Wabamun water results expected today
Last updated Aug 11 2005 09:14 AM MDT
CBC News
Wabamun Lake residents expect to hear Thursday what damage a hazardous oil caused when it leaked into the water during last week's train derailment.
Test results from the lake and surrounding wells will be available, Alberta Environment says, after it confirmed Wednesday that one of 43 cars that went off the rails Aug. 3 contained an oil used to treat utility poles – a compound that has been linked to skin cancer.
Aerial view of Wabamun Lake, covered in bunker fuel oil.
The news that one of the CN cars was carrying a hazardous substance came to light four days after the derailment, when Alberta Environment officials noticed a green substance at the site, suspecting it was a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon used to preserve wood.
The car was carrying 70,000 litres of the oil.
Initially, it was believed that only bunker fuel oil, a heavy oil used in asphalt production and to power ships, spilled into the lake. Crews are still trying to contain and clean up more than 750,000 litres of the oil on the lake's surface.
CN Rail admitted this week that they'd known since Thursday that one of the derailed cars was carrying the pole-treating oil.
"That inaction's just made a situation which was bad incredibly bad," Doug Goss, spokesman for Wabamun residents and cottagers, said. "Now they're trying to play catch up on it. It's the best they can do with an incredibly bad situation.
"But they're the authors of that bad situation. We're all frustrated and still, I think, very angry."
CN spokesman Jim Feeny denied allegations that the company deliberately withheld the information, saying CN had worked hard to get details out quickly as it began to clean up the mess.
"CN would never purposely withhold information relating to public safety, but obviously we have an issue here with the specific information about this one specific car, about the contents of this one specific car," he said, adding CN officials are trying to determine who received the information and why it wasn't immediately passed on.
"Obviously there's been a disconnect here. We do know that there was a problem, that the information did not get to everyone who needed it."
The pole-treating oil was listed as lube oil on the shipping manifest, a general term used to describe the product.
Last Wednesday morning, 43 or 140 rail cars on a train travelling from Edmonton to Vancouver went off the rails as it rolled alongside Wabamun Lake.
The revelation that CN was aware of the car's contents before Alberta Environment became suspicious has further angered residents, already upset at the pace of the lake's clean up. Friday they blocked the main line for more than four hours to protest the pace of the clean up.
FROM AUG. 5, 2005: Province issues environmental clean up order for Wabamun
"Maybe there's something else in those rail cars that is going to come out today, or the day after," one man said at a public meeting Tuesday.
Residents have been told to not drink the water, or use it for showers or to wash dishes. Wabamun has been shipping its water in from Stony Plain.
Environment Minister Guy Boutilier is threatening CN with harsh penalties in connection with the spill, saying the company may have breached the law by not immediately disclosing exactly what was in the leaking rail cars.
The Telegram (St. John's)
2005.08.10
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Safety record questioned; Two serious CN derailments in one week
The Telegram (St. John's)
2005.08.10
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Criticism of CN Rail is building a head of steam as two of its unions joined a major environmental group Tuesday in questioning the railway's safety record after two environmentally damaging derailments last week.
The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference and Canadian Auto Workers Local 100, which represent engineers and shop workers respectively, have written Transport Minister Jean Lapierre asking him to investigate CN's maintenance, repair and inspection practices.
Meanwhile, the Sierra Club of Canada is demanding Environment Minister Stephane Dion prosecute the former Crown corporation for the ecological damage caused by toxic materials that spilled in the Alberta and B.C. derailments.
CN staunchly defends its safety performance, arguing that despite privatization and job cuts, new monitoring technology has made it the safest railway in North America.
The storm broke over CN last Wednesday when a suspected broken rail caused a freight train to derail and dump 700,000 litres of heavy fuel oil in and around Lake Wabamum, 65 kilometres west of Edmonton. Two days later, another CN freight jumped the tracks over the Cheakamus River canyon north of Vancouver. A ruptured tank car sent more than 40,000 litres of highly corrosive caustic soda into the river, instantly killing thousands of fish and triggering a two-day warning to stay away from the river. Local wells were also temporarily off limits.
''The main reason why we felt strongly about this is because we've got two aquatic eco-systems that have basically been destroyed,'' Stephen Hazell, Sierra Club conservation director, said Tuesday from Ottawa.
''We haven't heard much from either level of government about what they plan to do about it, even though we have environmental laws in this country that cover these exact sorts of situations.''
Ottawa should prosecute the railway under the Fisheries Act or the Environmental Protection Act, he said.
''We have been concerned for many years about the growing reluctance of the federal government to prosecute polluters,'' said Hazell. ''These two instances are among the most egregious that I can recall.''
The unions contend CN's safety record has declined since it was privatized in 1995 and began shedding staff even as it expanded operations by taking over U.S.-based Illinois Central Railroad in 1998, as well as Crown-owned B.C. Rail in 2003.
''We speculate or believe there are some correlating issues here between the downsizing, the weight increase, the train length increase, CN moving from a Crown corporation to a private organization and that kind of stuff,'' said John Burns, vice-president of CAW Local 100 in Vancouver.
''We're asking the minister in a letter to him to do a comprehensive review of CN practices.''
Bruce Willows, senior vice-chairman of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, dismissed suggestions his union was exploiting the incidents to push for more jobs.
''Railway safety doesn't impact directly on our numbers,'' he said. ''It impacts directly on our members' lives, their health and safety.
''What we want to do is exclude the possibility that somehow cutbacks have resulted in a reduction with respect to maintenance of track and equipment.''
But CN spokesman Graham Dallas said the railway's number of reportable accidents has dropped by 20 per cent from last year.
''Obviously we're not perfect,'' he said. ''We've got a lot of room for improvement, but we do take some pride in the fact that the industry bodies ... clearly show that CN is the safest railway in Canada as well as North America and has been so for a number of years.''
Goss says further meetings between residents, government and CN are scheduled for Thursday.
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