The Feb. 2 derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train near New Palestine, Ohio has resulted in dangerous, toxic chemical pollution on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border through a decision by the State of Ohio government for a “controlled burn” of chemicals to avoid explosion, which burn has become badly uncontrolled. A toxic pollution crisis, denied by state Attorney General Josh Shapiro and other state officials, has continued for more than a week.
Suspend judgment briefly on the state’s actions. In the past five years, there have been eight significant freight derailments in the Pittsburgh metro area alone. That is the state of the nation’s freight railroads, operating with crews of just one or two rail workers, with speedup of schedules and workers, and with minimal capital investment.
Worse, the Biden Department of Transportation, headed by Secretary Pete Buttigieg, recently promulgated a rule which expanded the range of what hazardous materials could be transported by rail, and in what quantities. What seemed to be the main focus of this rule? Allowing the transportation of liquefied natural gas by rail to LNG ports. That is, exporting LNG to Europe to replace (at triple the price) the Russian pipeline gas destroyed at the source last September 26.
The explosion of 20 or so such LNG rail cars would roughly equal the force of the Hiroshima bomb. This was submitted by experts as criticism of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which approved the rule, although saying of it: “The risks of catastrophic liquefied natural gas releases in accidents is too great not to have operational controls in place before large blocks of tank cars and unit trains proliferate.”
