Based on the data you have produced, MichaelSol, they have suspected that something was amiss since the 70’s. Would you not consider then that the town also bears partial responsibility for not addressing the issue 30+ years ago? If your car smells funny, but no indication lights come on and you continue driving it for hundreds of miles until it bursts into flames, do you not bear responsibility for not investigating the smell? I refuse to believe that the townsfolk were completely ignorant to the hazards as presented in the case, especially after suspecting something was amiss back in the 70s. Sure, the plant and the companies that operate(d) it bear a level of responsibility and the suffering that these people endure is tragic. Is it not also tragic when a mother of 4 kills herself driving around the gates of a grade crossing?
My point was not that BNSF should get off scott-free. They bear responsibility to a degree. What I was intending to convey is that I do not have faith in our justice system enough to recognize that and remain blind to the tragedy, which is not relevant to justice. In my opinion, BNSF and the other company should immediately detoxify the land. I admit, I have no idea what is involved, but maximum haste should be used. In addition, it would not be outside the realm of justice for them to pay medical bills related to cancer for those townsfolk over the age of 30. Everyone else, that burden lies with the town and the people that inhabit it.
The railroad said that creosote was not dangerous. The plant manager received no warning from the company that there was a problem. The creosote was incinerated in an ordinary incinerator. It was dumped in the creek.
Have you complained to a company lately about them poisoning the town? And they said everything was OK. What were you to do? Complain some more?
Did you keep your job?
I can tell you exactly what happened to any whisteblower in the 1970s. They were fired.
They left town.
They died of cancer somewhere else; probably couldn’t even afford the medical care and the family went broke.
And no one noticed.
And I would just bet there are people here who say they deserved it for squealing on their employer. That’s how some of you think.
The Company knew about this in the 1970s. It had the expertise to know there was in fact a problem, and it alone had the ability to fix it.
In the intervening 30 years, it did nothing.
What do you think it takes to get corporate attention on such matters?
MichaelSol, seems to me there is more to your passion over this subject than meets the eye of most of us, care to share it or simply tell us to mind our own businesses?
Incidents like this were the reason for the passage of the Hazard Communication Standard in 1983. Before this, the supervisors at any plant could make statements that their processes or chemicals were of no hazard, probably because they were told this by their suprvisor. There were no channels easily accessible to check the information given by the higher ups. The HAZCOM Act (common name) required any company producing hazardous materials to originate a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) and provide copies of these to all customers of the material. All employees that can possibly be exposed must have access to the MSDS copies and be trained how to read them. The company is responsible for any contamination and must take precautions to prevent it.
Before this act, people could be exposed to any hazardous material and not told anything about it. Look at how asbestos was handled in the days of steam.
I grew up on railroad property. It was 24/7. Played on the tracks, the tie piles, had the section crews over for lunch or Friday afternoon picnics in the summer all the time. Old ties were sometimes burned. Creosote was present on a daily basis. I recall the company memo, in the early 1970s, advising that creosote had been suspected to be hazardous, with a list of precautions to take. Well, some people have railroading “in their blood” but it has a little different meaning in this context.
When I went to work for the government in R&D, I was fortunate in that my job allowed me to put in 40 hours a week, and still be able to work on a doctorate in biochemistry. The engineering school was too far away to finish a masters in Chem E, but I don’t like to sit still, there was a good biochem program, and so I did that. My emphasis was Neurochemistry. At the same time, as the only guy in our project with any authentic Chem E credentials, I was in charge of our analytical chemistry section, the metal fatigue and corrosion lab, and I was also the safety officer. We contracted to do research for a variety of agencies, including the US Army and the US Air Force Chemical Weapons Laboratory. That last one was an eye-opener.
It was a great time in my life. I still stay in touch with everyone even though this was 35 years ago. Our retired Wind Tunnel Manager happens to be on my appointment calendar this afternoon as an odd coincidence to this conversation.
