Environmentalists, Officials In Rockland Voice Concerns After North Dakota Oil Train Derailment
WEST NYACK,N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Another fiery, explosive oil train derailment -- this time in North Dakota -- has some concerned in Rockland County, where similar trains rumble through.
"Through our communities, next to schools, next to restaurants, next to parks, next to drinking water sources for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers," Hayley Carlock, attorney for the environmental group Scenic Hudson, told WCBS 880's Sean Adams.
Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., wants to ban all Bakken crude shipments by rail unless volatile gases are first removed.
Environmentalists, Officials In Rockland Voice Concerns After North Carolina Oil Train Derailment
"I don't want any cars coming here, even if they're the new cars, if those products, the Bakken fuel, is not reduced in volatility," the congresswoman said.
The federal government is requiring tougher tanker cars, but it's going to take up to a decade to get all of them rolling.
The six tank cars that exploded into flames Wednesday in rural North Dakota were a model slated to be phased out or retrofitted by 2020 under the federal rule announced last week.
It's the fifth fiery accident since February involving that type of tank car, and industry critics responded to the latest with calls for them to be taken off the tracks immediately to prevent further fires.
No injuries were reported in the derailment of the 109-car BNSF railway train, which prompted the evacuation of the 20-resident town of Heimdal, about 115 miles northeast of Bismarck.
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