Lack of Data Stalled Train Spill Cleanup

As emergency workers scrambled to clean up the toxic mess from a train derailment here, their greatest obstacle was a lack of information on the shipping manifest listing the hazardous chemicals aboard the Southern Pacific freight train, local authorities said Monday.

Ventura County Fire Department officials said the manifest met federal requirements in listing the broad category of chemicals in each containerized rail car but did not list chemicals by names or detail their quantity and type of container.

The lack of precise information stymied response efforts and left potentially lethal gas leaking from the wreckage longer than necessary, Ventura County fire officials said.

A similar problem arose two weeks ago, officials said, when a Southern Pacific tank car derailed and dumped its lethal cargo of pesticide into the Upper Sacramento River, poisoning a 45-mile stretch from north of Dunsmuir to Shatsa Lake.

Because the pesticide that spilled--metam-sodium--was not a regulated substance, the tank car was not labeled, which caused confusion for the emergency response team about the tanker’s contents and how to handle the spill.

The back-to-back spills have prompted calls from a variety of sources--from local officials to environmentalists to the governor’s office--for greater disclosure of the hazardous substances moved by rail through the state.

“The manifest could not tell us what the chemicals were,” said Ventura County Fire Capt. Dean J. Dysart, head of the hazardous materials team. “There needs to be a lot of improvement in the warning system we’ve got.”

The latest derailment came just two days after Gov. Pete Wilson sent a letter to federal Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner and U.S. Environment Protection Agency Administrator William K. Reilly, raising questions about the adequacy of regulations governing rail transport of hazardous materials. The letter was sent in response to the July 14 Sacramento River spill.

Franz Wisner, a spokesman for Wilson, said Monday that the governor expects federal officials to respond to policy questions posed by both spills.

“Obviously, when you have two train derailments like this back to back, something’s broke,” Wisner said.

A spokesman for one environmental group made the point more forcefully.

“There is a toxic time bomb ticking out there, and it’s going to explode unless we pass some key legislation,” said Paul Gargan of the California Public Interest Research Group in Los Angeles.

Claire Austin, spokeswoman for the Federal Railroad Administration in Washington, said Monday that Southern Pacific does not appear to have violated any federal rules in connection with the most recent derailment.

“Everything met our requirements,” Austin said. The container was labeled “corrosive” and “combustible,” as required by federal law, she said.

Jack Rich, supervisor of the Public Utility Commission’s railroad operation and safety division, said the problems encountered by the Ventura County team illustrates the difficulties for response teams operating under federal reporting requirements.

The PUC is scheduled to vote Aug. 7 on a state order that would require railroads to provide communities with lists of hazardous materials transported through their areas, Rich said.

He added that the state will not be able to mandate disclosures beyond the generic classifications required under federal law.

PUC President Patricia Eckert, who visited the derailment site Monday, said she may move to postpone the commission’s vote to determine if greater safeguards should be put in the order.

Southern Pacific President Mike Mohan, also speaking at the accident scene Monday, disputed charges that emergency workers had no way of figuring out what chemicals might be involved and how to neutralize them.

Mohan said his employees at the site knew almost immediately what chemicals were involved in the accident and shared that information.

Dysart said the key problem in the initial effort at containing possible damage was the vagueness of the shipping documents.

The Southern Pacific shipping manifest carried by the train’s engineer disclosed only that one of the derailed cars was carrying “an aqueous hydrazine” inside a truck trailer loaded on a flatbed that also carried a tank of “aromatic hydrocarbon,” Dysart said.

The hydrocarbon could have been one of 67 chemicals, several of which could have reacted very differently with the hydrazine had the tank ruptured and the two chemicals mixed, Dysart said.