Six news articles are enclosed:
* Town stuck with $4M cleanup bill, by Toronto Star, July 24, 2013
* Ottawa gives railways new guidelines for hazardous goods in wake of Lac-Mégantic tragedy, by Globe and Mail, July 24, 2013
* Transport Canada downplayed risks of shipping oil by rail, by Keith Stewart, Greenpeace Canada, July 24, 2013
* MM&A used siding track for storage, Globe and Mail, July 24, 2013
* Companies named in class action lawsuit, Reuters, July 23, 2013
* Transport Canada introduces emergency rules for train safety (but previous warnings were ignored), Postmedia News, July 23, 2013
Lac Megantic, Quebec, July 6, 2013
From the Greenpeace report authored by Keith Stewart:
The federal government has introduced some new safety measures, but these were mostly no-brainers like ‘lock the door if you are going to leave the engine running in an unattended locomotive’. These measures, while welcome, shouldn’t distract us from how more troublesome warnings from safety experts on both sides of the border were ignored as the federal government allowed (and even encouraged) the dramatic increase in the amount of oil being shipped by rail in North America over the last three years.
1. Town stuck with $4M cleanup bill
Mayor calls situation ‘highly deplorable’ after railway fails to cover cost of clearing site of deadly explosion
By Allan Woods, Quebec bureau, Toronto Star, July 24, 2013
LAC-MÉGANTIC, QUE.— The American rail company behind the deadly explosion that destroyed a swath of this picturesque Quebec town has ignited a fury by failing to pay more than $4 million in cleanup bills and forcing Lac-Mégantic and the provincial government to pick up the tab.
“This situation is highly deplorable on the part of MMA and completely unacceptable,” said Lac-Mégantic Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche. “The town of Lac-Mégantic can no longer tolerate this situation at a time when efforts are multiplying to deal with this tragedy.”
There was no clarification Tuesday from the office of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway’s president and chief executive, Robert Grindrod, other than a “no comment” from his secretary.
The mayor’s comments came within hours of the federal government imposing a series of nationwide safety directives on Tuesday that set more rigorous standards for brake application and procedures for leaving trains unattended. The regulations also outlaw one-person crews, which were standard with Montreal, Maine & Atlantic at the time of the accident.
“The disaster brought to light several industry practices which have caused some concern,” said Gerard McDonald, assistant deputy minister of safety and security at Transport Canada. “Given that, and with an abundance of precaution, we thought it would be prudent to implement these measures now.”
Among Transport Canada’s other recommendations, rail companies must:
- Ensure that all unattended locomotives on a main track and sidings are protected from unauthorized entry into the cab.
- Ensure the directional controls, commonly known as reversers, are removed from any unattended locomotives to prevent them from moving forward or backward.
- Ensure that handbrakes and automatic brakes are properly applied to trains left unattended.
Changes to rail safety practices are the likely legacy of the deadliest train disaster in Quebec’s modern history. But the dispute over who will pay MMA’s bills is the most immediate concern for the 6,000 residents of this town and the Quebec government, whose lawyers are trying to determine the most effective methods, other than a possibly protracted legal battle, to recoup the funds.
The money — $4,149,187.48 — was paid out to three companies under contract to MMA to deal with the effects of the 5.7 million litres of crude oil that was spilled into the soil, lake and river, and spewed into the air. At one point last week, the companies threatened to quit their work and take their vital equipment with them because they had not been paid 18 days after the July 6 train derailment and explosion.
Edward Burkhardt, the chairman of MMA’s parent company, Rail World, had vowed in the days after the accident that the company would do right by the town and victims of accident. That included paying compensation, helping in the cleanup and rebuilding the tracks.
But there was only silence on Tuesday in response to Roy-Laroche’s revelation — no response from Burkhardt’s Chicago offices, nor from the company’s lawyer in Montreal.
