As some of you know, I am a bird photographer who spends a good deal of
time photographing birds along the Upper Mississippi River Flyway.
Over the past year there has been an exponential rise in the amount of
rail traffic carrying crude oil from the Bakken Region of North Dakota
and Canada through our region. In the first 9 months of 2013, 1 million
barrels were pumped out of the Bakken Region. This year, it is projected
to reach 2 million barrels per day. The majority of this oil is being
moved by train and crude-related train incidents were up 12-fold from
2010 to 2013.
The problem:
There is no way that the rail companies can ever reach 100% safety.
There are always going to be derailments and the crude oil from the
Bakken region is more volatile than other crude oil. The craziest part
of all is that the majority of the 93,000 tank cars in service, only
14,000 of them are up to current safety standards. Their hulls are too
thin to withstand derailments and quite frequently rupture causing
massive explosions like those in La Megantic, Quebec or more recently in
Castleton, ND.
What does this have to do with birds? Lots.
There are rail lines running adjacent to the Mississippi Flyway. Both
side of the river. There is a real and serious risk to the Upper
Mississippi River Refuge. A derailment into the river would be
catastrophic. The amount of environmental damage would be massive---not
to mention the potential loss of life and damage caused to towns along
the river.
The reason I am writing to you today is for your help. We need to take
action to get the deficient tank cars out of service and replaced with
safer tank cars. Only Congress and the White House can do anything about
this. It's a federal issue.
I would very much appreciate if you could take the time to sign a couple
of petitions asking our government to take action now before it's too late.
Here are the links to the petitions:
White House:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-transporting-explosive-hazardous-crude-oil-rail-using-unsafe-and-outdated-dot-111-tanker-cars/QR42328x
Congress:
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/stop-transporting-explosive?source=c.em.cp&r_by=9875190
I also invite you to learn more about these issues by visiting:
www.dot111.info <http://www.dot111.info>
Thank you for your time,
Alan Stankevitz
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