Oregon is reportedly not well prepared for oil-train catastrophe

PORTLAND (AP) — Trains moved almost 500 million gallons of crude oil along Oregon waterways last year, but no state law requires railroad companies to plan for oil spills or contribute to a regional database that tracks caches of emergency response equipment.

The proliferation of oil trains in the Pacific Northwest has increased the risks of a catastrophic spill in the Columbia, Deschutes and Willamette rivers, as well as Upper Klamath Lake, but the state is not well-prepared, the Oregonian reported.

“There’s a lot of equipment,” said Scott Knutson, a U.S. Coast Guard oil spill official. “It may not yet all be in the right place for the changing transportation picture in the Northwest.”

Federal laws pre-empt state authority to regulate railroad companies’ planning for oil spills. But federal law doesn’t require them to plan for worst-case accidents. Railroads don’t have to share information with state officials who make sure Oregon is ready for an oil spill. Railroads have instead promised to volunteer information, then failed to do it.

The Columbia River is better prepared than some waterways. Ships are more strictly regulated than railroads moving next to them. Because barges have long moved petroleum products on the river, spill-containment caches are kept in strategic places by nonprofit cooperatives.

Union Pacific keeps 15,000 feet of boom in Portland, but its rail lines run from Portland east to Idaho and south to California. In the event of an accident, Union Pacific could call on help from the Army Corps of Engineers, which stores boom equipment at dams and reservoirs throughout the state, said Aaron Hunt, a company spokesman.

But the Army Corps said it could respond only to a federal emergency declared under the authority of Oregon’s governor, which takes time.