Jim Carson, president of the Ottawa-based Eastern Canada Response Corp., which goes by the French acronym SIMEC, said the rail company signed a contract for services in the event of an oil spill before the July 6 accident occurred. There was never any attempt or explanation for its failure to pay its $1,399,187.48 bill.
Another company, MD-UN, which is based in the Richelieu valley, south of Montreal, would have been out $2 million had the Quebec government not stepped in to pay the bill. The third firm, Arkansas-based Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health (CTEH), approached city officials when its $750,000 bill went unpaid, according to a lawyer’s letter sent to MMA demanding that the city be reimbursed for the costs.
An official with CTEH confirmed that the city stepped in to pay the bill, but could offer no reasons for why the rail company could not, or would not, pay.
Radio-Canada reported earlier this week that MMA had reported to Canadian authorities a primary insurance plan that would cover the rail company for up to $25 million in damages. The expectation is that the final bill for the Lac-Mégantic cleanup and recovery will work out to many multiples of that amount.
“I hope that MMA will respect its responsibilities and act like a good corporate citizen,” the mayor said.
Town lawyers are now demanding that, within the next 48 hours, the rail company provide it with a list of officials it has tasked with overseeing the cleanup effort; a daily update on how that work is proceeding; a complete list of the contractors it has hired; and a comprehensive plan to ensure better co-ordination.
Notes:–RA
* The mayor of Lac Megantic has been among those lobbying since soon after the disaster to get the MMA rail line back up and running. So her new-found critique of MMA may be taken with a grain of salt. And this is from the Globe and Mail, July 9, 2013:
Not long ago, town officials were openly praising MM&A, a short-line railway that was teetering on the edge of financial ruin before making a few key moves in recent years, including securing a contract to move oil from the western United States to the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John, N.B. In August, 2009, Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche officially inaugurated a new MM&A spur into a local industrial park, praising the development – largely government financed – for bringing a much-needed economic boost to the town.
* From the Toronto Star, July 24, 2013:
Milliana Alliance (18 months old) is one of three children to lose both parents in the disaster, according to a report in Le Journal de Montréal. The other two were siblings. An estimated 21 children lost at least one parent that night.
2. Ottawa gives railways new guidelines for hazardous goods in wake of Lac-Mégantic tragedy
By Shawn McArthy and Jacquie McNish, The Globe and Mail, July 24 2013
The federal government has issued new safety guidelines for railways carrying hazardous goods after being urged to do so by the Transportation Safety Board in the wake of the fatal derailment in Lac-Mégantic, Que.
Transport Canada announced an “emergency directive” Tuesday that requires rail operators to ensure all trains loaded with hazardous goods are run by at least two qualified people. It also said no such trains can be left unattended on main tracks and tightened rules covering the use of handbrakes and other equipment that would prevent an unattended train from moving.
The rules come as the Conservative majority on a House of Commons committee rejected an NDP effort to begin studying rail safety in Canada, with the government side arguing that the committee should wait for more information on what caused the accident and that a parliamentary study now would draw critical resources away from the investigation.
The government acted just four days after a call for new regulations by the Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the deadly accident.
“The disaster brought to light several industry practices which have caused some concerns,” Gerard McDonald, assistant deputy minister at Transport Canada told a teleconference Tuesday. “Given that and with an abundance of precaution, we thought it would be prudent to implement these measures now.”
He said Transport Canada will ensure there is adequate inspection to enforce the new rules. He acknowledged the department has not added inspectors despite the surge in shipments of massive trainloads of crude oil across the country.
Investigators in Lac-Mégantic are still determining what caused the unoccupied Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway train to roll toward the small town early on July 6. The train, comprising 72 tankers of crude oil, slammed into the downtown, setting off a series of explosions and a fire that flattened 40 buildings and killed about 50 people.
MM&A has stopped paying for the cleanup of the disaster site, forcing the town to pick up the tab, Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche said Tuesday.
The town has sent a lawyer’s letter to MM&A, giving it 48 hours to repay the more than $4-million Lac-Mégantic has spent so far to retain the three firms initially hired by MM&A.
