Mosier oil train derailment: 65 truckloads of crude oil cleared, 25 more to go
By Everton Bailey Jr. | The Oregonian/OregonLive
on June 07, 2016 at 3:38 PM, updated June 08, 2016 at 12:15 PM
Crews have so far removed hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil from the Union Pacific train that derailed last week in Mosier, authorities said Tuesday.
More than 65 trucks have ferried the oil to The Dalles, where it's being loaded back onto train cars that will eventually travel to the original destination in Tacoma, said officials with Union Pacific and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Workers still have at least another 25 truckloads of oil to remove until the 13 derailed cars still at the site are empty, said Judy Smith, an EPA spokeswoman. That could happen by the end of Tuesday, she said. Each truck can hold a capacity of up to 5,000 gallons of oil.
The derailed cars are sitting on the side of the tracks, allowing freight trains to resume service.
Sixteen cars on the 96-car train derailed Friday shortly after noon near the Columbia River Gorge town of 430. Four cars caught on fire and the same amount of cars leaked 42,000 gallons of Bakken crude from North Dakota.
Workers recovered 10,000 gallons from the town's wastewater system near the site, but there may be more oil in the sewer lines, authorities said. The rest vaporized, was captured by oil booms in the Columbia or seeped into the soil.
After workers remove the remaining cars, the soil will be cleaned up and crews will look at the town's wastewater lines to permanently fix sewer service, authorities said.
It's not clear when that will all happen. Mosier's wastewater is temporarily being collected and trucked about 7 miles to Hood River for disposal. Bans on showering, using toilets and a boil water advisory in Mosier were all lifted by Monday night.
The derailment caused the two-day evacuation of a nearby 76-unit mobile home with nearly 300 people, but no one was hurt. A preliminary investigation shows a failure with a bolt that fastens the rail to the railroad ties caused the crash.
Justin Jacobs, a Union Pacific spokesman, said the company plans to bring 10 to 15 empty oil cars through the Columbia River Gorge to The Dalles for the offloaded oil. Once filled, he said, the cars will stay in place until a temporary moratorium ends and the community is notified. Union Pacific suspended moving oil trains through the gorge after the derailment.
It's unclear whether the moratorium in Oregon will have any impact on Union Pacific's oil train traffic. Most oil trains move on the Washington side of the Columbia River; Union Pacific had moved just three oil trains a month in Oregon.
Despite the halt on Union Pacific's oil train traffic, oil trains continue rolling through the gorge, across the river in Washington. A BNSF Railway Co. spokesman said the company averages two oil trains a day. Though BNSF has agreements in place that would allow Union Pacific oil train traffic to move on BNSF's lines, there are no plans for that to happen, said BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas.
Some Union Pacific trains carrying other freight have moved on BNSF's routes through the gorge and Washington's Stampede Pass, Melonas said, as the companies have worked through traffic jams caused by Friday's derailment.
The oil that burned in the accident was within volatility standards set by North Dakota oil regulators, federal officials said Tuesday.
The crude, loaded at the Dakota Plains terminal in New Town, North Dakota, had a vapor pressure of 9.2 psi, said Tiffany Lindemann, spokeswoman for the Federal Railroad Administration. That's below the 13.7 psi standard set by the North Dakota Industrial Commission. It wasn't immediately clear whose testing yielded that reading.
Crude with a higher volatility emits more flammable gases like propane – and more pressure – when heated.