Scappoose is a small town built on the rail line to a major port on the Columbia River. Bakken crude is now shipping in long unit trains through our placid community. While the trans-loading has contributed some jobs, the very real danger brought to the forefront by the explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, last summer is not lost on us.
According to a February 2014 report in the Wall Street Journal, Mississippi crude off-gases create a reading of 3.3psi.; Arabian light sweet vaporizes at 4.7psi.; Bakken crude vaporizes at 8.6psi and has been read as high as 12psi. It’s the evaporation rate, the fumes, that create the explosions that have happened now beyond Lac-Mégantic.
The National Transportation Safety Board has made it clear that its priorities for communities like ours are emergency response and environmental cleanup; not combustibility nor explosiveness. This is the wrong order of things.
Lac-Mégantic saw an explosion diameter of 1.2 miles.
The vaporization or evaporation of the product in transit needs to be fully addressed. The cars need to be painted white. Sloshing needs to be minimized. A double tank, possibly with the addition of a rubber bladder sealing off the product, needs to be considered.
