Thanks Obama - Freight train carrying crude oil derails near Illinois city

[Arbitr8]

The derailment occurred 3 miles south of Galena in a wooded and hilly area that is a major tourist attraction and the home of former President Ulysses S. Grant.The train had 103 cars loaded with crude oil, along with two buffer cars loaded with sand. A cause hadn't yet been determined. No injuries were reported.




Firefighters could only access the derailment site by a bike path, said Galena Assistant Fire Chief Bob Conley. They attempted to fight a small fire at the scene but were unable to stop the flames. Firefighters had to pull back for safety reasons and were allowing the fire to burn itself out, Conley said. In addition to Galena firefighters, emergency and hazardous material responders from Iowa and Wisconsin were at the scene.



The derailment comes amid increased public concern about the safety of shipping crude by train. According to the Association of American Railroads, oil shipments by rail jumped from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to 500,000 in 2014, driven by a boom in the Bakken oil patch of North Dakota and Montana, where pipeline limitations force 70 percent of the crude to move by rail.



Since 2008, derailments of oil trains in the U.S. and Canada have seen 70,000-gallon tank cars break open and ignite on multiple occasions, resulting in huge fires. A train carrying Bakken crude crashed in a Quebec town in 2013, killing 47 people. Last month, a train carrying 3 million gallons of North Dakota crude derailed in a West Virginia snowstorm, shooting fireballs into the sky, leaking oil into a river tributary and forcing hundreds of families to evacuate.

Meanwhile the White House response was trains are safer than pipelines, a White House spokesman indicated that Obama himself plays with trains and has never had one jump the track on his H.O. scale layout in the basement of the White House.




http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/freight-train-carrying-crude-oil-derails-near-illinois-city/ar-BBihCaD

 

[aflachawk]

Originally posted by Arbitr8:

The derailment occurred 3 miles south of Galena in a wooded and hilly area that is a major tourist attraction and the home of former President Ulysses S. Grant.The train had 103 cars loaded with crude oil, along with two buffer cars loaded with sand. A cause hadn't yet been determined. No injuries were reported.




Firefighters could only access the derailment site by a bike path, said Galena Assistant Fire Chief Bob Conley. They attempted to fight a small fire at the scene but were unable to stop the flames. Firefighters had to pull back for safety reasons and were allowing the fire to burn itself out, Conley said. In addition to Galena firefighters, emergency and hazardous material responders from Iowa and Wisconsin were at the scene.


The derailment comes amid increased public concern about the safety of shipping crude by train. According to the Association of American Railroads, oil shipments by rail jumped from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to 500,000 in 2014, driven by a boom in the Bakken oil patch of North Dakota and Montana, where pipeline limitations force 70 percent of the crude to move by rail.


Since 2008, derailments of oil trains in the U.S. and Canada have seen 70,000-gallon tank cars break open and ignite on multiple occasions, resulting in huge fires. A train carrying Bakken crude crashed in a Quebec town in 2013, killing 47 people. Last month, a train carrying 3 million gallons of North Dakota crude derailed in a West Virginia snowstorm, shooting fireballs into the sky, leaking oil into a river tributary and forcing hundreds of families to evacuate.

Meanwhile the White House response was trains are safer than pipelines, a White House spokesman indicated that Obama himself plays with trains and has never had one jump the track on his H.O. scale layout in the basement of the White House.

The thanks on a larger basis go to all the Dem politicians who took Tom Steyers money and said to hell with the unions, the people and enviroment

 

[ihawk in FWB]

Obama tried to skid a passenger airliner into the water in NYC and tried to kill Harrison Ford today.

Thanks Obama!
Posted from Rivals Mobile

 

[ihhawk]

My jaw dropped when I read this. That is a major increase in the number of rail shipments. I know that the GOP has harped on the increase but I have not heard much feedback from liberals on why this isnt also bad. Is the response simply that this oil should stay in the ground and we should use solar?

 

[Lone Clone]

Originally posted by montross:
My jaw dropped when I read this. That is a major increase in the number of rail shipments. I know that the GOP has harped on the increase but I have not heard much feedback from liberals on why this isnt also bad. Is the response simply that this oil should stay in the ground and we should use solar?

That depends upon whether you are talking hypothetically or not. Diane Feinstein, among other liberal Dems, got her panties in a bunch over the idea of putting solar panels in the Mojave Desert. Just as other liberal Dems fight bitterly against wind power generators out of sight off the east coast.

As I have said before, these people are simply anti-energy.

 

[THE_DEVIL]

Federal Court Order: Explosive DOT-111 "Bomb Train" Oil Tank Cars Can Continue to Roll

A U.S. federal oil-by-rail tankers pitting the Sierra Club and ForestEthics against the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). As a result, potentially explosive DOT-111 oil tank cars, dubbed "bomb trains" by activists, can continue to roll through towns and cities across the U.S. indefinitely.
"The briefing schedule previously established by the court is vacated," wrote Chris Goelz, a mediator for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. "This appeal is stayed until May 12, 2015, or pending publication in the Federal Register of the final tank car standards and phase out of DOT-111 tank cars, whichever occurs first."

Filing its initial petition for review on December 2, the Sierra Club/ForestEthics lawsuit had barely gotten off the ground before being delayed.
That initial petition called for a judicial review of the DOT's denial of a DOT denied Earthjustice's petition, leading the groups to file the lawsuit.
Initially, DOT told the public it would release its draft updated oil-by-rail regulations by March 31, but now will wait until May 12 to do so. As reported by The Journal News, the delay came in the aftermath of pressure from Big Oil and Big Rail.
"In a joint filing, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) and the American Petroleum Institute (API) contend the tank car industry doesn't have the capacity to retrofit the estimated 143,000 tank cars that would need to be modernized to meet the new specifications," wrote The Journal News. "Nor can manufacturers build new tank cars fast enough, they say."
The "July 2013 deadly explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec.
And as DeSmogBlog has reported, industry promises to phase-out DOT-111s on a voluntary basis have rung hollow.
"The courts and the administration are dragging their feet on common sense safety steps that will take the most dangerous oil tanker cars off the tracks, slow down these trains, and help emergency responders prepare for accidents," Eddie Scher, communications director for ForestEthics, told DeSmogBlog.
"We filed our lawsuit because the DOT is not moving fast enough on safety. This court's decision ignored the imminent threat to the 25 million Americans who live in the blast zone and the communities around the nation that don't have the luxury of waiting for DOT and the rail and oil industry lobbyists to finish their rule."
Photo Credit: Shawn Rode[/I]

http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/01/23/federal-court-order-explosive-dot-111-bomb-train-cars-can-continue-roll

 

[mauricehawki]

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