Consider Carefully, With An Open, Safety-Intent Mind

In Commerce, Calif., this month I spent two hours touring a Burlington Northern Railroad refueling depot that is comparable to the installation planned for North Idaho. It’s an impressive sight, with three tanks that hold more than 2 million gallons of fuel, and with a network of safety features.

Whether such storage is right for this region is a complex matter.

BN wants to install a million gallons of diesel fuel No. 2 over the Rathdrum aquifer, principal supplier of drinking water for the Spokane area. The company wants to do this at great expense because it will save money through increased efficiency.

Railroads often get short shrift in our image-driven era. But long freight trains are more environmentally friendly than the fleets of trucks on the highways. In terms of pollution, fuel efficiency, speed, maintenance and convenience, they are a boon to the environment, despite smoke, occasional derailments and snarled traffic at highway crossings.

Burlington wants the new depot to be located at the Hauser junction where three main lines converge. Crew changes could be done during refueling and those $1.5 million locomotive engines wouldn’t be delayed much more than 40 minutes. The more engines are hauling freight, the more profits the railroad makes.

The only thorn in these plans is the need to keep our drinking water safe.

Like many other industries, the large railroads have focused much attention on the environment in the last 20 years. While public relations considerations are a strong motivator, I like to think that even stubborn industrialists have realized that this small planet cannot take much more abuse.

For 50 years at least, passenger cars had signs in their lavatories which read “Do not flush toilet while the train is standing in the station.” Now, containment tanks have removed this problem, so raw human waste is no longer dumped between the rails all over the nation.

But compared with human byproducts, which are biodegradable, diesel fuel and other industrial products are potentially many times more hazardous to the environment. Happily, they are all much better contained, treated and recycled than in even the recent past. Response times to major mishaps are faster and more efficient now, also. We are better prepared to clean up spills.

Yet all of this pales compared with the potential nightmare of all that fuel standing over our drinking water. If a million gallons of diesel fuel began leaking into the aquifer, the consequences would be grave and long-lasting.

The prudent step is to look very carefully at what BN proposes and then methodically evaluate the risk to the population versus the company’s desire for higher profit.

First, a moderate spill or leak poses no real problem. Enormous safety mechanisms are in place in case of a broken pipe, faulty valve, accidental spillage or leak, or even a crack in one of the tanks.

The yard tracks, tanks and buildings in Commerce are built over enormous concrete slabs many inches thick, with a sealant filling the spaces between. Under the concrete are layers of plastic sheeting and between those is a signal system that alerts to any leak. Firefighting foam is on hand and automatic shutoffs are tripped when tank or pumping pressure changes. Numerous panic buttons that stop the entire operation are readily accessible. Computer controls monitor all systems.

So, come a leak or spill, the likelihood of any oil seeping down to the aquifer is slim and clean-up would be swift.

A catastrophe is what should and does worry locals because often in complex installations, the unexpected happens. The most extreme case would have a million gallons of diesel fuel pouring out of the tanks and swamping the installation. No response team could cope with such a flood.

If the concrete layer and plastic sheeting hold, the sideward spread would present a treacherous sight. Even if, as Burlington officials have said, all the resources of this large corporation would swing into action to fix the problem and clean the mess, and work round the clock to soak up all the spill, those measures would not prevent costly losses and contamination of our water.

Burlington intends to submit plans and proposals to the community before filing formal applications for the work. Burlington intends to present verifiable geographic studies, computer-model data and charts and graphs galore to prove that, in the worst case, the pristine drinking water and fragile ecosystem would be safe for people and animals.

We should all be very prudent and study these materials carefully. The desire of increased dividends for stockholders should not plunge us into danger.