Hackensack Riverkeeper has joined the Bergen County-based Coalition to Ban Unsafe Oil Trains in calling for substantive changes in the way oil is shipped so that people and their waterways are better protected.
Each week Florida-based CSX Corporation sends as many as thirty 100-car freight trains loaded with upwards of 3.5 million gallons of Bakken crude oil from North Dakota where it is extracted to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where it’s refined, according to a release. During that journey, every train travels virtually the entire length of the Hackensack River, passing through North Bergen, Secaucus, Jersey City, and Kearny.
“These trains pass directly over the Oradell Reservoir – which provides drinking water for nearly one million people,” said Riverkeeper Captain Bill Sheehan. “Not only that, but they travel through some of the most densely-populated communities in our area, placing hundreds of thousands at risk… The possibility for a truly horrific environmental disaster is never far away.”
Pointing out that long stretches of track are old and badly-maintained and that many New Jersey railroad bridges are in serious disrepair, Sheehan claimed that the potential increases every day for derailments, oil spills and catastrophes such as the tragedy that happened in Lac Megantic, Quebec where forty-seven people were burned to death on July 6, 2013.
Hackensack Riverkeeper is calling on supporters to attend a Coalition rally scheduled for March 7 at 2 p.m. in Harrington Park.
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