“This situation is highly deplorable on MM&A’s part. It’s unacceptable,” Ms. Roy-Laroche told reporters. “The town of Lac-Mégantic cannot tolerate this.”
MM&A chairman Ed Burkhardt could not immediately be reached for comment.
On Tuesday, New Democratic Party transport critic Olivia Chow welcomed the new safety regulations, but she said more needs to be done. they don’t go far enough and called for a review of the adequacy of the DOT-111 rail cars that carry 70 per cent of the hazardous material in Canada. U.S. and Canadian transport investigators have long criticized the cars as having structural weaknesses that leave them prone to leaking during an accident.
Briefing notes obtained under Access to Information by Greenpeace Canada showed that Transport Canada officials told ministers they have “identified no major safety concerns with the increased oil on rail capacity.” They reached those conclusions despite several warnings from safety agencies on both sides of the border.
Most railways in Canada operate with two-person crews on trains carrying hazardous goods. Only two – MM&A and another – were allowed to use one-person crews after Transport Canada reviewed their safety protocols.
Canadian Pacific introduced many of the new federal safety measures last week in response, sources said, to an alert from federal authorities that tighter rules were imminent. Canadian Pacific is a major carrier of U.S. and Canadian oil and it transported the ill-fated 72 cars of crude from an oil terminal in North Dakota to Montreal. MM&A locomotives carried the tanker cars from Montreal toward their ultimate destination – an Irving Oil refinery in Saint John.
A spokesman for CP said the railway welcomes the new rules. “We are in full compliance of what was announced by the federal agency. Our railway is prepared to work with Transport Canada in looking at any future steps that will make the industry safe.”
Canadian National Railway, which also transports U.S. and Canadian crude, is in compliance with three of the federal government’s six new safety standards. A spokesman for CN said the railway is taking immediate steps to ensure that it is in full compliance.
The new rules will “help to reduce the risk of unintended train movements that can lead to catastrophic accidents such as the one in Lac-Mégantic,” CN’s chief executive officer Claude Mongeau said.
Officials for MM&A could not be reached for comment.
More related to this story:
*Railway company has stopped paying for Lac-Mégantic disaster cleanup: mayor
* Vancouver mayor looks to enhance rail safety in the wake of Lac-Mégantic
* Ottawa pledges to ‘be there’ for Lac-Mégantic with $60-million aid plan
3. Transport Canada downplayed risks of shipping oil by rail
Blogpost by Keith Stewart, Greenpeace Canada, July 24, 2013
Yesterday, the Conservatives used their majority on the House of Commons Transport Committee to vote down an NDP motion to examine rail safety in light of the Lac Megantic tragedy. This is unfortunate. For even while the investigation into the specifics of what happened in Lac Megantic is ongoing, there is ample evidence that earlier safety warnings with respect to the transport of hazardous goods by rail have been ignored.
The federal government has introduced some new safety measures, but these were mostly no-brainers like ‘lock the door if you are going to leave the engine running in an unattended locomotive’. These measures, while welcome, shouldn’t distract us from how more troublesome warnings from safety experts on both sides of the border were ignored as the federal government allowed (and even encouraged) the dramatic increase in the amount of oil being shipped by rail in North America over the last three years.
In reading the internal government memos on this new wave of oil-by-rail (obtained by Greenpeace under Access to Information legislation), I was struck by how the Harper government was so focused on increasing the amount of money received per barrel of oil by getting more oil moving by rail, that it turned a blind eye to the recommendations of their own safety experts.
A 2013 memo entitled “Transporting Crude Oil by Rail”, prepared for Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, highlights the role that oil by rail can play in reducing the price discount facing Alberta’s oil industry and that “NRCan is currently meeting with Transport Canada to mutually understand how rail can be part of a solution to current market access challenges.”
