The transport of petroleum via rail is
now a well-known and unwelcome sight in many other U.S. communities.
Its long distance rail transport has resulted in five major train
fires and explosions in the last 16 months alone.
Richmond,
California began life more than a century ago as a sleepy little
railroad town. It was the second place on the eastern shore of San
Francisco Bay where a transcontinental rail line connected with
ferries, to transport freight and passengers to San Francisco. Now a
diverse industrial city of 100,000, Richmond is still crisscrossed
with tracks, both main lines and shorter ones, serving its deep-water
port, huge Chevron oil refinery, and other local businesses.
Trains
just arriving or being readied for their next trip, move in and out
of a sprawling Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) rail yard located
right next to the oldest part of town. Some train formations are more
than 100 cars long. The traffic stalls they create on nearby streets
and related use of loud horns, both day and night, have long been a
source of neighborhood complaints. Persistent city hall pressure has
succeeded in cutting horn blasts by about 1,000 a day, through the
creation of several dozen much appreciated “quiet zones.” No
other municipality in California has established so many, but only
after many years of wrestling with the industry.
Despite progress on
the noise front, many trackside residents continue to experience
“quality of life” problems related to the air they breath. Some
of their complaints arise from Richmond’s role as a transfer point
for coal and petroleum coke (aka “pet coke”) being exported to
Asia. As one Richmond official explained at a community meeting in
March, these “climate wrecking materials” wend their way through
the city in open cars—leaving, in their wake, houses, backyards,
and even parked cars covered with a thick film of grimy, coal dust.
Coal train fall-out has become so noisome in Richmond that its
seven-member city council—now dominated by environmental activists—
wants the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) to
mandate the use of enclosed cars. MORE
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