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Washington State Panel Outlines Risk of Oil-by-rail Terminal

posted by mrpg on Saturday November 25 2017, @12:23PM   
from the what-could-go-wrong? dept.

realDonaldTrump writes:

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

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Original Submission

• Re:... significant impacts that cannot be avoided? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @12:48PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @12:48PM (#602041)

  > As anyone should ignore rhetorical "estimates" without a shred of evidence.

  The estimate was about mussel beds and intertidal zones. NOAA has been monitoring [noaa.gov] mussel populations, and found that they oscillate. However, they also say [noaa.gov],

  Deeply penetrated oil continues to visibly leach from a few beaches, as on Smith Island.

  In some areas, intertidal animals, such as mussels, are still contaminated by oil, affecting not only the mussels but any animals (including people) that eat them.

  Some rocky sites that were stripped of heavy plant cover by high-pressure, hot-water cleaning remain mostly bare rock.

  Rich clam beds that suffered high mortalities from oil and extensive beach cleaning have not recolonized to their previous levels.

  That's lasting damage.

  I wrote "fritsd linked to an infographic showing effects ~34 years later" and you ignored that too.

  > BTW, I mentioned millions of years, which you ignored too. ;)

  You wrote:

  A newly man-made asphalt lake is generally not useful (except for palaeontologists a million years hence)

  How is that pertinent to the question of whether an oil spill can cause lasting damage?

  > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fossil_species_in_the_La_Brea_Tar_Pits [wikipedia.org]
  > Note the biodiversity.

  I note that many of those species are now extinct. The "La Brea Tar Pits" article says

  Animals would wander in, become trapped, and eventually die. Predators would enter to eat the trapped animals and also become stuck.

  Creatures of various species were trapped and killed; some of those species went extinct. To say the least, it doesn't support the claim of no lasting damage.

  >Yeah, but in this case the cop-out ain't working. ;) The everyone's favorite superbug, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, can and does grow literally anywhere and on anything.

  I didn't deny that bacteria are able to consume hydrocarbons. I acknowledge that. I'm saying that bacteria grow slowly under some conditions, such as cold. I didn't say that cold is lethal to them. I'm saying that in the instance of Prince William Sound, their activity is meagre enough that oil spilled in 1989 is still present.

  Conversely, if an oil spill supported a sudden flourishing of bacteria, the bacteria themselves might be harmful. You gave an example of a pathogenic strain. Also, think of "blooms" of algae or dinoflagellates.

  Parent