As the Mosier (Ore.) fire chief, I used to reassure my district that the Union Pacific Railroad has a great safety record and that rail accidents were rare. After 16 Union Pacific tank cars derailed — and four caught fire — I changed my mind.
Today, I am acting as the local incident commander in my community — it is still an active disaster area — and asking myself: “How can I prevent a next time?”
In the fire, wreckage, and disruption after the derailment, it was easy to overlook the trauma and fear caused by the 80 or so undamaged tank cars still sitting in the heart of our town.
Our instinctive reaction needs to become law: That much hazardous material has no business in our communities and near our irreplaceable Mother Columbia.
The only way to prevent the next fossil fuel unit train derailment is to stop running them. I say this as the risk management professional most closely affected by, and fairly familiar with, the details of one specific incident.
Union Pacific may have a 99-point-lotta-nines percent safety record, and yet we still had a derailment in Mosier.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told me our goal should be improving train safety.
My response, and my professional opinion, is that the trains cannot be made safe enough to justify the blip of profit they generate; that the cargo and the mode are fundamentally unsafe; and there will be a “next time” if fossil fuel unit trains continue to run.
Recently, I and fellow Mosier leaders asked the Port of Vancouver to end its lease with Tesoro-Savage for a massive new oil-by-rail terminal. Our request fell on deaf ears, though it is encouraging that one commissioner has shown some spine.
Today, I urge our leaders in Washington to stop oil trains immediately. If we allow another Mosier to happen again, I will look back and wag a finger at anyone who placed corporate profits above the safety of constituents and your neighbors.
I support all efforts to make oil-by-rail safer or to erect regulatory challenges affecting their bottom line. But Mosier proves that there is no safe way to transport crude oil by rail. Oil trains simply must be declared unsafe and thereby banned.
Jim Appleton is the chief of the Mosier, Ore., Fire District.
