With Industry Help, Oil Train Regulations May Fall Short Of Protecting Public Safety

In early June, a Union Pacific train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed outside the small Oregon town of Mosier. It was a relatively calm day in the otherwise windy Columbia River Gorge, which prevented the accident from forming a fireball that could have decimated the town. Still, at least four cars caught fire and spilled 42,000 gallons of crude into the Columbia River, forcing the evacuation of several homes and a school near the accident.

The derailment was far from the first accident involving oil trains — 2015 was the most expensive year on record for oil train explosions, with damage costing the United States $29.7 million. Three major derailments and explosions occurred that year alone, including one in West Virginia that forced the evacuation of 1,000 residents.

In May of 2015, the Department of Transportation enacted new safety rules aimed at preventing oil trains, which had seen a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil shipped by rail between 2010 and 2014, from derailing and endangering communities alongside the tracks.

In Mosier, however, those safety regulations weren’t enough. The initial findings from the investigation into the accident revealed that broken screws along the track most likely caused the derailment. Those same screws, however, had been cleared by Union Pacific’s own safety inspection just weeks before the derailment....
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/07/13/3796792/oil-train-regulations-industry-overview/