Oil train derails near Mosier in Columbia River Gorge

[alp227]

Source: Oregonian

A multi-car oil train derailment in the Columbia River Gorge Friday near Mosier sent up a massive plume of black smoke and stoked long-standing fears about the risks of hauling crude oil through one of the Pacific Northwest's most renowned landmarks.

Justin Jacobs, a Union Pacific spokesman, said the derailed train was operated by his company.

Read more: http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2016/06/oil_train_derails_near_hood_ri.html

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Oil train derails, catches fire near Hood River

Oil train derails, catches fire near Hood River



A train fire in the Columbia River Gorge has evacuated schools in the nearby town of Mosier and shut down Interstate 84 between Hood River and The Dalles. (KATU News)

By KATU News

Published: June 3, 2016, 1:30 PM

MOSIER, Ore. – A train fire in the Columbia River Gorge has evacuated schools in the nearby town of Mosier and shut down Interstate 84 between Hood River and The Dalles.

Students are being taken to Wahtonka campus in The Dalles. Parents living in the area can pick up their students from that location; the district is scheduling buses for the remaining students.

Witnesses sent in a video that shows a large plume of smoke rising from the train tracks near Mosier, which is located off I-84 east of Hood River. The video shows what appears to be an oil train derailment.

Oregon Dept. of Transportation spokesperson Peter Murphey confirmed that two train cars are on fire, however he said it is too early to confirm any more details. ... This is a developing story, updates will be posted as information comes in.

[Gore1FL]

4. That's my old territory in the 1990's

25 years ago that train would have been headed towards my work order desk.

[wallyworld2]

12. Just up river

From Hood River OR, wind surfing, Para sailing and X games.

Wtf are these rolling black oil bombs going down this national monument?

[wallyworld2]

14. That is a perfect photo

The view along that stretch of road is just stunning. Especially at sunrise and sunset

[CentralMass]

28. Yes, it is a beautiful area

[classof56]

2. Damn!

While it's inevitable such an event has occurred and likely will do so with much more frequency, as an Oregonian dedicated to preserving our environment, I can only say--damn! And curses on those who cause these "accidents" with no regard for the afternath.

[Brickbat]

5. What do you mean by that last sentence?

[rhett o rick]

3. They want to run those trains thru Seattle like the billions of tons of coal we now see.

Does it make sense to anyone that we are shipping our coal to China?

[StarTrombone]

6. Would you rather it be used here

Some people's livelihoods rely on coal

You know JOBS

Not coffee servers

And after today's job numbers they're damned lucky to have them

[rhett o rick]

8. We are selling a major energy source cheap and you think it's for jobs? First of all there

is no one involved in this decision that cares about American jobs. Corporations are raping our land and selling our coal to make a quick buck. Very few jobs rely on the export of coal.

[StarTrombone]

9. Coal doesn't just jump out of the ground and into the train

And it needs a market

If the EPA is going to shut down that market here it's going to go somewhere

[Kelvin Mace]

10. Not really

Natural gas is now cheaper than coal to run power plants, and it is easier (and cheaper) to convert a coal fired power plant into a gas fired plant than it is to put in the tech needed to clean up the process .

The industry is dying, and the only solution is to start retraining the people in it.

[wallyworld2]

13. Exactly

[sorefeet]

23. You are correct rhett o rick

the man power is pretty minimal to mine coal, especially pit mines like coal strip Montana. I worked a lot of coal fired power plants across America. They are poison. I pay close attention to the train traffic through this valley and coal transport is the slowest I have seen. Lots and lots of coal cars are side tracked. The market is slowing big time. I rent and I have a coal furnace in the basement but I refuse to use it any more because it is so filthy. To my house and my lungs. People better jump on the GREEN wagon because it is the future.

[trudyco]

24. There are two kinds of good jobs

One kind is one that pays fairly decently.
And the other is one that pays fairly decently and doesn't hurt the world.

I think we need to focus on the latter. To say we need to keep doing things that hurt the planet because closing the industry down would affect jobs is a very Republican thing to say.

I prefer a government program to retrain all workers with guaranteed equal salary and benefits in the renewable energy sector is the kind of good jobs we need to invest in. That's a very Democrat way of thinking.

[beardown]

11. A clean, sustainable environment and jobs are not mutually exclusive.

If you think no jobs is bad wait until there is no air.

