Crude-by-railChicago, center of fracking oil shipments, debates rail safety

Chicago is home to the busiest crossroads of the nation’s rail network, and the country’s boom in oil fracking has led the city to see not only a massive increase in crude oil transferred by rail in the region, but also debates about the public safety of such an influx.

As theToledo Bladereports, the Windy City has experienced a 4,000 percent increase in oil train traffic since 2008, with many of the densely packed suburbs surrounding the city located very close to rail lines and switches.

Many of the oil trains are 100 or more cars long, carrying volatile crude oil from the Bakken oil region, which includes parts of Montana, North Dakota, and southern Canada.

“For me to assure my community there’s no risk, I would be lying,” said Mayor Tom Weisner of the nearby town of Aurora. “A derailment in or around our downtown would be absolutely disastrous.”

Speaking in Chicago recently at a conference in Chicago organized by the environmental group Institutes for Journalism & Natural Resources (INJR), Weisner noted that the mayoral office sees little planning or preparation in terms of emergency planning for a derailment.

“That always helps, of course. But you could have a major catastrophe before they could arrive on the scene, and that’s the truth,” he said, referencing multiple times the deadly 2013 Lac-Megantic, Quebec explosionwhich killed forty-two people.

“We’re always going to be at one of the highest levels of exposure,” the Aurora mayor said. “There’s no doubt about it.”

But environmentalists such as the INJR and others are working to expand the dialogue about the increase in shipments with little safety regulation.

“Of all the suite of issues I work on for the NRDC, this is the scariest,” said Josh Mogerman, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “These are moving targets going through very, very densely populated areas.”

Many of these activists are arguing for reforms, tighter rules and strengthened train cars above all else. They also argue that the few reforms enacted in recent years are not enough.

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports also noted that “While pipelines transport the majority of oil and gas in the United States, recent development of crude oil in parts of the country under-served by pipeline has led shippers to use other modes, with rail seeing the largest percentage increase. Although pipeline operators and railroads have generally good safety records, the increased transportation of these flammable hazardous materials creates the potential for serious accidents.”

The agency urged that the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) create better rules for flammable products shipped by rail, with further emphasis on emergency preparedness.

The Association of American Railroads(AAR) responded to the growing criticism, saying that the industry “are making Herculean efforts to improve an already safe nationwide rail network now crisscrossing some 140,000 miles of the country.”