(The following article by Wayne A. Hall was posted on the Times Herald-Record’s website on August 4.)
NEWBURGH, N.Y. — Through the West Point train tunnel, past Kingston’s waterfront and, to the west, up the Delaware River, CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads lug millions of gallons of hazardous chemicals that can create toxic clouds.
You don’t know what they’re carrying, even though the trains may rumble close enough to shake the pictures on your walls.
You should know, say railroad safety critics, because freight train accidents can have far-reaching consequences.
For instance, a Jan. 18, 2002, Canadian Pacific Railway derailment sent a poison cloud of the farm fertilizer anhydrous ammonia into Minot, N.D. One person died from exposure and hundreds of others claimed a range of health problems.
But you’re not the only one in the dark about the dangerous cargo on the mid-Hudson’s more than 200 miles of freight track.
Even local firefighters admit to spotty knowledge. They partly blame themselves for not doing something simple – asking.
For instance, Orange County’s Emergency Management Office didn’t seek a list of CSX’s annual chemicals and volumes until recently. (Norfolk Southern has provided Orange County a specific shipment list for the Port Jervis line.)
CSX’s policy, says spokesman Bob Sullivan, is not to share those lists unless requested on official letterhead by some official or local agency.
That’s backwards intelligence sharing, say critics like Waverly, Mass.-based Sanford Lewis, an environmental lawyer who writes about hazards on the tracks.
“The railroads don’t make it available unless they have to,” Lewis says.
The trains, some 120 cars or longer, carry mixed loads of everything from lumber to garbage to chemicals like breath-stealing chlorine.
A big reason for being careful, say the railroads, is protecting trainloads of highly flammable and explosive chemicals from terrorists. Trains are a top target, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Norfolk Southern spokesman Rudy Husband says: “This is incredibly sensitive for us, and the less said in a newspaper the better.”
The railroads say they’re flush with cash to maintain tracks, and firefighters can learn what’s on board from the crew, dispatchers or a special data base.
So what’s the problem?
Well, it’s foolish not to know what you’re facing until after the worst has happened, says George Martin, head of Orange County’s Local Emergency Planning Committee.
“If you knew all the products at least you’d know what you’re dealing with,” says Martin, the environmental, health and safety manager at Town of Wallkill-based RSR lead smelter.
“That way you don’t have to wait for a call from the train station to know what you’re dealing with.”
Both CSX and Norfolk Southern have given county officials and some towns community planning guides that include generic lists of the top 25 chemicals they carry on their rail systems.
But the networks are so big – CSX is the biggest freight hauler east of the Mississippi – that local first responders say the lists don’t give them a good enough snapshot of what’s coming their way.
Adding to the information gap is this: railroads don’t have to draft a worst-case scenario (like chemicals plants do) of what could happen in a really bad railroad accident.
They’re exempt from that requirement. Lewis says that’s because they lobbied their way out of the regulations. That means worst-case planning falls to the local emergency planning committee or local fire department.
Intensive training provided by the railroads may help. A CSX training train will roll into Kingston this fall, about two years after being sought by the Kingston City Fire Department.
Still, information gaps persist. Just ask Town of Lloyd firefighter Bob Shepard. He is also the town supervisor. He’s never seen the CSX shipment list.
“Nope, I haven’t, but I’d like to, so we know what we’re up against.”
The top 10 flammable, toxic or corrosive chemicals on CSX Transportation’s 23,000-mile system:
Sodium hydroxide solution: corrosive
Molten sulfur: toxic
Liquefied petroleum gases: flammable
Anhydrous ammonia: toxic
Chlorine: toxic
Sulfuric acid: corrosive
Ammonium nitrate fertilizers: explosive, flammable
Styrene monomer, inhibited: flammable
Liquefied propane gas: flammable
Methanol: flammable