In all likelihood, there would be more jobs if companies had to produce their products and services in sustainable way. Also, the true cost of goods and services would be attached to the actual goods and services as opposed to the situation now where coal companies get to price their product largely without paying for the deaths and illnesses that their product produces. Why should my kids get lung cancer from coal fired plants in China burning American coal and then be stuck with the bills and economic consequences while the coal companies use their extra wealth to buy more legislators and lobbyists?

It's the whole privatize profits and socialize costs model.

Quite frankly, when companies play the jobs card it's literally economic extortion. Union? We'll take your jobs. Safety regs? We'll take your jobs. Pollution? We'll take your jobs.

[trudyco]

25. Yep, threatening job loss is a very Republican tactic. /nt

[jwirr]

17. That is what we have been hearing for most of my life and

I date back to the 40s. If we are going to move away from fossil fuels we are going to have to do it soon and we are going to have to start figuring out how to couple the jobs with alternative fuels.

We need to get serious about alternatives so that accidents like this do not happen. Think how far we would be on alternative fuels if we had started in the 40s or even the 50s when people started telling us about climate change. IF we do not start now - when?

[StarTrombone]

19. We did start in the 40's

And if the screwball anti-nuclear ninnies hadn't thrown their little tantrums we might be energy independent by now

But no, some would have us rely on magic mirrors, pinwheels and fairy dust

All of which don't put a dent in our power needs and likely never really will

[RobertEarl]

20. Sure, sure sure

Blame the failure of nukes on the ninnies? Heh.

No, sport, the banks who were asked to loan money to build nuke plants said NO. They said NO because they crunched the numbers and reality, and it told them the return on nukes would be below zero.

Fukushima in Japan will cost over a trillion dollars and never be cleaned up. The bankers saw that coming.

However, the bankers are investing in wind, solar and other alternatives.

So who's the ninnie now?

[trudyco]

26. Um

But I thought Germany actually did one whole day or evening of just renewable energy. It was a Sunday so lower energy but still... I thought they achieved full energy needs met via pinwheels and fairy dust.

Also, wasn't there some research going on to create nuclear energy that doesn't have nasty by-products that never die? If we spent as much money on research into renewable energy as we do on Cancer, or weight loss....

[Tikki]

30. Thank you for allowing the nuclear waste to be buried in your backyard....now if only

every citizen allowed nuclear waste to be buried in their yard.


Tikki

[passiveporcupine]

32. Do you live downstream from an actively leaking nuke site?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Nuclear is not safe until we find a way to use it without the endless waste that we have no safe way of storing or handling.

I do live downstream from a leaky old nuke site (Hanford) and comments like yours really piss me off.

[StarTrombone]

36. Actually I live within the 1st ring of the Palo Verde Nuclear facility

Just outside of Phoenix

It's this county's and possibly the world's, largest Nuclear power plant

It sits out in the middle of a desert and is cooled by waste water from the Phoenix Metro area

It's been operating since the 1980's and keeps my AC bill reasonable

http://mms.businesswire.com/media/20130503006144/en/359294/5/PV_Site_Aerial_Photo_(02-22-13).jpg

As for waste:
Someday we'll be mining that waste for its energy.

And people who belittle the potential of Nuclear Energy really piss me off

[passiveporcupine]

38. So you don't have nuclear waste leaching into your ground water?

Here we have it leaching into ground water in Washinton, and The Columbia River, which happens to affect Oregon too. Not safe and not cool. Neither is energy derived from oil, coal or natural gas. We need to fix it all.

How nice to only be concerned with yourself and how it helps keep your energy costs down. I happen to want to keep our planet, and ground water and air clean, and there are better and safter ways to use natural green energy that do not produce all that toxic waste.

If you want to find a way to use that waste...go for it. It's buried all over this country, and leaching into the ground water everywhere.

How about we clean up our existing mess, instead of adding to it?

Where you live, you should all be using solar instead. It's ridiculous to live in a place like Arizona and not have a ton of solar providing most of your energy.

[Tikki]

39. Someday...was over 60 years ago.

We have been to the moon, traveled to pluto, developed the personal computer, cured polio and nearly eradicated many childhood
diseases and we are still on 'SOMEDAY' with the nuclear waste.

If you think you are pissed off, try the families down wind and near Hanford.


Tikki

[rhett o rick]

34. Are you on the correct message board? Nuc's are terribly expensive. Do you know how much

oil has to be used to make the plants, how much water? Do you know that no one will insure the plants? And the clean up if you have an accident makes it not worth the risk. Other countries don't have the "anti-nuclear ninnies" as you so childishly call them and they are moving away from nuc. Germany dumped nuclear.