The issue of safety is not raised in the NRCan memo, but it is discussed in memo entitled “Potential for Oil by Rail” prepared for Ed Fast, Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway and Denis Lebel, Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. (Note: Greenpeace obtained three versions of the memo, dated May 28, 2012, December 14, 2012 and January 30, 2013, but the wording for this section was identical in all three):
“TC [Transport Canada] has identified no major safety concerns with the increased oil on rail capacity in Canada, nor with the safety of tank cars that are designed, maintained, qualified and used according to Canadian and US standards and regulations. Indeed, Canada and the US work collaboratively to ensure the harmonization of rail safety requirements. The transportation of oil by rail does not trigger the need for a federal environmental assessment under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA), however, proposals to construct new infrastructure to support the activity may be required to determine CEAA’s applicability.”
These assurances with respect to the safety of the rail tank cars (called 111A cars in Canada and DOT-111 cars in the United States) stands in marked contrast to the repeated warnings from Canada’s Transportation Safety Board (TSB) and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
This is why Greenpeace, along with over 50 other organizations, is calling for an end to the use of these older-model tanker cars to carry petroleum products, along with a comprehensive safety review of how we move oil in this country.
These are not new concerns. As far back as 1994, the Canadian TSB wrote “The susceptibility of 111A tank cars to release product at derailment and impact is well documented. The transport of a variety of the most hazardous products in such cars continues.” The TSB has continued to highlight these problems:
“At approximately 1440 eastern daylight time on 17 August 2004, 18 tank cars of Canadian National train U-781-21-17, a petroleum product unit train travelling from the Ultramar Canada Inc. refinery in Lévis, district of Saint-Romuald, Quebec, and bound for Montréal, Quebec, derailed at Mile 3.87 of the Lévis Subdivision, in the marshy area of the Grande Plée Bleue, near Saint-Henri-de-Lévis. Approximately 200 000 litres of gasoline and diesel fuel spilled into the marshy area, but the spilled product was recovered. There were no injuries.
“The damage sustained by the Class 111A tank cars involved in this occurrence and the risks posed by the subsequent product release are typical of that identified in previous TSB investigations. In this occurrence, there was a significant spill of hydrocarbons when the tank shells and heads were breached even though the derailment happened in a marshy area where the surrounding terrain was particularly soft. Other occurrences investigated by the TSB have also revealed the vulnerability of this type of car to puncture, even in low-speed accidents (TSB report R99D0159 (Cornwall) and TSB report R05H0011 (Maxville)).”
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has been even more critical. It issued its first warning with respect to the 111 tanker cars in 1991. In March 2012, the NTSB wrote the following to the U.S. government agency considering higher standards for DOT-111 tanker cars:
“During a number of accident investigations over a period of years, the NTSB has noted that DOT-111 tank cars have a high incidence of tank failures during accidents. Previous NTSB investigations that identified the poor performance of DOT-111 tank cars include a May 1991 safety study as well as NTSB investigations of a June 30, 1992, derailment in Superior Wisconsin; a February 9, 2003, derailment in Tamaroa, Illinois; and an October 20, 2006, derailment of an ethanol unit train in New Brighton, Pennsylvania. In addition, on February 6, 2011, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) investigated the derailment of a unit train of DOT-111 tank cars loaded with ethanol in Arcadia, Ohio, which released about 786,000 gallons of product.
“The fact that DOT-111 general service tank cars experience more serious damage in accidents than pressure tank cars, such as DOT-105 or the DOT-112 cars, can be attributed to the fact that pressure tank cars have thicker shells and heads. The pressure cars are also usually equipped with metal jackets, head shields, and strong protective housings for top fittings. They do not have bottom outlet valves, which have been proven to be prone to failure in derailment accidents.
