(The following article by John A. Gavin was posted on the NorthJersey.com website on May 31.)
RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J. — A recent fire in a railroad car filled with construction debris has sparked new concerns over the safety and hazards of unregulated transfer facilities and the contents being transported by rail.
In March, a 20-foot-high blaze in a gondola car parked on a siding caught the village off guard. Firefighters didn’t know the contents and the extent of flammability.
After hosing down the flames, they were not allowed to do an inspection because the railroad is exempt from local and state regulations.
The incident has generated anxiety about unregulated solid waste transported by rail, railroad exemptions and the vulnerability of communities the trains pass through.
“If there’s a fire in one of those cars, we have no idea what’s in it,” said H. Douglas Hansen, the village’s fire marshal. “It could be asbestos or flammable material. We just don’t think the railroad should jeopardize the safety of our community.”
Hansen has waged a fight to have tougher restrictions on freight cars that pass through towns, perhaps even requiring an inventory of a railcar’s contents.
He has written a letter to the Federal Railroad Administration in Washington asking for help.
With the recent boom in hauling solid waste by rail, the federal loophole that exempts waste-transfer sites adjacent to railroad tracks from state and local regulations has assumed national significance.
Last July, the nearby North Bergen waste-transfer station, operated by the New York Susquehanna & Western Railway Corp., was fined $2.5 million by the state Department of Environmental Protection for failing to meet basic building codes and environmental safeguards. The railroad sued, contending DEP regulations are preempted by federal law. The case is still in litigation with both sides trying to reach an agreement.
Earlier that month, a federal judge barred Paterson officials from interfering with the construction of a waste-transfer facility along the railroad in the Riverside neighborhood.
New rules sought
In other parts of the country, coalitions of government and industry groups have urged the federal Surface Transportation Board to shut down several rail solid-waste transfer sites.
“Federal exemptions of railroads are being abused,” said Deborah Kole, staff attorney for the New Jersey League of Municipalities. “Solid-waste facilities [at railroad sites] are being intermingled as an appearance that they are part of the railroad when they are not.”
A bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Sue Kelly, R-N.Y., that would establish new rules for waste-management companies and rail carriers is before the House Subcommittee on Railroads.
In Ridgefield Park, where interstate freight trains rumble through day and night — often halting traffic — the railroad is an integral part of life.
But the town is just one among a string of communities serviced by the NYS&W railroad, which transports the debris to Binghamton, N.Y., where freight cars are transferred to another railway line and shipped to a garbage dump in Ohio.
“Think of the impracticality of informing every town along the way [about every railcar’s contents],” said Timothy V. O’Neil, a spokesman for the railroad. “This is not the same kind of situation as hauling chlorine or some hazardous material.”
The debris is often drywall, Sheetrock and floors ripped from old buildings and factories being converted into housing to meet growing demand, he said.
Rail transport has increased in recent years partly because garbage dumps in Pennsylvania have filled up and rail has become a cheaper option than truck for the longer distances.
In the village, it’s not unusual for dozens of box cars, tankers and gondolas filled with debris to be parked on side tracks just a few yards from a chemical plant, factories and a railroad fueling depot.
That setting — underneath the trestles for Routes 95 and 46 — could be a recipe for disaster if a major fire breaks out, Hansen fears.
In neighboring Bogota, where the train also runs, officials said they also would be alarmed if a railcar were in flames and firefighters didn’t know what was inside.
“If a train is parked in town, my inspectors have to get inside,” Mayor Steven Lonegan said. “They absolutely have to make sure that the cars are safe.”