[StarTrombone]

40. The Nuclear Option Could Be Best Bet to Combat Climate Change

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141475460

[rhett o rick]

41. Wrong on so many counts. The cost of building a nuc power plant is cost prohibitive.

The risks of a nuclear disaster is beyond our comprehension. And we must consider the cost of closing down a nuclear plant. Someday that will have to happen. The overall cost is more than the energy gain.

[StarTrombone]

46. Oh who to believe

An analysis in Scientific American?

Or a poster on DU?

No doubt in my mind

[rhett o rick]

47. Yes an article written from the view point of "experts" that have financial biases for nuclear.

The building of a nuclear plant requires a tremendous amount of power. I didn't see how long it would take to break even. And then of course there is the cost of closing the plant which will happen someday and at an unbelievable cost. That isn't factored into the cost of the plant but should be. Also ignored in the studies is the cost of an accident. They happen and the cost needs to be factored in. Your article was very one sided.

[FighttheFuture]

45. Or we'd be awash in more 3 Mile Islands and Fukishimas. Nuclear is not a viable option to pursue.

The costs are astronomical and are never recovered and left on the backs of the taxpayers and the resultant waste if far to toxic for way too long to even bother tolerating.

There are better options, especially today.

[FighttheFuture]

44. "livelihoods!" Really?! Not every job is worth preserving. It woudl be better, and cheaper to

provide for these phased out industries a guaranteed income with retraining, or help starting some other line of work.

[passiveporcupine]

31. The coal dust from those trains is not good for the Gorge either.

Or the Columbia River.

I live in the gorge, but am not close enough to the river to have to deal with the dust. It is an issue we'd like to resolve...like no more coal trains coming through here at all?

Please some day let that happen.

I will have to keep my eyes on this train fire issue. I hope oil cannot leak into the river.
Mosier is upstream of Hood River, which is busy with people playing in the water now...that could be awful for the summer tourist season.

"We don't know whether there's any environmental damage including whether there's spillage to the Columbia," said Jennifer Flynt, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

Shit shit shit!

We don't want coal trains and we certainly don't want crude oil coming through here either.

[felix_numinous]

7. K&R

I hope someday soon people will realize excavating and creating channels for flammable materials is not a good idea while the Earth surface is heating up.

[Dont call me Shirley]

15. Tar Sands oil from Utah?

[pansypoo53219]

16. humanity is suicidal & stupid.

[trudyco]

27. I just realized the acronym for that is H.I.S.S. Haha. /nt

[HuckleB]

18. This was bound to happen eventually.

We need to get off the oil!

[elljay]

21. I presict

the Republican response to this will be to build that pipeline! Never mind that pipelines also have accidents....

[Punx]

22. Live by the oil

Die by the oil,

Or more specifically, fossil fuels.

[Tikki]

29. That is going to be a big mess...wonder if we will still see the after-math....

when we head up that way a bit later this Summer?


The Tikkis

[passiveporcupine]

33. This picture shows how close it is to the windsurfing in Hood River.

The bridge in this photo is the Hood River bridge. Hood River is famous for it's wind and kite surfing, because of the strong winds in The Gorge. the beaches you see just this side of the bridge (on the right) is where all the people hang out for the summer water games. That big broad expanse of river that is empty in this photo, is currently packed with people on boards.

?b3f6a5d7692ccc373d56e40cf708e3fa67d9af9d

As you can see from the top pic, if the oil leaks into the river, it could have some serious effect on the summer games. I think it's amazing that the train derailed where it did. A quarter mile earlier or later and those cars would have been in the river.

As you can see by this picture here:

[rhett o rick]

35. The fire is still burning with no end in sight. nm

[passiveporcupine]

43. I was told they needed it to just burn itself out.

But I know they are bringing in special foam units, so maybe that will help.

[EndElectoral]

37. for god's sake

[passiveporcupine]

42. some good news

No oil reached the river or its tributaries, authorities said late Friday. Railroad crews placed booms across the creek to prevent contamination. Workers plan to cool off the derailed cars and then will use foam on the burning cars, but cautioned that the risk of fire and possible explosion remains.

I think this is one of the biggest traffic disasters we've had in The Gorge for some time. Last one this bad was the '96 floods.