The company restarted service despite objections from the Mosier City Council.
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Trains began running on the tracks again Sunday night. As a precaution, the trains speed for passing through is limited to 10 miles per hour. At an emergency meeting Sunday afternoon, the council approved a motion demanding that oil be remo. The booms are meant to contain any oil that may seep into the river from a Union Pacific oil train that derailed near Mosier, Ore., on Friday. She says their priority is to bring people home to Mosier, Oregon, where the train derailed.
Four cars erupted in flames and burned until Saturday morning.
A fiery oil train derailment in Oregon’s scenic Columbia River Gorge drew immediate reaction from environmentalists who said oil should not be transported by rail, particularly along a river that is a hub of recreation and commerce. City leaders said they want to know what went wrong and see the problem fixed before another oil train rolls through town.
“The rationale that was explained to me by the Union Pacific fire personnel is that the metal is too hot, and the foam will land on the white-hot metal and evaporate without any suppression effect”, he said.
Mosier’s mayor and fire chief said Sunday the derailment and fire in their town could have been a lot worse.
Restoring full operation of the waste water treatment plant Federal, state, tribal and local authorities will remain at the command center near the scene to coordinate response until the cleanup is complete. Residents were told not to flush their toilets and advised to boil any water before they drank it or cooked with it. Mosier exhausted its water reserves fighting the fire and cooling the trains.
Svelund said no additional oil has been observed in the water and crews were working to clean it up.
No injuries have been reported.
“We are very concerned about additional oil trains passing through our community due to their safety record, the risk of fires, of explosions, the risks of spills”, he said.
A statement by incident spokeswoman Judy Smith of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said 10,000 gallons of oil had been removed from the plant. Union Pacific has also been set up a health hotline, at 888-623-3120. It’s been involved in a string of rail disasters, including a tragedy that killed 47 people in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec.
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No lives were lost in the fire, and reports so far of property damage have been minimal, but an oil slick has appeared in the Columbia River, and officials said they haven’t determined for sure how oil is reaching the water.