“Of the 15 derailed DOT-111 tank cars that piled up in this accident, 13 cars lost product from head and shell breaches or through damaged valves and fittings, or a combination of the two. This represents an overall failure rate of 87 percent and illustrates the continued inability of DOT-111 tank cars to withstand the forces of accidents, even when the train is traveling at 36 mph, as was the case in this accident. Head breaches resulting in the release of denatured fuel ethanol occurred in 9 of the 15 tank cars in the pileup. Head failures in seven of the cars were apparently caused by coupler or draft sill strikes. Two of the tank heads were breached by other striking objects or tank car structures. Additionally, side shells of three of the tank cars were breached as a result of car-to-car impacts. Clearly, the heads and shells of DOT-111 tank cars, such as those that are used to transport denatured fuel ethanol in unit trains, can almost always be expected to breach in derailments that involve pileups or multiple car-to-car impacts. The inability of the DOT-111 tank car heads and shells to retain lading in this accident is comparable with previously mentioned ethanol unit train accidents that occurred in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, in which 12 heads or shells were breached of 23 derailed tank cars, and in Arcadia, Ohio, in which 28 heads and shells of 32 derailed tank cars were breached.
“DOT-111 tank cars make up about 69 percent of the national tank car fleet, and denatured fuel ethanol is ranked as the largest-volume hazardous materials commodity shipped by rail. This accident demonstrates the need for extra protection such as head shields, tank jackets, more robust top fittings protection, and modification of bottom outlet valves on DOT-111 tank cars used to transport hazardous materials. The NTSB concluded that if enhanced tank head and shell puncture-resistance systems such as head shields, tank jackets, and increased shell thicknesses had been features of the DOT-111 tank cars involved in this accident, the release of hazardous materials likely would have been significantly reduced, mitigating the severity of the accident.”
Time to get these unsafe cars off the rails, or at least don’t fill them up with liquids that catch fire easily and explode.
4. MM&A used siding track for storage
Siding was equipped with additional safety equipment, but the deadly train was parked on the main line
By Kim Mackrael, Justin Giovannetti, Globe and Mail, July 25, 2013
The U.S.-based company whose train derailed in Lac-Mégantic, Que., regularly left loaded trains unsupervised on the main line so it could use the more secure siding as a storage space for a local manufacturer’s unused rail cars.
Montreal, Maine & Atlantic used a railway siding in Nantes to store rail cars set aside for Tafisa, a particleboard manufacturer located in Lac-Mégantic’s industrial park. The practice did not contravene any safety regulations, but it meant MM&A engineers were unable to pull onto the siding when parking trains during a crew change.
The Transportation Safety Board is still investigating what caused an MM&A train to begin rolling down the track from Nantes on July 6. The train picked up speed on a downhill slope and jumped the track after about 10 kilometres, setting off a series of fiery explosions that destroyed downtown Lac-Mégantic and killed an estimated 47 people.
But a growing body of evidence suggests several factors may have contributed to the crash, including MM&A’s practice of leaving trains unattended on the main line instead of moving them onto the siding, a stretch of parallel track equipped with a large metal derailer that is designed to push the front of the train off the tracks and stop it from moving farther.
Transport Canada issued an “emergency directive” this week requiring railways to ensure that trains carrying hazardous goods are moved off the main tracks, among a series of other changes. The new policies were introduced days after TSB investigators in Lac-Mégantic warned federal regulators that there were no rules against the practice.
Before the crash, MM&A used two sidings to serve the Tafisa, one in Nantes and another to the east of Lac-Mégantic, located near the border with the United States. The company’s CEO, Louis Brassard, told The Globe and Mail that the sidings are used as “parking lots” for cars the company isn’t using.
Every week until the July 6 derailment, between 50 and 60 rail cars were slowly driven inside the sprawling Tafisa complex, located in an industrial park east of downtown Lac-Mégantic, and loaded with tonnes of particleboard and melamine. The factory’s finished product was then shipped west, bound for Montreal and other North American markets.
“We load the trains seven days a week,” said Mr. Brassard, explaining why the railway kept a steady supply of empty cars near the factory.
MM&A chairman Edward Burkhardt has cast blame on the train’s engineer for the LacMégantic accident, saying he believes the employee failed to set enough handbrakes to hold it in place once the air brakes failed. But railway experts say the siding could have provided another layer of protection – if the company had made use of it.
