard and find 100 of them?”
At the same time, Melton urges people to keep the risk in perspective — tank cars are highly durable and unlikely to experience a catastrophic failure, he said. And there are many other potential terrorist targets.
No signs of security
In 1999 the city of Louisville installed a gate across one end of Gibson Lane near Kennedy Elementary to stop illegal dumping of trash under I-264 nearby.
The gate blocks motorists from entering the Norfolk yard there, but a similar gate at the other end of Gibson Lane off Algonquin Parkway is rarely locked, said Frank Wimberly, president of the 12th Ward Democratic Club in the West End.
Three times this fall, a reporter drove along Gibson Lane into the yard and found no signs identifying Norfolk Southern as the owner of the property; no ”keep out” signs; and no security guards in sight.
On two occasions, the reporter saw no one in the yard; on another occasion, the reporter and a photographer encountered a man in an unidentified pickup truck on Gibson Lane. When the reporter waved, the man in the truck waved back.
Frederick Liggin, president of the Chickasaw Federation, a neighborhood group, and the parent of a Kennedy student, said he also drove on Gibson Lane once this fall and saw no security personnel.
”One of my main concerns is the access the kids still have to the (rail) cars,” he said. ”It doesn’t seem patrolled well.”
Only after questions from The Courier-Journal to Norfolk Southern, school and city-county emergency management officials was a ”No Trespassing” sign posted at the Algonquin entrance to Gibson Lane.
The company wouldn’t say what prompted the posting of the sign — nor a new practice of keeping at least half of Gibson Lane at Algonquin blocked with a gate. It might have been on the company’s ”to-do list,” said Norfolk Southern spokeswoman Susan Bland.
She said rail yard security is shared by her company and the chemical companies that typically own the rail cars and are shipping raw products to the Rubbertown plants.
A chemical industry spokesman, Chris VandenHeuvel of the American Chemistry Council, confirmed that but added, ”lines are not always clearly drawn.”
Norfolk Southern, which has 21,000 miles of track and operates in 22 states, would not discuss any security issues specific to the K-Yard, except to say that employees have been asked to be vigilant. Bland said the company works closely with federal law enforcement officials and other government agencies to secure its properties.
”Our police department and employees are on heightened alert,” she said, adding that overall, ”the railroad has taken steps to increase security.”
Louisville police don’t patrol the Gibson Lane rail yard, said Detective Bill Keeling, a department spokesman. ”It’s private property,” he said.
But Keeling said last week that the railroad has a security agreement with three off-duty police officers. He declined to say whether that agreement was reached before the newspaper inquired about security, or whether the agreement includes regular patrols.
‘Not a good situation’
But one hazardous materials expert agrees with area residents that a rail yard that serves chemical plants near a school is ”not a good situation.”
Dean Blauser, a Michigan specialist who has consulted with other railroad companies, said that if tank cars of chlorine or other potentially deadly materials were parked near his home, he’d ask the railroad to move them. He’d also ask the railroad and local authorities to demonstrate how they would respond to an emergency.
”Throw the monkey back on the people who are supposed to be doing the planning,” he said.
Bland said the railroad doesn’t have adequate facilities to move the rail yard farther out of town. And the plant manager at one of the Rubbertown plants — Bill Simpson of Zeon Chemicals — said chemical companies are arranging for express shipments of bulk supplies so the tank cars can spend less time parked in rail yards, or on side tracks.
”We’re not trying to store material out on the tracks,” Simpson said.
Meanwhile, local school officials said they are not worried about the rail yard near Kennedy.
Opal Dawson, principal for six years, said her school is prepared for an incident there. Depending on the situation, they would evacuate, or stay in the building and close all windows, doors and vents from the outside, she said, adding that students and teachers practice their response with various drills.
Dawson noted that the school and rail yard have co-existed for 40 years without incident.
Ann Elmore, who represents the West End on the Jefferson County Board of Education, said she was not familiar with the security concerns, and referred questions to Chuck Fleischer, director of safety and environmental services for the district.
Fleischer said he’s unable to say whether Kennedy faces any greater risk than other schools in the county that are located near rail lines or freeways where chemicals are transported.
The best approach, he said, is to have each school prepare for responding to problems, which all Jefferson County schools do. ”We have tanker cars moving through the city and county all the time. So we have worked real hard” on response plans.
But Gadson said she and some other members of the Jefferson County Community Task Force, with representatives from business, government, University of Louisville and neighborhoods, have long feared that the KYard presents unreasonable risk to Kennedy — either from an accidental release or one caused by a criminal attack.
Especially in an era of security fears, the tank cars’ proximity to the school should be reconsidered, Gadson said, adding that school officials should press to have the cars moved to a less populated area, or at more secure chemical plants.
”It’s a very dangerous situation” and the school ”has our most precious cargo — the children,” she said.
No federal guidelines
Local emergency response officials say they are prepared to respond to any emergency.
But Dick Bartlett, director of the city-county Emergency Management Agency, said his agency has no authority to make sure that railroads are providing security at their properties.
In fact, currently ”there are no federal security requirements applicable to rail yards,” said Joe Dalcambre, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Research and Special Programs Administration.
According to that agency’s proposal for new rules: ”Millions of tons of explosive, poisonous, corrosive, flammable and radioactive materials are transported every day. (And) the vast majority of hazardous materials shipments arrive safely at their destinations.”
However, the agency concluded that hazardous materials can pose ”a significant security risk . . . if in the wrong hands. Hazardous materials in transportations are particularly vulnerable to sabotage or misuse.”
While railroad companies and the chemical industry say they are voluntarily taking steps to shore up security, the proposed federal regulations would make it mandatory. The rules also would require increased recordkeeping and employee training for those shipping and moving hazardous materials.
The railroad and chemical industries have objected to some provisions of the proposed regulations as unreasonable and too costly.
”We’re not against security,” said Alan I. Roberts, president of the Dangerous Goods Advisory Council, whose members include the Association of American Railroads and the American Chemistry Council.
But the proposed rules’ insistence that industry plan for ”all possible risks” is ”a requirement without boundaries,” Roberts said. He estimates the cost to industry at $500 million.
VandenHeuvel, the chemistry council spokesman, said railroad and chemical companies have formed a task force to fill security ”gaps” they’ve identified.
And Tom White, a spokesman for the railroad association, said the industry’s voluntary measures should be sufficient.
”Do we have 24-hour guards on everything? No,” said Peggy Wilhide, who also speaks for the railroad association. ”But we increase security at critical infrastructure points, around rail yards and hard assets.”
Melton, the former Baltimore fire chief, said the best way to increase security at rail yards is to encourage local police to patrol them.
”I would like to see more patrolling of any area that has ability to cause massive loss of life,” he said.