A major oil-by-rail terminal proposed on the Columbia River in Washington state poses a potential risk of oil spills, train accidents and longer emergency response times due to road traffic, an environmental study has found.
Many of the risks could be decreased with certain mitigation measures, but the study released Tuesday outlined four areas where it said the impacts are significant and cannot be avoided.
The study said that while "the likelihood of occurrence of the potential for oil spills may be low, the consequences of the events could be severe."
[...] The study identified the four risks that could not be avoided as train accidents, the emergency response delays, negative impacts of the project on low-income communities and the possibility that an earthquake would damage the facility's dock and cause an oil spill.
Washington state panel outlines risk of oil-by-rail terminal
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2017, @04:00PM
We've already had a train derailment in Washington recently that would have done serious damage to a small town if it had happened in the city limits. Just look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster [wikipedia.org] and https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/oil-train-derails-in-columbia-river-gorge/ [seattletimes.com] .
With trucks you have a larger chance of smaller mishaps, with trains, you have a smaller chance of significantly larger mishaps. One truck catching on fire can cause something like this: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/12/tanker-truck-explosion-damaging-overpass.html [latimes.com] in a more or less worst case scenario, but trains can easily do that if they derail while carrying flammable liquids.