Oregon Train Derailment Sparks Protest and Oil Sheen on Columbia River

Trains may be one of the USA’s primary modes of goods transportation, but when operations go awry, the repercussions are fierce. Following the derailment of sixteen train carriages on the Washington-Oregon border, the Columbia river gorge was flooded with volatile crude being carried by the industrial locomotive. As well as the derailment, four of the Union Pacific carriages then caught on fire, sending a thick plume of black smoke into the sky.

Locals protest against interstate train transport

While environmental crews worked fast and hard to clean up the sheen of oil that appeared in the river, townspeople were indignant. Locals are now rallying to halt to shipping of volatile oil by rail, citing it as a risk to public health, as well as the natural environment.

Union Pacific was quick to issue an apology, and confirm that the North American railroad franchise would be covering the cost of the clean-up.

“I want to apologize to the community,” said Union Pacific spokeswoman Raquel Espinoza in a news conference. “This is the type of accident we work to prevent every day.”

Oil spills disrupting lives and livelihoods

Yet for environmentalists, an apology doesn’t mitigate the risk of further accidents. Shipping oil by rail is a long running topic of controversy in the scenic Columbia River Gorge region, with eco-advocates arguing that it’s simply not a safe or suitable practice to be occurring in and around hubs of recreation and commerce. More than 100 people had to be evacuated from a nearby holiday park, while schools and businesses were also cleared out.

Mosier city council president Emily Reed is categorically against transporting oil by rail, maintaining that “There is no safe way for these fossil fuel trains to come through our town, and I’d like to see them stopped until there are standards and we know it’s safe.”

She warns that while this particular incident affected her hometown of Mosier, the incident isn’t a one off. “Next time it’ll be somebody else’s town,” she predicts.

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