Fire in the sky

Another day, another environmental disaster in West Virginia, this time causing the evacuation of an entire small town, the complete destruction of one family's home, and the requirement for a boil-water advisory for far too many.

Betsy Reeder, a biologist and long-time activist, is from Summers County, and a member of Three Rivers Democratic Women. Hinton, the Summers County seat, was at one time a bustling railroad town, and a good deal of freight and coal traffic still passes through the county today. Following are some thoughts from Betsy on the derailment which took place Monday in Fayette County.

On Monday, February 16, 2015, a train carrying Bakken crude oil from North Dakota to Virginia derailed near Mt. Carbon, WV, destroying one house and sending giant fireballs into the sky as tanker cars exploded.

A similar incident in 2103 took the lives of 47 people in Quebec. Another derailment with explosions occurred in Lynchburg, Virginia, last year. 

In October of last year, the Charleston Gazette tried to obtain information about CSX shipments of crude oil throughout the state; information provided by West Virginia’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management lacked so much detail, however, as to be useless. It turns out that while 20 states make such information available to the general public and first-responders, West Virginia does not. We, the public, have no means of obtaining knowledge of how much crude oil (not to mention other hazardous materials, such as anhydrous ammonia) is being transported, how often, and along what routes.

The urgency with regard to transparency is all about safety, as the transport of crude oil by rail skyrockets in the wake of the fracking boom. The rail industry hasn’t had time to adapt, and there are serious – and realistic – concerns about the unsuitable nature of tanker cars, even newer models, which have design flaws and often travel at unsafe speeds, making catastrophic accidents not only possible but likely. 

At the very least, we need to get the trains to slow down to 15 mph as they pass through communities. We also need our legislators to take action to allow us to know what is passing by our doorsteps and backyards. Doesn’t it make sense, even if only one car is damaged and leaking, for us and our first-responders to know what we are dealing with?

Our thanks to Ms. Reeder for her insight and analysis of a piece of this disaster puzzle that hasn't been widely reported on. There's that transparency thing again.

We know Governor Earl Ray Tomblin and Senator Joe Manchin were on the scene within a couple of days. We know former Congressman Nick J. Rahall, who was the ranking member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, would have been there the day of the incident if it had been at all possible. We'd like to think he would by now, on the fourth day of the disaster, have introduced legislation to make transporting volatile materials across the country safer for those of us who live along those routes.

The train derailment took place in Fayette County, remember? Nick's old district. Those are Evan Jenkins' constituents now. His Congressional website has a picture of him photoshopped in front of the iconic bridge spanning the New River. And while he did tour the site and released a few tweets about it on Tuesday, the most recent press release on that website is – at this writing – a week old, and lets us all know he supports permanent tax deductions for charitable giving.

Because government. Huh. Good God, y'all. What is it good for?