Re: Deadly Leak Underscores Concerns About Rail Safety

[John Jacobus <crispy_bird@yahoo.com>]

To make you feel more confident about how our

government is addressing the terror threats, consider

the following that appeared in "The Scientist" Volume

18, Issue 24, No. 12 Dec. 20, 2004



Biosecurity a no-show



By John Miller 



In March, the Department of Health and Human Services

(HHS) created the US National Science Advisory Board

for Biosecurity, meant to be the centerpiece of a new

national system to prevent bioterrorists from seeing

research they could transform into bioweapons (see

[http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040305/04]). But

since then, the board has never met, its members have

not been chosen, and its professional staff is not yet

in place. As of earlier this month, the news page of

its Web site had not been updated since June 22.



A committee of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)

proposed the board as a self-policing body of

scientists necessary to preempt the federal government

from taking more drastic measures, such as classifying

some research as secret and outlawing its publication.

Gerald Fink, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

professor who chaired the NAS report, says he has no

idea why the committee hasn't already geared up. Back

in March, "I thought it would be a couple of months,"

he says. "That was my expectation. I think it was

everybody's expectation."



HHS spokesperson Bill Hall said early this month that

"we're still working on pulling the board together.

These things always end up taking more time than

expected, but I'm told that we are getting close."





--- "Stabin, Michael"

<michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu> wrote:



> 

> At last! Some focused concern where concern is due.

> A quick call or two

> to some of us could provide some pretty useful

> experience about safe

> transit of hazmat.

> 

> 

> Deadly Leak Underscores Concerns About Rail Safety

> By WALT BOGDANICH

> and CHRISTOPHER DREW 

> NY Times, January 9, 2005

> 

> Ten months ago, government safety officials warned

> that more than half

> of the nation's 60,000 pressurized rail tank cars

> did not meet industry

> standards, and they raised questions about the

> safety of the rest of the

> fleet as well. Their worry, that the steel tanks

> could rupture too

> easily in an accident, proved prophetic. On

> Thursday, a train crash in

> South Carolina caused a deadly release of chlorine:

> 9 people were

> killed, 58 were hospitalized and hundreds more

> sought treatment. The

> ninth body was found yesterday, and thousands of

> people have been kept

> from their homes.

> 

> Last summer, a derailment in Texas caused a steel

> tank car to break

> open, spewing clouds of chlorine gas that killed

> three people. The exact

> causes of the accidents are still under

> investigation. But the

> devastation they have wrought shows why tank cars

> have become an

> increasing concern not just to safety investigators

> but also to domestic

> security officials worried that terrorists could

> turn tank cars into

> lethal weapons. The Federal Bureau of Investigation

> warned in 2002 that

> Al Qaeda might be planning to attack trains in the

> United States,

> possibly causing derailments or blowing up tank cars

> laden with

> hazardous materials...

> 

> Just how ruptured tank cars can endanger a community

> was underscored

> three years ago when a Canadian Pacific Railway

> freight train derailed

> just outside Minot, N.D. Five tank cars carrying a

> liquefied type of

> ammonia gas broke open, releasing toxic fumes that

> killed one resident

> and injured more than 300.

> 

> The National Transportation Safety Board, in a

> report on the accident

> released last year, said the steel shells on the

> five ruptured tank cars

> had become brittle, causing a "catastrophic

> fracture" that released

> clouds of toxic vapors. Those cars, the safety board

> found, were built

> before 1989 using steel that did not - as it does

> now - undergo a

> special heat treatment to make it stronger and less

> brittle. Tank cars

> built after 1989 use this specially treated steel.

> 

> The safety board warned that of the 60,000

> pressurized tank cars in

> operation, more than half were older cars that were

> not built according

> to current industry standards, leaving them

> susceptible to rupture. And

> because these cars may remain in service for up to

> 50 years, some older

> ones could still be hauling hazardous materials

> until 2039.

> 

> Among the hazardous materials carried by the tank

> cars are liquefied

> ammonia, chlorine, propane and vinyl chloride. In

> most cases, the cars

> are owned by chemical or leasing companies, not the

> railroads...

> 

> Although the rail industry now requires that tank

> shells be made with

> the special heat-treated steel, the safety board

> said that treatment

> alone "does not guarantee" enough protection against

> impact. Other

> manufacturing techniques should also be explored,

> the board said, but it

> cautioned that the industry and the railroad

> administration "have not

> established adequate testing standards to measure

> the impact resistance

> for steels and other materials used in the

> construction of pressure tank

> cars."

> 

> Steven W. Kulm, a spokesman for the railroad

> administration, said, "We

> have a long history of activities and actions that

> have improved the

> integrity of tank car construction." Mr. Kulm said

> that since 1994

> accidents "have been few in number," though even one

> death, he added,

> was too many. "Tank cars are more crashworthy and

> puncture resistant in

> train derailments today than ever before," he said.

> 

> In the Texas crash last summer, the tank car that

> ruptured and released

> poisonous gas was made before 1989, though federal

> investigators have

> not yet concluded whether brittle steel played a

> role in that accident.

> The South Carolina crash involved the rupture of a

> newer tank car

> manufactured in 1993, said Richard Koch, vice

> president for public

> affairs at the Olin Corporation, a diversified

> manufacturing company

> that owned the car...

> 

> The danger of such an attack has been a major

> concern since the Sept. 11

> strikes. When the United States invaded Afghanistan

> in October 2001,

> freight railroads placed a 72-hour moratorium on

> carrying some hazardous

> chemicals as a precaution against retaliatory

> strikes.

> 

> In warning in 2002 about possible attacks, the

> F.B.I. said, "Recently

> captured Al Qaeda photographs of U.S. railroad

> engines, cars and

> crossings heightens the intelligence community's

> concern of this

> threat."...

> 

> Mike

> 

> Michael G. Stabin, PhD, CHP

> Assistant Professor of Radiology and Radiological

> Sciences 

> Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences 

> Vanderbilt University 

> 1161 21st Avenue South

> Nashville, TN 37232-2675 

> Phone (615) 343-0068

> Fax   (615) 322-3764

> Pager (615) 835-5153

> e-mail     michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu 

> internet   www.doseinfo-radar.com

> 

>  

>

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> 





=====

+++++++++++++++++++

"It doesn't matter whether you're riding an elephant or a donkey if you're going in the wrong direction."

Jesse Jackson





-- John

John Jacobus, MS

Certified Health Physicist

e-mail:  crispy_bird@yahoo.com





		

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