Derailments stoke coal train debate

WASHINGTON – A string of derailments of trains carrying coal has galvanized opponents of new coal export terminals in the Pacific Northwest, who are concerned that more traffic in their communities would compromise health, the environment and public safety.

Early Tuesday, a CSX coal train turned over on its side in Ellicott City, Md., near Baltimore. Two college students were killed, and the accident closed roads and businesses.

Last month, a Union Pacific coal train derailed on a highway overpass near Chicago, killing two people in a car on the road below. Recent derailments of coal trains in Washington state and Texas resulted in no fatalities, but they added to the debate over transporting coal.

Coal isn’t classified as a hazardous material, and railroads have been shipping it from mines to ports and power plants for decades, mostly without incident. But some communities have decided they don’t want mile-and-a-half-long coal trains lumbering through their backyards and they have vocal allies in environmental groups.

CSX referred questions about Tuesday’s derailment to the National Transportation Safety Board. NTSB spokesman Jim Southworth said investigators had interviewed the three crew members of the train, who said they “saw nothing and felt nothing” before the accident.

The NTSB team inspected the locomotives and cars, and the condition of the track, Southworth said. They downloaded information from the locomotive event recorder, he said, and will review footage from a front-facing camera in the locomotive.

“This investigation will be very wide-range,” Southworth said.

Coal opponents in Bellingham, Wash., are worried about an increase in coal traffic that could accompany a proposed export terminal near the city. Peabody Energy, the nation’s largest coal producer, could ship as much as 50 million tons of coal a year through the Gateway Pacific terminal, mostly to power plants in China, South Korea and Japan.

Anti-coal activists in Bellingham want to put a measure on the November ballot that would ban coal shipments through the city of 82,000. A local judge issued an injunction against the measure earlier this month, and the state Court of Appeals in Seattle will hear an anti-coal group’s request to overturn the injunction. Because of interstate commerce law, communities have little power to regulate what’s transported through them.

Coal is a profitable business for railroads, which excel at carrying large quantities of freight over long distances. It accounts for nearly a quarter of their revenue, according to the Association of American Railroads, an industry group.

Tighter emissions standards and an abundance of cheap natural gas have made coal less attractive to domestic utilities. That’s why coal, rail and shipping companies are looking to overseas markets. To reach them, they need to build export terminals along the West Coast.