Ban oil trains
Two days after a train carrying highly volatile crude oil derailed, shooting fireballs into the sky and sending an oil-filled car into West Virginia’s Kanawha River, it was still burning. And now, questions are burning too: Are these trains coming through our neighborhoods?
Dangerous oil trains barrel down tracks through numerous communities in Pennsylvania, carrying extremely volatile crude oil from the Bakken Shale – just watch the video from West Virginia’s explosion. Hundreds of thousands live inside the evacuation zone for these trains, yet our local governments and first responders too often do not know when these trains travel through our communities, leaving them unable to prepare for the worst. When leaks, crashes, or derailments occur, not even the walls of people’s homes are guaranteed to keep them safe from fiery explosions.
Last year alone, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia saw their own oil train accidents. Luckily these incidents weren’t disasters on the same scale as the one in West Virginia, but a number of Pennsylvania communities could be next. Before a Pennsylvania neighborhood goes up in flames, our elected officials should ban oil trains until critical safety standards can ensure the end to destructive accidents
Alaina Gercak
Philadelphia
Gercak is a campaign organizer for the PennEnvironment advocacy group.