We were both shocked and impressed by the in-depth reporting done by LNP — LancasterOnline and WITF on what the news organizations called "toxic trains."
The reporting sharply illustrated the importance of investigative journalism to the safety and well-being of communities such as ours.
Requests for information were met with a mix of resistance and deflection from the railroad companies and the Association of American Railroads. Right-to-Know requests were filed to 12 central Pennsylvania county governments, including our own. And calls to municipal officials throughout Lancaster County requesting records of hazardous materials moving on trains proved to be fruitless. Worryingly, some counties don't even keep those records.
Nonetheless, the journalists — led by LNP — LancasterOnline's Rejrat — pieced together an alarming picture of how trains move through our communities carrying huge quantities of dangerous materials such as ammonium nitrate and vinyl chloride.
As Rejrat noted, "About 115,000 households in Lancaster County are within 1.3 miles of rail lines — or the recommended evacuation distance for a situation similar to the Ohio derailment, according to county commissioners and Lancaster Emergency Management Agency."
That, of course, was a reference to the catastrophic derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals last February in East Palestine, Ohio. More than 1,500 residents near the Ohio- Pennsylvania border were ordered to evacuate.
What made that incident worse was that emergency responders were unable to access real-time information about the toxic materials that had been released into the air, soil and water.
That is precisely the scenario Lancaster County emergency responders fear — and with good reason. As the LNP — LancasterOnline and WITF investigation found, railroad companies are not required to disclose what materials they are transporting. So emergency responders may turn up to the scene of a derailment or some other disaster without the information they need to safely and effectively respond.
And because of the size of some trains, which often have different materials on different cars, more than one municipality may have to deal with a train disaster. It's difficult to coordinate a response without knowing what you're dealing with.
"There's not enough information upfront, and it is frustrating," Duane Hagelgans, emergency management coordinator for Millersville and Manor Township, told LNP — LancasterOnline. He's also the fire commissioner for Blue Rock Fire Rescue and a professor of emergency management at Millersville University.
"When you have an event like a train derailment, and if you throw hazardous materials on top ... it is such a low-frequency event for the average fire department that it can be quickly catastrophic," Hagelgans said.
Jay Barninger, emergency management coordinator for Columbia, said anytime "you're facing the unknown, it's scarier than when you know what you're going into."
He added: "If you know what the chemical is ahead of time, it would be different."
Post-9/11 secrecy
It seems ludicrous that railroad companies are not required by law to make that information available to emergency responders. The reason for the secrecy — that information might fall into the hands of those intent on causing maximum harm — doesn't seem adequate, particularly as one of the lessons of 9/11 was the critical need to be prepared to deal with unthinkable catastrophes.
Those who mean to cause harm can do so just by assuming it's hazardous material. And not having the ability to respond is a hazard of its own.
We also found it unbelievable that the state requires county officials to compile hazardous commodities transportation lists only every five years.
To their credit, Lancaster County officials aim to compile such a list every other year. To do so, they need to go to rail lines, observe trains and record the hazardous material codes from placards on the side of the cars — one of the most low-tech and inefficient information collection methods we can imagine.
As Rejrat wrote last Sunday, emergency responders can — in the event of a disaster — access hazardous material manifests through the AskRail app, which was developed in 2014 by Class 1 railroads like Norfolk Southern and Amtrak to provide real-time data. But the app is not mandated and, as Rejrat noted, "since the East Palestine disaster, questions have been raised about the effectiveness of the communication system."
Trains carry a manifest, or train inventory, that must be kept within arm's reach of the train's engineer. But if the engineer is incapacitated by injury and the train car containing the manifest is seriously damaged, that wouldn't be much help.
Promising measures
We wish this issue had been addressed before the East Palestine catastrophe, but at least there are efforts in both Harrisburg and Washington, D.C., to do so now.
We urge readers to encourage U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker of Lancaster County to support the Railway Safety Act of 2023 and the Assistance for Local Heroes During Train Crises Act when those bills get to the U.S. House.
Democratic U.S. Sens. Bob Casey and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania were among the lawmakers who introduced the bills.
The Assistance for Local Heroes During Train Crises Act sensibly includes a proposal that would direct the transportation secretary and the Transportation Security Administration to develop regulations requiring railroads to notify local emergency response groups, fire departments and law enforcement agencies when hazardous materials are moving through their communities. As the senators correctly pointed out, emergency responders — many of them volunteers — risk their lives to protect their communities and deserve more than just gratitude.
Additionally, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration proposed a rule last month that would require all railroads to immediately send the details of the contents of their trains to every emergency responder within 10 miles during an emergency.
In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania House Bill 1028 proposes the creation of a database of hazardous material being transported through the state on railways; that database would be accessible to emergency management agencies.
Appallingly, four Lancaster County Republicans — state Reps. David Zimmerman, Keith Greiner, Brett Miller and Tom Jones — were among 62 votes against the bipartisan bill.
They should explain their "nay" votes to the Lancaster County residents who live near the railway lines on which hazardous materials are transported. And to the emergency responders who will rush to the scene should a train carrying those materials derail or crash.
___
©2023 LNP (Lancaster, Pa.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
