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The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is testing the ability of railroads that run trains in the state to respond to an oil spill.

Increased oil train traffic through Minnesota has raised public safety and environmental concerns.

Railroads file a basic disaster response plan with the state, but are not required to provide detailed plans. To assess their readiness to handle disasters, the MPCA earlier this year sent take-home drills to all four major railroads operating in the state and gave them 30 days to explain how they would respond.

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The scenarios were not a worst-case event, according to Steve Lee, who manages MPCA emergency response. He said BNSF, Canadian Pacific, Canadian National and Union Pacific all responded to different "incidents."

BNSF, for example, was given a derailment scenario in western Minnesota in which a Bakken crude oil train struck a vehicle at a crossing in rural Clay County. As a result of the collision, 14 tanker cars filled with crude oil derailed, spilling an estimated 145,000 gallons of crude oil. A nearby drainage ditch flowed directly to the Buffalo River, about a quarter-mile from the derailment. The oil did not catch fire.

The BNSF response to this scenario relied heavily on private contractors from across Minnesota and North Dakota.

Under the response plan offered by BNSF, the local fire department would be first on the scene about 30 minutes after the derailment. The first BNSF hazardous material responder would arrive 35 minutes after the derailment.

The company would send 15 contractors from across Minnesota and North Dakota to the spill along with five response trailers staged by BNSF at various nearby locations.

An hour and 25 minutes after the spill, the first contractor would arrive from Fargo to begin monitoring the air near the derailment because of safety concerns and to prevent the volatile oil from igniting.

Three and a half hours after the collision, BNSF's response indicates the company would have oil containment booms deployed on the nearby Buffalo River to stop oil from flowing downstream.

About five hours after the derailment, crews with vacuum trucks would be on the scene to start removing spilled oil from the river and the ground. Those crews come from as far away as the Twin Cities, Duluth and North Dakota.

All four railroads submitted detailed response plans, which Lee describes as adequate.

He was pleased with how seriously railroads took the drill, and said the railroads appear to be "pretty darn prepared."

But there are still questions about how a response on paper relates to a real world event.

Lee said the only way to really test the response is to run a full-scale drill. Planning for full-scale environmental response exercises is just starting and Lee expects them to happen in the next two years.

Dan Gunderson

Author

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency asked the four major railroads operating in the state to respond to take-home drills that test their disaster preparedness.

State tests railroads' ability to respond to oil spills

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