Rail Crews To Restore Track Today Derailed Tank Car Has Not Spilled Into River

Crews on Tuesday built a temporary route around a Union Pacific train derailment in which a tanker car containing a hazardous chemical toppled into the Snake River.

The outer shell of the car containing caustic sodium hydroxide was punctured, but none of the material leaked into the river, Union Pacific, state and federal environmental officials said.

The sodium hydroxide was to be off-loaded before the derailed car was pulled from the water, probably today, Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley said from Omaha, Neb.

Repair crews used part of a side track to detour around the derailment and hoped to reopen the line by early today, Bromley said.

Initial reports from the state Department of Ecology and the federal Environmental Protection Agency indicated some of the material had leaked into the water. But the agencies later said there had been no spill.

Sodium hydroxide is a caustic material used in making pulp and paper and other industrial processes. It could harm fish and other aquatic life if it spilled and was insufficiently diluted, officials said.

No injuries were reported.

The Coast Guard briefly closed a section of the river to traffic, and downstream irrigators were notified about a potential spill.

Twenty cars of the 33-car train derailed at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday about 32 miles northeast of Pasco, near the town of Sheffler, Bromley said. The cause of the derailment was unknown.

Spill officials said other cars also were in the river, but were empty. Two hopper cars spilled about 200 pounds of dry fertilizers along the tracks, but it was not considered a threat, the state and federal agencies said.

The train had four engines and a crew of two. Only the rear wheels on one engine derailed, Bromley said.

The Union Pacific track in Eastern Washington runs from Umatilla, Ore., to Spokane. On a typical day, four to five trains use the route, Bromley said.