In the Jan. 28 story “Fossil fuels fuel tribes’ fears over Gorge fish,” BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas declared “99.98 percent of all of our hazardous material made it to port without a release.” It follows that .02 percent of the hazardous material was released, i.e. spilled. Doesn’t sound like much. Still, let’s do the math.
Tesoro-Savage plans four-unit trains, comprised of 120 tank cars, each holding 750 barrels of crude, traveling from the oil fields to Vancouver every day, for a total of 360,000 barrels. Using Melonas’ .02 percent, we can project a release of 72 barrels per day on average. That’s 262,800 barrels or 350 tankers-full over a 10-year span.
Where along the crude route would you like to see 72 barrels (equaling 3,024 U.S. gallons) of crude dumped every day? Or would you prefer fewer but larger releases? Where will Murphy (of Murphy’s Law) decide to dump it?
