Repost from KFOX TV, El Paso TX [Editor: Apologies for commercial content on the video. – RS]
Crews work non-stop to repair Lower Valley train derailment
By Stacey Welsh, August 22 2014
EL PASO, Texas — Union Pacific Railroad said crews will be working non-stop Friday to repair a Lower Valley train derailment.
As KFOX14 reported, the derailment happened at about 10:30 p.m. Thursday near the Carolina Bridge.
While Union Pacific said some of the cars were carrying oil, there were no spills in the area.
A Union Pacific train also derailed last October, damaging a pillar underneath the Cotton Street overpass on Interstate 10.
No injuries were reported in either derailment.
“I think they need to work on the railroad tracks and maybe service them more often,” Lower Valley resident Fred Grajeda said.
Union Pacific said the community would be notified immediately if a derailment posed any kind of danger.
“We work very closely with the local authorities and emergency responders in the area. If something were to happen, we would be in immediate contact with them and they would go into their immediate emergency procedures,” Union Pacific spokesperson Jeff DeGraff said.
DeGraff said it will take some time to determine a cause of the latest train derailment. The derailment happened on Union Pacific’s property.
“The most recent edition of Inspire magazine, March 2014, the online, English-language propaganda publication of [Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula], presents a full-page collage depicting varied images…in order to construct an explosive device,” reads Carbaugh’s affidavit.
“Among these images are a derailed passenger train and a partly covered note paper listing cities in the [U.S.] as well as the terms ‘Dakota’ and ‘Train crude oil.’”
Carbaugh also cited Osama bin Laden, the late Al-Qaeda international ring-leader, in his affidavit.
“Among the materials seized in the May 1, 2011, raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, were notes indicating interest in ‘tipping’ or ‘toppling’ trains — that is causing their derailment,” Carbaugh wrote.
Osama Bin Laden Compound Diagram; Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Apperson says both lawsuits were redundant because “we reiterated [to both companies] that we would not release the documents under state open records law until the court challenge is resolved.”
MDE filed a response arguing such in July 25 legal motions issued to CSX and Norfolk Southern.
Big Rail has used a similar approach in New Jersey, another state that has not yet publicly-disclosed oil-by-rail route information.
Lee Moore, a New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety spokesman, explained why to The Record.
“Releasing all of the records, which include the rail lines on which Bakken crude oil is being transported, would pose a homeland security risk,” said Moore.
“Clocks and Windows”
William Larkin Jr., a Republican member of the New York Senate, believes the argument put forward in both Maryland and New Jersey is flawed on its face.
Photo Credit: Office of NY Sen. William J. Larkin, Jr. (R)
“I feel that both the U.S. Department of Transportation and a number of critics seemed to have missed the point, at least the larger point,” Larkin Jr. told the Poughkeepsie Journal on July 20. “[People] already know which rail lines oil companies are utilizing. Clocks and windows provide this information.”
Despite holes in its narrative about national security risks associated with disclosure of oil-by-rail routes, one measure some companies have taken is to create citizen volunteer security groups.
Norfolk Southern has a website called “Protect the Line,” in which they ask citizens to “Join the Force.” And BNSF has “Citizens for Rail Security,” which declares, “Communities play a key role in ensuring America’s rail network remains safe from terrorism and criminal activity.”
Photo Credit: “Citizens for Rail Security” Website Screenshot
The contradiction is readily apparent: communities can volunteer to keep the railroads safe, but they are not allowed to get information from the railroads about what they are keeping their communities safe from in the first place.
TSA: Asleep at the Wheel
The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) oversees and implements rail safety as it pertains to preventing terrorist threats and attacks.
However, records obtained via a recent Freedom of Information request by EnergyWire reveal TSA is asleep at the wheel in this sphere. Worse, it has been for years.
“[A] Freedom of Information Act request from EnergyWire revealed that the agency never followed through with regulations despite an August 2008 deadline,” explains the story. “That means TSA neither keeps railroads’ security plans on file nor reviews them in any standardized fashion.”
