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Study reveals early environmental costs of MM&A wreck
That claimed precision and accuracy on a measurement of an organic compound in any medium is just plain bonkers. Makes nice press though, and I am sure that there is significant contamination – which can be cleaned up, although it will be difficult.
But it would be nice to have good, repeatable, accurate information dispensed, rather than impressive sounding alarms.
With Greenpeace involved, you can take that study and automatically assume the results are inaccurate and highly flawed. Greenpeace has an agenda and that is to send everybody back to the stone ages. Except themselves, of course. Environ-mentalism results are for the people, not the environ-mentalist with the eco-terrorist agenda. It is no big secret that Greenpeace has been heavily invested in eco-terrorist scare tactics in the past. No reason to believe they have ceased their scare tactics.
Will this be the most costly rail derailment of the past decade?
This environmental report is what we in the industry call worst case. These people took grab samples of the worst of the worst and as a result should be discounted.
However, there will be significant soil, groundwater, surface water and there would have been air contamination. The contaminates of concern (CoC) will be benzene toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX), Canada wide hydrocarbon fractions C5 to C50 (F1 to F4), Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) and metals, the most concerning are the PAHs and metals. Hopefully the BTEX and F1 to F4 will have flashed off, but the incomplete burning would create the PAH’s and the metal are in the oil anyway.
I hope that helps.
Again the right wing extremists come out attacking the messenger. Greenpeace and spvp are respected organizations, though some dislike their political line. We SHOULD be alarmed at the environmental catastrophe this disaster has created. More info? Absolutely needed! But the people of Quebec need some reassurance that this will be taken seriously and that their health will not be the next casualty of this tragedy.
Again the right wing extremists come out attacking the messenger. Greenpeace and spvp are respected organizations, though some dislike their political line. We SHOULD be alarmed at the environmental catastrophe this disaster has created. More info? Absolutely needed! But the people of Quebec need some reassurance that this will be taken seriously and that their health will not be the next casualty of this tragedy.
How about the cost to commerce? I value that more than what Greenpeace advocates.
Greenpeace is a respected organization ?
Greenpeace is a suspect organization !
Alarmist and agenda driven
Yeah, it’s probably not 394,000 times over the limit. Maybe it’s only 100,000 times over the limit. There. The anti-environment types are presumably now happy!
So you check the water at the shore in the town. Has that test ever been done before so that there is a benchmark number to look at? If Green Peace and the others are doing the testing how about checking out the water in the rivers near the Candian Tar Sands operations to see what the numbers are there.
Is commerce more important than human life? Or is the occasional environmental tragedy simply the cost we need to pay in order not to intervene in the sacred free market? Apparently so, if you read some of the commentary in these columns.
Many believe in the safety and environmental efficiency of rail. The rapid sequence of subsequent accidents in Spain, France, Switzerland, and India undermine this confidence.
No one has a greater interest in protection of the public than the railroads. Safety, and environmental sustainability are increasingly important marketing tools. The industry is spending millions to improve environmental performance and safety because they know it is good business, though its return may never be economically quantifiable.
But when will the ‘blinded’ conservative members of our fraternity recognize this? Probably never!