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Marilaine Sevard

Protecting Baltimore from Oil Trains

By Jennifer Kunze - Clean Water Action, February 12, 2016

Oil production in North America has skyrocketed in the past five years, with industries using increasingly dangerous and desperate technologies to extract fossil fuels from the ground. Particularly in the Bakken Shale region of North Dakota, the cheapest way for companies to move oil to profitable markets is to load it onto trains and send it to the coast, where refineries and export terminals can transform it into fuel and transport it to wherever they can find the best price. With increasing oil production comes increasing oil train transport – and a mind-boggling increase in oil train accidents. When train cars carrying crude oil derail or hit something, they often puncture; when they do, a slight spark can set off a fiery explosion that turns the train car into a bomb.

Trains carrying volatile crude oil from North Dakota travel through Baltimore constantly – 100 million gallons traveled through the city last year. The trains enter the city in the Morrell Park neighborhood of Southwest Baltimore and pass near the stadiums, follow a tunnel underneath Howard Street, continue underground along 26th Street through Remington and Charles Village (where a retaining wall collapsed onto the tracks two years ago), through Clifton Park, and exit through East Baltimore on their way to Philadelphia. Other trains travel from Morrell Park to South Baltimore, where the oil is transferred to ships and sent on the Patapsco River and through the Chesapeake Bay. Every neighborhood and watershed the trains cross is in danger – if you live within a mile of the tracks, you could be impacted by an explosion.

I first learned about oil trains in July 2013, after the tragedy in the small town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. In the middle of the night, a train carrying volatile crude oil from North Dakota rolled down the tracks alone, reached a speed of 60 miles per hour, derailed in the middle of downtown, and exploded. Forty-seven people were killed, half of downtown was destroyed, and the town is forever scarred by the oil contamination. Since this terrible accident, oil by rail transport has only increased – but communities are getting educated, getting organized, and fighting back.

Report on Oil Train Response 2015 Crude Awakening Network Founding Conference

By Fritz Edler - Railroad Workers United, November 16, 2015

I attended the Oil Train Response Conference in Pittsburgh as a representative of RWU under assignment from the RWU Steering Committee.  I was the only railroader present.  The conference was pulled together primarily by Forestethics and Frac Tracker.  The goal was to create the first continent wide network coordinating opposition to the shipment of volitile oil  shipments by rail, although they were never too careful to distinquish between volitile and non volitile shipments.  There were about 250 attendees, and a broad representation of organizations including a fair representation from Canada.

The conference was mostly in the Wyndham Pittsburgh University Center, except for the Saturday evening Keynote presentation. 

The first day was hosted by the Heinz Endowments and entitled "Community Risks Solutions Conference.  It consisted mainly of panels of recognized experts and activists (program is appended).

The next two days were "Training" for "Oil Train" activists.  I was able to present a railroader perspective in a breakout section, although it was as minimal a participation as we could have been allowed without having no presentation at all.  The presentation was well received.  More on that below.

There were pros and cons for railroad workers at the conference.  On balance, it's a good thing and an opportunity.

It is clear that across the continent, there are people actively working to prevent unsafe shipments of oil by rail.  Many of them are doing very good work.  It is equally clear that there are many things most of them do not understand about railroads and our role on them as workers.

RWU had many friends in attendance at this conference.  It was solely due to the hard work of RWU members in working with these folks and others in regional safety conferences that the job of winning them over to understanding the importance of an alliance with railroad workers has a chance.  I would like to think that that work has now been furthered.

Coming out of the Conference, there is now a continentwide network of activists on this issue that will coordinate and cooperate and probably meet again regularly.  They have hit the ground running by coordinating continentwide phone conferences beginning on December 4, 2015.

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