Some time ago I did make notice of this rail line on this blog and I noted how the three trestles on the line and right here in town they look like something ofutof Ma and Pa's Kettle's days. They are old as hell and very much cracked. Yes, they work and I have stood next to them as the heavy oil trains go over the trestle and saw nothing of note except the thunderous vibration of the tonnage.
As is well known, this week another one of these Bomb Trains blew all to hell out in W. Virginia--not the first one. It seems if they derail and there is a spark, they make one hell of a huge bomb. I am not happy. So I sent the following letter to the local news paper to see if they might publish it.
What about the Bomb Trains in Portage County?
It seems appropriate for numerous reason, citizens begin to become aggressively concerned about the frack oil “Bomb Trains” that are moving daily through Portage County. On Monday a train just like the ones going through Amherst and Point, ( possibly it did) blew up in West Virginia threatening an entire community with monstrous flames, and billowing clouds of toxic pollution, the same pollution scientifically proven to be contributing to Climate Change.
Fortunately there was no loss of life, unlike the blow up in Quebec that killed 47 in a community just like Amherst. What gets my goat is that these trains are going over three concrete trestles in the center of town. From casual appearance, these trestles seem old and in very poor shape. There are cracks everywhere with seeping water. As these heavy, multi-engined monsters lumber through town, the entire place shakes---and that includes those lame trestles. Has there ever been a complaint about the Bomb Trains?
There has been a multitude of derailments of these large tanker trains. The frequent cause, extreme heat caused by global warming. http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-warp-railroad-tracks-sun-kinks-17470
To top it off, the oil being hauled is frack oil from the Bakken. It is widely known this light crude is highly volatile and explodes easily. If the cars tip and rupture, as they did in West Virginia, the toxic oil, heads for the river, if burning, making it look like the Cuyahoga River in Iowa.
What it comes down to is we Americans, we members of Portage County need to get real serious about our use of oil, particularly as we are now scraping the bottom of the barrel and going after the stuff in extreme places be it tar sands in Canada, ultra deep in the Gulf (remember Horizon) or in the short-lived frack wells.
To make it even more interesting we now are about to have a major pipeline going through the heart of Wisconsin--carrying frack oil and tar sands bitumen spiked with volatile natural gas condensates.
http://www.wisconsingazette.com/wisconsin/xxlbreakwisconsin-pipeline-dwarfs-keystone-and-affects-every-waterway-in-the-state.html?fb_action_ids=10206002156244117&fb_action_types=og.comments
If you have grand-kids you should be worried.
The sustainable revolution is really struggling as we power are way along trying to maintain business as usual. Seems there are consequences---unintended consequences.
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