By Laura Stevens and Cameron McWhirter
Crews worked Thursday to clean up the derailment of a train
hauling crude-oil tanker cars in Lynchburg, Va., while state
officials worked to determine the environmental impact of the
thousands of gallons of spilled crude.
The oil-carrying train derailed in a fiery crash Wednesday,
forcing the evacuation of a large part of the downtown along the
James River.
Department of Environmental Quality spokesman Bill Hayden said
state workers smelled oil downstream from the derailment site
during a night-time survey, according to the Associated Press.
No injuries have been reported. But the first major derailment
of a crude-oil train in a densely populated urban area only added
to the worries of civic officials in communities along crude-oil
rail routes.
About 15 cars derailed, including three that caught fire in the
midafternoon accident, said the train's owner, CSX Corp. Several
tank cars plunged into the river, said Heather Childress, a
battalion chief with the Lynchburg Fire Department. Within an hour,
the fire was contained on land, but crude still burned in the
river, she said.
The city said CSX officials were working to remove a part of the
train that was blocking employees from leaving the Griffin Pipe
Foundry. "CSX is responding fully, with emergency response
personnel, safety and environmental experts" and other resources,
the railroad said.
The crash is the latest in a string of accidents involving
crude-oil tanker cars, including one in Quebec last summer that
killed 47 people and incinerated part of the town of Lac-Mégantic.
Lynchburg, about 90 miles west of Richmond, has about 77,000
residents.
The train was traveling from Chicago. It was unclear where the
crude shipment was headed, but there is one oil train terminal in
Virginia. The Yorktown, Va., storage and shipping site owned by
Plains All American Pipeline LP began receiving shipments of crude
by rail in December, according to a securities filing. Bakken oil
produced in North Dakota is railed to Yorktown where it can be
loaded on barges and shipped north to East Coast refineries, one
expert said. Plains didn't return calls for comment.
Regulators recently have mandated stricter standards for the
testing and transportation of crude, and railroads also have agreed
to a number of voluntary measures, including slowing train speeds
through populated areas and rerouting trains around high-risk
areas.
U.S. crude oil production has skyrocketed in recent years thanks
to production in North Dakota's Bakken Shale region, and much of
that oil is being shipped by rail. While crude oil isn't generally
linked to explosions, a Wall Street Journal analysis in February
indicated that Bakken crude can be more volatile and more likely to
emit flammable gases than other types of crude.
Oil trains originating in North Dakota travel through a number
of large cities on a regular basis, including Chicago, Detroit and
Philadelphia, and a number of local and state officials have raised
concern about the practice.
Vickie Bramble, a receptionist at a CPA firm in downtown
Lynchburg, said in an interview that when the crash first happened,
she saw tall flames shooting into the sky, over a six-story
building that obstructs her view of the river.
The Federal Railroad Administration said it was sending
inspectors to the scene.
Alison Sider contributed to this article.
Write to Laura Stevens at laura.stevens@wsj.com and Cameron
McWhirter at cameron.mcwhirter@wsj.com
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