Union Pacific said Sunday that the cause of the train derailment in the Columbia River Gorge was likely a failure of a rail tie fastener.
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Mosier’s Mayor Emily Reed had asked that the railroad clean up all derailed cars (16 in total) before running trains on the rebuilt track.
“Seeing our attractive Columbia River Gorge on fire today should be a wake-up call for federal and state agencies – underscoring the need to complete comprehensive environmental reviews of oil-by-rail in the Pacific Northwest”, said U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon.
Sixteen tank cars went off the tracks Friday. Fire started in four of the cars.
Of that, 10,000 was recovered from the wastewater season and the remaining 32,000 gallons either burned off, vaporized, absorbed by soil, captured by booms in the Columbia, or remains in the wastewater system.
No injuries have been reported. Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the agency “is concerned that major loss of life, property damage, and environmental consequences can occur”, and “safety regulations need to catch up to this new reality”.
As for Mosier, all evacuees have been allowed to return home, but their ordeal is far from over.
Union Pacific, meanwhile, says it’s aware of the request, and doesn’t plan to run oil trains through Mosier “in the near term”.
The company said crude oil represents less than 1 percent of its cargo, and said it has trained more than 2,300 emergency responders across OR since 2010.
Critics say the derailment underscores the risk faced by every town and city along rail lines when trains carrying volatile oil roll by.
The federal government regulates interstate railroad commerce, so cities and towns have no regulatory power over the movement of oil trains.
The crude was bought by TrailStone Inc’s U.S. Oil & Refining Co and bound for its refinery in Tacoma, Washington, some 200 miles (322 km) northwest of the derailment, the company said.
Local environmentalists have always been calling for a ban on the oil by rail transport of crude through the Pacific Northwest and oppose plans to expand the region’s current oil transportation infrastructure. Union Pacific should not resume oil train traffic before meeting with the community of Mosier and giving a thorough explanation for the cause of this accident and an assurance that the company is taking the necessary steps to prevent another one.
Ecology officials from Washington state said there was no sign of oil in the Columbia River or Rock Creek.
In a statement released Monday, Columbia Riverkeeper Executive Director Brett VandenHeuvel said, “Three days after the oil train accident in Mosier, Oregon oil trains are still by the tracks”.
Appleton, who operates with a fulltime volunteer firefighting crew of six and has 30-year-old fire trucks, said the derailment terrified him. Firefighters poured 1,000 gallons of Columbia River water a minute on the blaze for eight hours straight to bring it under control, he said.
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Mosier Mayor Arlene Burns said she was thrilled the governor and Oregon’s federal leaders had listened to the city’s plea. “It went end-to-end through our entire town”.
