CN Derailments -- Environmental Consequences

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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The following is quote-without-comment from the canada dot com news service:

NEWS STORY
CN Rail questioned after derailments

Steve Mertl
Canadian Press

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

VANCOUVER – Criticism of CN Rail is building a head of steam as two of its unions joined a major environmental group Tuesday in questioning the railway’s safety record after two environmentally damaging derailments last week.

The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference and Canadian Auto Workers Local 100, which represent engineers and shop workers respectively, have written Transport Minister Jean Lapierre asking him to investigate CN’s maintenance, repair and inspection practices.

Meanwhile, the Sierra Club of Canada is demanding Environment Minister Stephane Dion prosecute the former Crown corporation for the ecological damage caused by toxic materials that spilled in the Alberta and B.C. derailments.

CN staunchly defends its safety performance, arguing that despite privatization and job cuts, new monitoring technology has made it the safest railway in North America.

The storm broke over CN last Wednesday when a suspected broken rail caused a freight train to derail and dump 700,000 litres of heavy fuel oil in and around Lake Wabamum, 65 kilometres west of Edmonton.

Two days later, another CN freight jumped the tracks over the Cheakamus River canyon north of Vancouver. A ruptured tank car sent more than 40,000 litres of highly corrosive caustic soda into the river, instantly killing thousands of fish and triggering a two-day warning to stay away from the river. Local wells were also temporarily off limits.

“The main reason why we felt strongly about this is because we’ve got two aquatic eco-systems that have basically been destroyed,” Stephen Hazell, Sierra Club conservation director, said Tuesday from Ottawa.

"We haven’t heard much from either level of government about

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CN Rail questioned after derailments

Steve Mertl
Canadian Press

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

…“The main reason why we felt strongly about this is because we’ve got two aquatic eco-systems that have basically been destroyed,” Stephen Hazell, Sierra Club conservation director, said Tuesday from Ottawa…

  • The sky is falling, again!

“These two instances are among the most egregious that I can recall.” …

  • Canada must have very few haz mat releases.

This kind of over the top rhetoric just keeps the problems from getting solved.

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There is a legitamate environmental disaster and you have the odacity to say it is “the sky is falling” rhetoric?

Do you have any scientific proof to back up your theory against others who would say otherwise?

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The point is do people just want to render their garments and wear sack cloth or solve the problem?

As always the Sierra Club is just focused on getting their name in the paper. If Hazmat saftey improved they would be unhappy since they would need another way to excite their supporters to raise money.

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It is indeed unfortunate that the accident happened. It is also unfortunate that it involved a hazmat release, and it is also unfortunate that the train manifest was did not fully reflect the contents of the cars. These things happen.

However, if all of the activity and noise is directed towards legal action – something the Sierra Club has a weakness for – then it will be years before the situation is resolved, and most of the money will go to the lawyers, not the clean up which needs to take place.

Trust me. I now work in the environmental clean up profession. It is a very very lucrative trade. Almost all of my firm’s income comes from lawyers, either suing to have something cleaned up or defending the suits. We also actually do do clean ups, now and then. As a rule of thumb, once the lawyers get into the act we can count on our fees increasing by a factor of 10 (that’s TEN TIMES) what they would be if we, and the company responsible who hired us, were allowed to get on with it. Further, we can count on what should have been a six month job turning into a six year job.

Keep the b____y lawyers out of it and let CN get on with the job of cleaning it up.