7 March 2007
CP Derailment Leaves Golden's Rivers Unharmed
A Canadian Pacific Railway derailment last Wednesday,
28 Feb 2007, 2 km. east of the Town of Golden, derailed eight of the train's 90 cars. While hydrochloric acid spilled from
one of the cars, local residents and the environment were not harmed.
Golden British Columbia - The cause of last week's train
derailment, just 2 km. east of Golden, is still unknown. Ed Greenberg, media relations for Canadian Pacific Railway says an
investigation is underway and environmental monitoring continues.
While evacuations and the need to stay indoors were never an issue last Wednesday, 28 Feb 2007, Emergency Response
Co-ordinator Kyle Hale says Golden learned a lot from the incident.
"This is the first emergency situation that I've been involved in (in Golden, since Hale just began his role as emergency response
co-ordinator last fall)," Hale explained last week. "A contractor called EmergeX created our emergency plan and
then my job is to implement it as need be. We didn't use a lot of that plan because we used CP Rail's plan since it was
railway-related."
Greenberg explains there is no timeline on the investigation, and when they have compiled their findings, they will be forwarded to the
Transportation Safety Board. The idea is that CP Rail will be learning all they can from the incident, so they can move forward in the
safest manner possible.
"It is still too early to speculate," he explains. "As part of our response process, we have launched a very detailed
investigation into the cause - not only what happened, but what led to the derailment.
"We are one of the safest railways in North America. We take our maintenance very seriously. We have track patrols on our system
every day. We certainly will be taking any learnings from this experience and applying them to the future."
Thankfully, Greenberg says derailments don't happen that often on the CP rail lines.
The 28 Feb 2007 incident saw eight of the train's 90 cars leave the tracks. Another four cars stayed on the track, but
Greenberg says a set of wheels on each of those cars came off the track, however, the cars remained upright.
Of the eight cars which were derailed, four of them were carrying railway ties, one contained lumber, two cars carried sodium hydroxide
(a widely-used chemical used in pulp and paper mills, the creation of soaps, detergents and textiles), and a final car was
carrying hydrochloric acid (a highly corrosive liquid found in PVC plastic and polyurethane), which leaked from the car.
The preferred speed limit in the area of the derailment is 25 mph. (about 40 km/h). Greenberg says the train was travelling at a speed
less than that.
"The clean up is well underway and is going well," Greenberg stated last Thursday, 1 Mar 2007. "There
continues to be no environmental issues; air quality and water monitoring is continuing, and testing continues to show very positive
results."
On Monday, 5 Mar 2007, Greenberg explained environmental monitoring was continuing and after repairs were made to the
track, and a thorough investigation was completed, the rails were re-opened in the evening of Saturday,
3 Mar 2007.
"Each derailment has it's own characteristics and it's hard to speculate over what led to derailments in various regions of Canada
and the US," Greenberg says. "It's hard to say when we will know (what caused this one). It could take several months before
we know. We do an analysis of the locomotive's black box, the weather conditions, track infrastructure and use computers to reconstruct
the incident."
Hale says the derailment actually occurred at 4:20 a.m., and he received the call around 6 a.m. He's dealt with circumstances of this
magnitude before, and wasn't nervous about the task at hand.
He headed to the Golden Fire Hall, which became command-central for the incident, and began gathering details about the
derailment.
"We were at no point under an evacuation alert and we weren't supposed to stay indoors; that was misconstrued information,"
Hale confirmed. "Being new to this position, I have spent a lot of time familiarizing myself with the (emergency) plan and just
recently went on a whole bunch of training courses. This was a great time to implement what I'd learned. It was timely, having just gone
through some processes with the committee I work with to discuss what would happen in emergency situations."
Hale just completed his emergency operations level one and two, and a public information officer course.
Working with the Ministry of Transportation, Ministry of the Environment, the Interior Health Authority, B.C. Ambulance and others on
the derailment, Hale says his job is to fill in any possible gaps on a community level.
Hale learned a lot last week about Golden's ability to respond to this kind of situation.
"Our community isn't set up with the infrastructure to accommodate an emergency of this size," he explained. "You get 50
people showing up to deal with this who need to communicate with their agencies and their chains of command... so it was a little
overwhelming to be running around with the two phone lines and one fax machine at the fire hall."
He says many of those who responded to the incident were forced to drive around town, in search of solid internet connections so they
could maintain necessary communications.
According to Hale, the three highest risk emergencies in Golden would be flooding, forest fires, and a hazadarous chemical spill, like
the one that happened last week.
Because Golden experiences such a high volume of traffic - via the Trans-Canada Highway and the railway - there is greater
potential for the latter to be a problem.
"I think if you want the most up to date, truthful information in a situation like this, you need to tune into the local radio,
because they have the best connection to the incident," he says. "Where there is an evacuation notice, there would be an
official declaration by the town; it would be a door-to-door campaign and an official
evacuation."
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