It all comes down to priorities. According to EnergyWire’s investigation, a major funding gap exists between security for surface transportation (like rail) and aviation security.
“TSA’s budget for fiscal 2012 set aside $5.25 billion for aviation security, while devoting $135 million to surface transportation security across all modes,” wrote EnergyWire.
When looked at on the whole, a sober reality arises.
That is, while Big Rail trumpets terrorism threat risks in the legal arena to skirt transparency, the industry has concurrently done little to halt the very terrorism threats it claims a desire to stop.
Investigators are examining tracks, equipment and human performance factors to determine why two Union PacificCorp.UNP in Your ValueYour ChangeShort position trains collided head-on collided head-on in Arkansas early Sunday morning after it appears signals were functioning correctly, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
The crash, which occurred at about 2:30 a.m. in Hoxie, killed two train crew members and injured two others, according to authorities. One tank car, containing unrefined alcohol, caught fire and burned for hours.
The two trains collided at a location where two main tracks converge into one main track, said Mike Hiller, the NTSB’s investigator in charge of the probe. The plan was for the southbound train, which was on the double track, to stop and wait for the northbound train to take the other track.
“We know that this did not happen and a collision occurred right at that point,” said Mr. Hiller. “We are still trying to gather data to find out why that southbound train did not stop.”
In addition to examining equipment such as the brakes, investigators have requested medical documents and are scheduling interviews to look at the human performance factors. They’ve also shipped the trains’ black boxes to Washington, D.C., for examination.
Liquid natural gas and sulfuric acid were among the hazardous materials on board, Mr. Hiller said. Neither train contained any crude oil tank cars, and all hazardous material was loaded properly into the correct type of tank cars, he added.
The northbound train carried 92 cars, 11 of which contained flammable liquid class hazardous materials including the car with the alcohol, Mr. Hiller said. It originated in North Little Rock, Ark. The southbound train originated in St. Louis, Mo., with 86 cars, 20 of which were carrying hazardous materials.
About 500 residents were evacuated as a precaution in an approximately 1.5 mile area Sunday.
SACOG – representing 6 counties and 22 cities – to file objections by Sept 15 deadline
August 21, 2014
[Editor: This is an edited version of an email by Lynne Nittler of Davis, CA, who attended the meeting. – RS]
The 28-member Board of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) met on August 21, 2014, and listened to 15 community member comments from Davis, Sacramento, Dixon and Benicia who thanked them for their thorough and well-documented letter on uprail concerns not adequately addressed in the Benicia Valero Crude-by-Rail Project DEIR. All urged the Board to submit the letter.
In addition, SACOG counsel Kirk Trost, who researched and wrote the letter, explained his efforts to execute their directions and stood by his letter. A spokesperson from Valero claimed that many of the requests in the letter should be directed to the federal government due to federal preemption. Union Pacific offered to serve as an information resource as they are not technically involved; however their letter to SACOG (also submitted to the DEIR) stresses federal preemption and states outright, with citations of similar cases, that ”neither SACOG nor its member agencies has authority to impose the mitigation measures or conditions proposed in the draft Comment Letter on Valero Crude by Rail Project Environmental Impact Report.”
The SACOG Board held to their original plan to submit the letter which they commended and believed stated the truth of the inadequacies of the DEIR. With just one substitute Director attempting to dismiss or weaken the letter unsuccessfully, the rest of the Board voted to submit the letter.
In the next item on their agenda, the SACOG Board agreed to look at the comments developed by Mr. Trost on the federal DOT Rule-making document presently open for public comment through the end of September. (For information on how to send your comment to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, see Two-month comment period starts for new federal oil train rules.)
It remains to be seen how this all plays out legally, as Valero and UP are powerful players who are used to winning.
The Sacramento Air Quality Management District will shortly send their letter, another strong one, but more narrowly focused on air quality issues. Also, watch for letters from the cities of Davis (city council on Sept. 2), Sacramento, Roseville, and Colfax.
