PORTLAND, Ore. - The government accused Union Pacific Railroad this week of Clean Water Act violations that began with a speeding train and a sleeping engineer and ended with a 29-car derailment and diesel spills into critical fish habitat in eastern Oregon, the Oregonian reports.
Union Pacific acknowledged errors behind the March 6, 2005, accident and has already agreed to pay penalties of $100,000 to the federal government and $40,000 to the state of Oregon for the environmental damage it caused, said company spokesman Aaron Hunt, in Sacramento.
Train MHKPC-05 bore down on the tiny town of Kamela on March 6, 2005, doing 50 mph, more than twice the posted speed for freight trains on those tracks, according to a Federal Railroad Administration report. The train was still doing 50 when it derailed on a curve, causing track and equipment damage estimated at $1.3 million.
"During interviews," the administration reported, "each of the crew members admitted they had been asleep. The engineer stated that he woke up due to lateral movement in the locomotive as it traveled through a short 2 degree 'S' curve."
The engineer applied brakes but could not stop the nearly 5,000-foot-long train, which consisted of three locomotives, 26 loaded cars and 51 empties. The train carried anhydrous ammonia and molten sulphur, and five refrigerated cars each held 500-gallon tanks of diesel.
The accident caused nearly 700 gallons of diesel to spill into Dry Creek. But that was only the first spill, according to the government's lawsuit, filed Monday on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Another 200 gallons of diesel spilled when workers for Union Pacific tried to right one of the derailed refrigerator cars. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality had directed workers to drain the diesel before righting the car, but they didn't, according to the lawsuit.
"Samples of surface water from Dry Creek taken approximately one day after the spills, from locations downstream of the derailment, contained detectable levels of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene and diesel," the lawsuit alleges.
The waters of Dry Creek flow into Pelican Creek, then to Five Points Creek and eventually into the Grande Ronde River, which is identified by state and local environmental officials as spawning and migration areas for steelhead trout and salmon.
The government's suit sought potential penalties of more than $260,000 from Union Pacific. But the settlement agreed upon by the company pays about half that.
Five days after the accident, Union Pacific held an investigation of the engineer and conductor and dismissed them from employment with the company, the Federal Railroad Administration reported.
"The probable cause of the accident was the fact that the engineer fell asleep while operating the train," the administration reported. "While he was asleep, and thus not attentive, the train developed excessive speed and derailed in a curve."
(This item appeared Jan. 28, 2010, in the Oregonian.)