“If their practice had been to store it on a siding with the derail installed, this never would have happened,” said Wayne Benedict, a former locomotive engineer with CP Rail and B.C. Rail. “No matter how many handbrakes were or were not put on there, when the pneumatic braking system failed and the handbrakes failed to hold the equipment, it would have just plopped off the derail at the east end of Nantes and that would have been an end to it.”
Mr. Burkhardt could not be reached for comment on Wednesday. But earlier this week, he told The Globe and Mail that MM&A would no longer leave any of its trains – including those carrying dangerous goods – on the main tracks without supervision.
On Wednesday, a rusted yellow derailer sat clamped on the siding in Nantes, with a large yellow warning sign planted in the gravel nearby. Farther back, nearly two-dozen boxcars remained in the same location on the siding where they have been since the crash. Mr. Brassard said the cars were scheduled to come to the Tafisa factory for loading, but Quebec provincial police have not allowed them to be moved.
5. Wrongful death suit in Quebec train crash filed in U.S.
By Casey Sullivan, Reuters, July 23, 2013
The guardian of a girl whose Canadian father died in the tragic Quebec train crash this month filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Illinois on Monday against a number of railway and fuel services companies connected with the disaster.
The lawsuit is believed to be the first filed in the United States related to the train derailment in the early hours of July 6 that sent 72 tankers of crude oil crashing into the village of Lac-Megantic in Quebec, where they exploded in a ball of fire, killing almost 50 people.
Annick Roy, the guardian of Fanny Roy Veilleux, whose father Jean-Guy Veilleux, a Lac-Megantic resident, allegedly burned to death as a result of the train crash, filed the lawsuit in Cook County. Court documents did not provide the age of Fanny Roy Veilleux, but described her as a minor daughter.
The defendants include railroad operator Montreal Maine and Atlantic Railway Inc, its parent company Rail World Inc, MMA Chairman Edward Burkhardt, and fuel services company World Fuel Services Corp [2012 revenue of $39 billion].
Roy alleges in the suit that the companies largely failed to keep the train’s oil tankers, known as DOT-111s, up to reasonable government safety standards and are therefore negligent in the death of Veilleux.
“For more than 20 years, problems with DOT-111 tankers rupturing upon derailment have been well documented by government safety regulators and media outlets,” Roy said in the lawsuit. “The railroad and petroleum industries have long acknowledged the design flaws in the DOT-111, but have consistently ignored the (National Transportation Safety Board’s) calls to address the dangers associated with rupture of the tankers.”
Roy said in the lawsuit that the tanker cars that spilled in Lac-Megantic were the same type that ruptured in a 2009 derailment in Cherry Valley, Illinois, that resulted in a spillage of 324,000 gallons of ethanol. The Lac-Megantic tankers lacked safety improvements recommended by the NTSB, the lawsuit said.
Other defendants named in the lawsuit are Western Petroleum Company, Petroleum Transport Solutions, Dakota Plains Transloading LLC, Dakota Petroleum Transport Solutions, Dakota Plaints Marketing and DPTS Marketing.
Montreal, Maine and Atlantic, Rail World, Edward Burkhardt, World Fuel Services Corp and other defendants were approached for comment on the suit but did not immediately respond. Nor did the lawyer representing Roy, Peter Flowers of Chicago-based Meyers & Flowers.
About a week after the crash, Canadian and U.S. lawyers filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of two Lac-Megantic residents, Guy Ouellet and Yannick Gagne, in Quebec Superior Court to seek compensation from the accident. Defendants included the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic and Burkhardt, among others.
6. Transport Canada introduces emergency rules for train safety
By Mike De Souza, Postmedia News, July 23, 2013
OTTAWA – Transport Canada announced six emergency rail safety rules Tuesday in response to the Lac-Megantic runaway train disaster, but its senior officials declined to answer direct questions about whether it had failed in previous years to respond to weaknesses highlighted both in internal and external audits.
