'We need to be moving away from production, transportation and use of fossil fuels, period—if we want a livable planet, that is.'
Fires continued to smolder Tuesday morning as emergency crews assessed the damage after a train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed and exploded near the Mt. Carbon area of Fayette County, West Virginia.
Roughly 2,400 people have been evacuated or displaced by the derailment, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as the fire burned power lines, knocking out power to roughly 900 Appalachian Power customers.
According to Kanawha County Manager Jennifer Sayre, the derailed CSX Corp oil train was hauling 109 cars—107 of which were carrying 33,000 gallons each of crude oil from the Bakken fields in North Dakota to a terminal in Yorktown, Virginia.
As the second oil train disaster in as many days, environmentalists and safety advocates say that the incident highlights an urgent need for significant safety reforms.
Thus far, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has primarily focused on the need to update oil-by-rail car safety, particularly older models of the DOT-111 tank car, the most common type of tank car, which inspectors say lacks adequate protections in derailments involving hazardous materials.
However, following Monday's derailment, a CSX spokesperson confirmed that all of the oil tank cars on the derailed train were CPC 1232 models, which Reuters describes as "the newer, supposedly tougher version of the DOT-111 cars."
In a statement to Common Dreams, Center for Biological Diversity senior scientist Mollie Matteson explained that the CPC 1232 is "little better" than its predecessor in incidents involving any speed and also "has proven to be highly vulnerable on impact." Further, its the model that ruptured in the derailment on the very same rail line in Lynchburg, Virginia last April.
Fires continued to smolder Tuesday morning as emergency crews assessed the damage after a train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed and exploded near the Mt. Carbon area of Fayette County, West Virginia.
Roughly 2,400 people have been evacuated or displaced by the derailment, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as the fire burned power lines, knocking out power to roughly 900 Appalachian Power customers.
According to Kanawha County Manager Jennifer Sayre, the derailed CSX Corp oil train was hauling 109 cars—107 of which were carrying 33,000 gallons each of crude oil from the Bakken fields in North Dakota to a terminal in Yorktown, Virginia.
As the second oil train disaster in as many days, environmentalists and safety advocates say that the incident highlights an urgent need for significant safety reforms.
Thus far, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has primarily focused on the need to update oil-by-rail car safety, particularly older models of the DOT-111 tank car, the most common type of tank car, which inspectors say lacks adequate protections in derailments involving hazardous materials.
However, following Monday's derailment, a CSX spokesperson confirmed that all of the oil tank cars on the derailed train were CPC 1232 models, which Reuters describes as "the newer, supposedly tougher version of the DOT-111 cars."
In a statement to Common Dreams, Center for Biological Diversity senior scientist Mollie Matteson explained that the CPC 1232 is "little better" than its predecessor in incidents involving any speed and also "has proven to be highly vulnerable on impact." Further, its the model that ruptured in the derailment on the very same rail line in Lynchburg, Virginia last April.