In the course of those experiences, I became sensitized to the environmental problems caused by negligent industrial and research practices. In particular, biological systems are particularly susceptible to polycyclic aromatic compounds in the environment which are for practical purposes in my book inherently
Huh? Passion is okay in a discussion, as long as it doesn’t get personal. It seems you have decided the direction with your own comment above.
If I may be permitted to step in, Michael darned well should be passionate about what he says here because it is so often misattributed, misunderstood, or misreprepresented. Despite his attempts to offer many sources to bolster what he contends, he finds himself having to repeat and to seek yet more supporting material in an attempt to deal with the subject constructively for the sake of onlookers who are not actively posting, but who are nevetheless interested in developing an informed opinion.
These shouldn’t be arguments of the Monty Python kind where simply denying another’s assertions, particularly when supported, is to be taken as a polite or fruitful form of discourse, and then not bothering to support your denial’s basis. It isn’t honourable, nor is it fair. Passion may merely be frustration, even pique. Why does he even bother, in other words. Is he in this for his health?
So, minding one’s own business…no, I don’t think there’s an shortage of that going on around here.
I grew up on railroad property. It was 24/7. Played on the tracks, the tie piles, had the section crews over for lunch or Friday afternoon picnics in the summer all the time. I recall the company memo, in the early 1970s, advising that creosote had been suspected to be hazardous, with a list of precautions to take. Well, some people have railroading “in their blood” but it has a little different meaning in this context.
When I went to work for the government in R&D, I was fortunate in that my job allowed me to put in 40 hours a week, and still be able to work on a doctorate in biochemistry. The engineering school was too far away to finish a masters in Chem E, but I don’t like to sit still, there was a good biochem program, and so I did that. My emphasis was Neurochemistry. At the same time, as the only guy in our project with any authentic Chem E credentials, I was in charge of our analytical chemistry section, the metal fatigue and corrosion lab, and I was also the safety officer. We contracted to do research for a variety of agencies, including the US Army and the US Air Force Chemical Weapons Labratory. That last one was an eye-opener.
It was a great time in my life. I still stay in touch with everyone even though this was 35 years ago. Our retired Wind Tunnel Manager happens to be on my appointment calendar this afternoon as an odd coincidence to this conversation.
In the course of those experiences, I became sensitized to the environmental problems caused by negligent industrial and research practices. In particular, biological systems are particularly susceptible to polycyclic aromatic compounds in the environment which are for practical purposes in my book inherently not only carcinogenic but mutagenic.
Ah, but that is my contention. The facts do not point anywhere yet. Especially with the partial view that the media gave us. So one man said his child was born with a cleft palate? Cleft palates occur at a rate of 1 in 700 births in the US. A town with a population of 1700 should have at least 2 residents, statistically, that were born with cleft palates. There is also no one definite cause for cleft palates. Toxic chemicals are only one suspected cause. There are several other suspected causes as well, including genetics. Birth defects as a whole occur 1 in 33 births in the US with cleft palates being the most common.
Also, they interviewed a lady who had many sick friends. Well, there is a lot of story missing there. Are all of her firends sick? Does she consider everyone in town her friend? Most of my grandmother’s friends are all sick, but no one is calling her town a toxic dump. Once again, in a town with 1700 residents, statistics show that almost 700 of them should be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. The media tells the tale of a man that lost his brother, father, and uncle to cancer. By the time I am this man’s age, I expect that I will have lost as many if not more family members to cancer. According to the state of Texas, the cancer rate for the county is not above normal, something the lawyers and townsfolk dispute, but no numbers have been reported to support their claim.
Incidentally, in my searches I came upon some interesting not-really-related trivial knowledge:
Somerville is named for the Santa Fe VP of the time, Mr. Frank Somers. This is disputed info, though, and some claim it was named for the first president of the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe
Folks, with all due respect to all posters here, this subject has taken up lots of everybody’s time and energy, and while it may indeed be a subject worthy of such passion…it is not directly a railroad related subject (despite the railroad being sued) so let’s lighten up a bit here and get back to our “happy and pleasurable” passion…RAILFANNING! Agreed?