In a news conference responding to recommendations from Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigators last Friday, the department said the new rules would be effective immediately and in place for about six months, leading to permanent rule changes for the industry.
The new measures ban one-person crews for locomotives carrying train cars with dangerous goods. They also place new restrictions on unattended trains on main tracks, as well as defining minimum requirements for their braking systems.
“The disaster brought to light several industry practices which have caused some concern,” Gerard McDonald, assistant deputy minister responsible for safety and security at Transport Canada, said in a conference call with reporters.
“Given that and with an abundance of precaution, we thought it would be prudent to implement these measures now.”
The disaster, which claimed dozens of lives and destroyed multiple buildings, also resulted in the release of about 5.7 million litres of oil into the air, water and soil around the small Quebec town, provincial officials estimated this week, making it one of the largest environmental disasters in North American history.
But Transport Canada officials ended the news conference when reporters started asking whether the department failed to respond to previous warnings about oversight weaknesses, raised in an audit by the federal environment watchdog in 2011 and an internal audit done five years earlier.
McDonald suggested that the 2011 audit, which recommended sweeping changes and a new risk management system in the department’s oversight of the transportation of dangerous goods, was not related to the new emergency measures unveiled Tuesday.
He was also unable to respond to revelations from internal Transport Canada documents, released to Greenpeace Canada through access to information legislation, that his department had “identified no major safety concerns with the increased oil on rail capacity in Canada, nor with the safety of tank cars” used for transportation of dangerous goods.
Despite longstanding warnings from the Transportation Safety Board and others about the existing steel cars and other issues, Transport Canada had dismissed the rail safety concerns in a memo prepared for International Trade Minister Ed Fast in January 2013.
The assistant deputy minister suggested he was not familiar with these recommendations.
“I can’t verify what that document is, so I’m not going to speculate about it,” McDonald said.
Transport Canada announced the emergency measures as some federal MPs returned to Parliament to begin hearings, spearheaded by NDP transport critic Olivia Chow, on rail safety issues.
But MPs eventually accepted a motion from Ontario Conservative Jeff Watson, who questioned whether an immediate parliamentary study was necessary, to delay the hearings, pending further results from the ongoing Transportation Safety Board investigation in Lac-Megantic.
“This committee also should be concerned in deciding whether to commence a study now whether that draws important resources out of the field where they belong,” Watson told the House of Commons transport committee. “That doesn’t mean there won’t be a study. The answer from this side of the table is not a ‘no’, it’s a ‘not yet.’”
Liberal transport critic David McGuinty supported the Conservative proposal to delay the parliamentary hearings, explaining that it would allow federal officials to focus their attention on the ongoing investigation and rebuilding efforts, but he said the government also needed to provide more details about its actions and its response to the disaster.
Meanwhile, Chow suggested that the Conservatives and Liberals wanted to “take the summer off,” adding that immediate hearings could help address longstanding safety concerns and reassure other communities fearing similar disasters in their own backyards.
With files from Andrea Hill, Postmedia News
Six emergency rules introduced Tuesday by Transport Canada:
–Ensure that no locomotive attached to one or more loaded tank cars transporting dangerous goods is operated with fewer than two qualified persons on a main track or sidings;
–Ensure that no locomotive attached to one or more loaded tank cars transporting dangerous goods is left unattended on a main track;
–Ensure, within five days of the issuance of the directive, that all unattended controlling locomotives on a main track and sidings are protected from unauthorized entry into the cab;
–Ensure the directional controls, commonly known as reversers, are removed from any unattended locomotives, preventing them from moving forward or backward, on a main track or sidings;
–Ensure that their company’s special instructions on hand brakes are applied to any locomotive attached to one or more cars that is left unattended for more than one hour on a main track or sidings;
–Ensure that, in addition to complying with their company’s special instructions on hand brakes referred to in the item immediately above, the automatic brake is set in full service position and the independent brake is fully applied for any locomotive attached to one or more cars that are left unattended for one hour or less on a main track or sidings.
Source: Transport Canada