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In Illinois, Flames and Clouds of Smoke Signal Yet Another 'Bomb Train' Disaster

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In yet the latest fiery example of a crude-by-rail disaster, a derailment on Thursday of a train carrying crude oil near the Mississippi River in Galena, Illinois (not far from the Iowa border) saw several cars burst into flames as thick black smoke billowed into the air.

Operated by the rail company BNSF, the company said the train originated in North Dakota and was carrying more than a hundred cars of Bakken crude.

“The only thing more mind-boggling than three such accidents in three weeks is the continued lack of action by the Obama administration to protect us from these dangerous oil trains.” —Mollie Matteson, Center for Biological DiversityAccording to Reuters:

The Associated Press added:

Noting that this is third such derailment in the United States in as many weeks, environmental campaigners voiced immediate concern that government officials have proven ineffective when it comes to curbing the dangers posed by the large increase in crude-by-rail traffic in recent years.

“The only thing more mind-boggling than three such accidents in three weeks is the continued lack of action by the Obama administration to protect us from these dangerous oil trains,” declared Mollie Matteson, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement on Friday morning. “The government has the authority to take immediate action to address this crisis – which puts homes, waters and wildlife at risk – and yet it has sat back and watched.”

On Thursday, an exclusive investigative report by Reuters explained how last year, as a string of crude derailments had increased public outcry and concern, the Obama contemplated—but ultimately decided against—tightening federal regulations on the oil-by-rail industry. Instead of having the federal government impose tougher restrictions, Reuters reported, the Obama administration decided to allow state regulators, in this case North Dakota, to set the rules.

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According to Matteson, “There are simply no excuses left for the Obama administration. The fact that these trains are still moving on the rails is a national travesty. The next explosive wreck — and there will be more, so long as nothing changes — may take lives, burn up a town or level a city business district, and pollute the drinking water of thousands of people. Enough is enough.”

In its response to the latest derailment by a BNSF train carrying crude oil, the public interest group U.S. PIRG on Friday noted that the company spent upwards of $5 million lobbying congressional lawmakers against tougher oversight in 2014.

Just as in a similar derailment that occured in West Virginia last month, the rail cars in Illinois that caught fire were newer-model CPC 1232, touted by the industry as safer than older models still widely used.

According to the BNSF statement, all the tanker cars involved in Thursday’s derailment were the “unjacketed CPC-1232 model with half-height head shields.”

Last month, citing internal data by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Associated Press revealed predictions by the government agency, given current trends, that train derailments such as this will continue to be commonplace in the years ahead, occurring at an average of 10 times a year, costing billions of dollars in damage, and putting a large number of lives at risk..

Following Thursday’s disaster, Mother Jones was among the many news outlets making note of the growing and troubling trend of what have euphemistically become known as “bomb trains”:

In an op-ed for Common Dreams last month, Jared Margolis, a staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity and the author of a recent report on the crude-by-rail crisis, echoed this point by writing:

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In reality, Margolis concluded, there is “no way to safely transport the highly volatile crude from the Bakken oil field in North Dakota or the heavy crudes from the Alberta tar sands. Instead these extreme fossil fuels should be left in the ground for our safety and to avoid the impending climate catastrophe.”

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