Repost from Vice News
[Editor: This excellent ForestEthics interactive map shows oil train routes throughout the U.S. & Canada. Just click on the map – be sure to zoom in close enough to see your own street’s name! Note that the map seems to have been updated to more accurately show the blast zone in and around the Valero Benicia refinery and the Benicia Bridge. – RS]
Do You Live In A “Bomb Train” Blast Zone?
By Spencer Chumbley, July 28, 2014It’s estimated that 9 million barrels of crude oil are moving over the rail lines of North America at any given moment. Oil trains charging through Virginia, North Dakota, Alabama, and Canada’s Quebec, New Brunswick, and Alberta provinces have derailed and exploded, resulting in severe environmental damage and, in the case of Quebec, considerable human casualties.
The map below provides a striking visualization of where crude oil is traveling by rail throughout the United States and Canada. ForestEthics, the environmental group that created it, used industry data and reports from citizens who live near oil train routes to provide one of the first comprehensive visualizations of how many people are at risk from oil trains, and where.
The group estimates that some 25 million Americans live within the one-mile evacuation zone that the US Department of Transportation recommends in the event of an oil fire. Do you live in the blast zone of a bomb train?
Bomb Trains: The Crude Gamble of Oil by Rail. Watch our documentary here.