I saw and understood exactly what you meant: that if these people won one red cent from the railroad company, they should be punished appropriately by being laid off and the factory torn down; that if a jury actually found the charges true, it would be "poetic" if suffering and dying people were punished and lost their jobs and medical coverage.
Even though the “facts” didn’t point anywhere, your attitude surely did. Yours may be one of the most objectionable comments I have ever read on Trains forums.
And this goes to my objections to the comments on this thread: if a railroad is involved, a good portion of the occupants here all too automatically flock to condemn the injured, dead, and dying and make the railroad company, perversely, the victim even as it earns record profits.
The Railroad increased its profits by not installing proper equipment, by not spending any money on training, not lifting a d*** finger to make that plant safe.
As an earlier poster said, it’s all about greed.
Inexplicably, he meant on the part of the dead and dying.
I see. Opinions are faux pas, even when twisted and contorted. Since the debate is stale and you want to argue the acceptability of my comments as you percieve them, then have at it. I’m done.
Well, I don’t know about the opinions, but the statistics you propose don’t support what you are saying at all. But, if you are accepting the statistical base as true, then it offers some relevant facts.
If 700 people were to be diagnosed with cancer in a static population of 1700 residents, over their lifetimes, the odds of anyone in the population having cancer at any given point in time is about 0.41% – that is, in this town, 7 people total would be statistically expected to have cancer at any given point in time. Thirty people are identified as having cancer of some type – over four times the national average according to your statistic.
There are 12 cases of stomach cancer alone in Somerville. Based on the usual rate of stomach cancer, we would expect, statistically, no one to have stomach cancer, and the probability of anyone having it at any given point in time as .01%. The stomach cancer rate is over 60 times the national average.
Two cleft palate births in the past three years are identified by name; others are referenced. In a town the size of Somerville, you would statistically expect one cleft palate birth every 23 years. Even at only two such births in the time period, this is over 15 times the national average of “normal” cleft palate births, again, using your statistical representation.
You put your statistics on here, but carefully misrepresented them for this population size, attempting to show the exact opposite of what they actually mean. Why?
News Item:
In depositions, former Somerville tie plant superintendents Samuel Barkley and Vernon "Gene&quo
Now I wonder what year that policy changed. I showed each new employee exactly where they were located. (On a shelf out on the shop floor, right next to the time clock.)We attended a yearly class on their use. Per WISHA in WA.
You may have a very valid point here, but as Eolafan already pointed out:
You can’t deny there’s a level of truth to that either.
But anyway, my first reaction to this story was “another one of those”. Your contributions, founded in experience and knowledge of the subject, have caused me to see this story in a somewhat different light. This story may not be as far fetched as others. On the other hand, BNSF are still innocent until PROVEN guilty. My fear in these cases is always that a jury may come to a verdict based more on emotions than actual facts.
As always the truth will most likely be somewhere in the middle, not pure or simple.
Well, the lawsuit isn’t a criminal proceeding, and you are referring to a criminal standard.
However, just across the street from me, executives from W.R. Grace Co. are, in fact, facing Federal criminal charges, possible fines and up to twenty year prison sentences for knowingly permitting toxic substances into the air, water and soil at Libby, Montana during their operation of a vermiculate (asbestos) mine there.
Just from reading the papers, I can see that BN is in full panic mode on the Somerville case.
Various posters here worry about a jury awarding damages based on “emotion”. I don’t know what kind of “emotion” these posters worry about when corporate executives, pulling down milllions of dollars in pay and options, create a condition that they know will ultimately kill people, possibly hundreds – their own hard-working employees and their families – causing them to die horrible, painful deaths.
On a scale of ultimate justice, “jury emotions” are pretty far down my list of worries for these poor beseiged corporate execs.