Dozens of firefighters, police officers and emergency managers in Bergen County are training to handle a potential oil train derailment in a series of drills given this week by CSX, the railroad company that hauls millions of gallons of volatile crude oil through the region.
These "tabletop exercises" are the first regionwide drills to address safety concerns about the enormous growth in the amount of crude oil hauled through 11 Bergen County towns on the way to a Philadelphia refinery. The crude oil, from the Bakken rock formation in North Dakota, has been involved in a series of fiery derailments across North America, including one two years ago that killed 47 people in a small Quebec town.
The three drills try to simulate an emergency command post focusing on areas along the train line that have different challenges. These include more densely populated towns like Teaneck and Bergenfield, where homes, schools and at least one firehouse sit next to the tracks, as well as smaller up-county towns with less emergency equipment and personnel.
Participants, who began their training Monday night, will be expected to make decisions about how to quickly assess the risk to residents, coordinate evacuations, deploy equipment and contain any fire.
Although there will be no field exercises, organizers say there is value in training for an emergency, even if it's done in a conference room, since most local first responders have never dealt with a large accident like a derailment.
The drills are partly in response to a countywide meeting last year in which local firefighters said they don't have the manpower, equipment or expertise required should there be an accident. And officials are not given specific information about when trains will pass through their towns or the volume of oil they carry.
While freight trains have long hauled hazardous materials through the region, the amount of crude oil shipped on the nation's rails has increased enormously. About 60,000 tank cars, each containing 30,000 gallons of crude oil, were hauled on the CSX River Line through Bergen County last year, almost triple the amount from 2013, according to county emergency officials.
The oil originates in a geological formation called the Bakken shale, located in a remote area of North Dakota where pipelines are scarce. More than 35 million barrels were produced in May, according to the latest government data.
Over the past two years, Bergen County has become a major corridor for the oil, with 15 to 30 trains traveling every week on the CSX River Line from Albany, N.Y. They enter New Jersey in Northvale and travel past thousands of homes and businesses in Norwood, Harrington Park, Closter, Haworth, Dumont, Bergenfield, Teaneck, Bogota, Ridgefield Park and Ridgefield. The trains eventually pass through the central part of the state, crossing the Delaware River near Trenton on their way to a refinery in Philadelphia.
Among those expected to attend the drills, which run through Wednesday, are United Water personnel. The trains cross a small 86-year-old bridge over the Oradell Reservoir, which supplies drinking water to 800,000 people. Officials from the water company are developing an emergency response plan with Bergen County emergency officials to contain any possible oil spill into the reservoir before it reaches intake valves south of the bridge.