Sunday, April 17, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

HAZARDOUS CARGO: Rail car disaster looms, mayors say

Goodman: Government unresponsive to information requests

Railroad tank cars with placards marked for flammable and hazardous liquids sit on tracks in downtown Las Vegas on April 7. Photo by K.M. Cannon. An engine and tank cars sit April 8 behind a fenced area at Black Mountain Industrial Center near Henderson, where Pioneer Co. produces chlorine. Most of the tank cars were empty, but two were filled with muriatic acid. Five 90-ton cars inside the production facility contained liquid chlorine, said plant manager Gary Sulik. Photo by Jeff Scheid.

On a windy April day, 20 railroad tank cars hauling everything from liquid weed killer to butane and highly flammable alcohol sat on a sidetrack in downtown Las Vegas in the shadow of Main Street Station and the Plaza.

Ten miles away, on the southern end of the Las Vegas Valley, 16 more tank cars, each of which can hold tens of thousands of gallons of hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide, were waiting for an engine to pull them away from Union Pacific's Arden switch- yard.

There was nothing to stop someone from walking along those tracks close enough to touch them. Meanwhile, dozens more tank cars, some of which contained deadly liquid chlorine, sat on an east valley rail spur behind a barbed wire-topped fence at Black Mountain Industrial Center near Henderson.

It is this daily presence of poisonous, flammable and potentially explosive rail cargo that has Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and at least 50 other mayors across the country demanding more emergency response information from railroad regulators and the Department of Homeland Security.

A disaster looms, they say, whether it be from a derailment or would-be terrorists armed with wire cutters and toting a backpack of high explosives.

"I don't think anybody can rest easy if they think these toxic substances are in their back yards," Goodman said

His comment came in an interview about the legal battle in Washington, D.C., that pits the government-backed rail industry against the District of Columbia City Council, which passed a ban on shipping hazardous materials within two miles of the Capitol.

A decision from U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan regarding the constitutionality of the ban is expected any day.

"Much will be resolved by the litigation taking place," Goodman said. "We'll get a good read on how much power we have to regulate the rails."

Goodman said he has attempted to find out about hazardous rail cargo coming through Las Vegas, but "the government thumbs their nose at us and refuses to tell us when and where."

He found out through the media about a Dec. 31, 2003, safety inspection by the Federal Railroad Administration that reportedly found a lack of rail security precautions around Las Vegas but no terrorism risk during heightened awareness about a terrorism threat that New Year's Eve.

The Federal Railroad Administration declined to make the safety inspection report immediately available last week, and city officials had not seen it.

However, George Gavalla, a former associate administrator for safety at the Federal Railroad Administration, told The New York Times that when he sent an inspector to Las Vegas on New Year's Eve 2003, he found a number of tank cars possibly containing chlorine and poisonous gases unguarded. At a rail yard near some hotels, no train crew members challenged the inspector's presence or even talked to him.

Goodman is one of 51 mayors who backed a Jan. 18 letter to Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta and then-Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge calling for advance information about hazardous materials shipments through their cities.

The letter was spurred by Augusta, Ga., Mayor Bob Young out of concern for a train wreck in Graniteville, S.C., 10 miles from his city, that spilled liquid chlorine and created a cloud of toxic vapors that killed nine and injured more than 200. It "had the effect of the detonation of a weapon of mass destruction," the letter stated.

"More than 90,000 shipments of chlorine alone are transported across the country every year. ... Our citizens should have a reasonable expectation that hazardous materials are being shipped in the safest manner possible and that local first responders are aware of such shipments in advance," according to the letter.

The letter referred to a "safety and security" plan that the U.S. Conference of Mayors adopted in December 2001 that called on freight railroads to develop new notification procedures and provide better information about chemicals and hazardous materials stored on sidings and moving through cities.

Young said Thursday that the mayors conference is drafting "a more encompassing resolution" that will be presented at their June meeting in Chicago.

He said he realizes that banning hazardous cargo shipments in cities such as Washington, D.C., only means the problem is moved to other communities.

"I think maybe to me focusing on information where the stuff is and when it's there is probably a more productive approach, although railroads are resisting it," he said.

A Union Pacific Railroad spokesman said the company realizes that railroads are vulnerable, but the notification task would be too cumbersome.

"That's really not practical," said John Bromley, Union Pacific's spokesman in Omaha, Neb. "We could do it, but it would drown municipalities in paperwork. There would be so much data that it would be ineffective to use it. You would have to have responders at the tracks around the clock."

Bromley said Union Pacific does have security personnel at certain locations, and employees are instructed to report suspicious activity.

But on April 7 and April 8, a Review-Journal reporter walked up to tank cars on a siding in downtown Las Vegas and the Arden switchyard and spent more than half an hour at each location recording placard information from the rail cars.

No security personnel were in sight. Once, at the end of a late afternoon visit to a half-mile-long line of rail cars at the downtown siding, a Union Pacific worker in a Humvee drove by and asked what was going on.

"I'm just taking notes. I'm parked over there," the reporter said.

The worker smiled and said, "OK. That's all right." Then he drove away.

Bromley acknowledged that in most cases anyone can walk up to rail cars. Fences might deter some intruders, he said. But, he noted, "It's pretty difficult to fence off 36,000 miles of railroad. It's just not going to happen. We try to respond to where we think the threats are. We can't cover every inch of it."

Railroad police, he said, are responsible for security on Union Pacific land. They work in conjunction with local police.

Tank cars of liquid chlorine for water treatment plants and swimming pools routinely roll through the Las Vegas Valley because it is produced at the Pioneer Co. plant near Henderson.

Pioneer also handles tank cars of caustic soda and muriatic acid. Last week, there were 70 tank cars in the company yard. Most were empty, but two were filled with muriatic acid. Five 90-ton cars inside the production facility contained liquid chlorine, said plant manager Gary Sulik.

In his eight years at the plant, Sulik said he hasn't seen any tampering with tank cars. Even though the cars are made of 1-inch-thick steel with 4 inches of insulation and another steel jacket, they are still susceptible to explosives.

"That is always a risk," he said, noting that the cars are checked for explosives when they enter the plant and when they leave, and again by Union Pacific.

The top dome on each tank car is locked in place and sealed with quarter-inch steel aircraft cable that requires special tools to cut through it, Sulik said.

Although Bromley didn't have the total number of tank cars per week that pass through Las Vegas holding toxic, flammable or hazardous liquids and gases, he said typically 5 percent of what Union Pacific hauls on Western lines is hazardous.

He said it would take "very lengthy detours," to avoid Las Vegas, causing trains to go hundreds of miles to the north through Reno or south through Tucson, Ariz.

Local shipments of chlorine and other chemicals, however, couldn't be detoured around the Las Vegas Valley because they originate in the Henderson area.

Rail car accidents rarely, if ever, happen in Las Vegas.

Bromley, who has been with the railroad for 25 years, and Gary Derks, a six-year employee of the Nevada Division of Emergency Management, said they can't recall any fires, explosions or spills of toxic materials from rail mishaps in Las Vegas.

The last major liquid chlorine spill in the valley occurred in May 1991, when a hole formed in a pipe at the Pioneer plant and a shutoff valve failed. The result was a toxic, green cloud that draped much of Henderson, forcing thousands to flee their homes and sending more than 200 people to hospitals for treatment.