(The following article by Frank Santiago was posted on the Des Moines Register website on November 10.)
DES MOINES, Iowa — A train that dribbled toxic acid across more than half of Iowa over the weekend went unnoticed by a safety net of government agencies and railroad inspectors whose job is to prevent such incidents.
It wasn’t until hours after the faulty Union Pacific Railroad tank car left Cedar Rapids that it was spotted Saturday night in a Council Bluffs rail yard with a black substance pooled beneath it. Half the tank’s phosphoric acid had drained.
No one was hurt.
Federal and state officials say the 3,973-gallon leak over 250 miles was a rare occurrence and posed only a minor threat. Phosphoric acid can cause skin burns or internal irritation if swallowed.
The Federal Railroad Administration, which monitors safety and railroad operations, said Tuesday that the incident – deemed a “nonaccident release” – would be investigated.
Mark Davis, spokesman for Union Pacific in Omaha, said the railroad took responsibility and is in the middle of its own investiga- tion.
He said another company owned the tank car and contents, but “whenever we accept the shipment from a customer, then that becomes our property, our respons- ibility.”
Equipment is checked by the railroad’s inspectors before it is moved down the tracks, he added.
“We know there was a failure here, but what type, we don’t know,” Davis said. “Whether it was a defective valve or a weld or whatever, we don’t know.”
Davis said Iowans nonetheless “can feel extremely safe and secure materials are transported safely. Railroads are the safest way to transport hazardous materials.”
Rodney Tucker, senior environmental specialist for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said there has been only one railroad-connected hazardous spill in the state this year – a gallon of hydrochloric acid reported in Benton County.
“It’s very rare when we have anything chemical coming out of railroad cars,” Tucker said. “Usually, there are problems when one of the locomotives hits something on the track and punctures a tank.”
Still, environmentalists say, the incident is troubling because the state is a major rail and highway route for dangerous materials such as gasoline, industrial solvents and nuclear waste.
“This is a wake-up call,” warned Jane Magers of Earth Care Inc., a Des Moines advocacy group that opposes the shipment of nuclear material.
“We are way over our heads in allowing this stuff to be transported. There is no way to assure safety.”
Warren Flatau, a Federal Railroad Administration spokesman, said the agency is concerned about old equipment on the nation’s railroads, but “age wasn’t apparently a factor” in last weekend’s leak.
“Usually, the state of repair of the equipment is pretty good,” he said. “It’s something that we give close attention to.”
Flatau said the agency has about 800 employees, many of whom are inspectors who rely heavily on information supplied by the railroads.
“Our oversight is done through a variety of means,” he said. “We make unannounced visits, inspections and audits.”
Davis, the Union Pacific spokesman, said an employee spotted the leaking acid at 9:30 p.m. Saturday. State and federal agencies were notified. Council Bluffs firefighters built a dike around the leaky tank car to contain the liquid.
“By 1:30 a.m. Sunday, we had the railroad police dispatchers contact all the county sheriff offices between Cedar Rapids and Council Bluffs,” he said.
Davis said the railroad would pay for cleanup costs.
He said there had been no requests so far.
“If in our investigation we determine failure was caused somewhere else or by something else, naturally we’ll get reimbursed,” he said.