Expect the unexpected and be ready. That was the theme Wednesday as members of 23 different agencies, private companies and utilities met in Quincy for the first in a series of drills preparing for a major train derailment and hazardous material spill.
Officials acknowledged that a serious accident isn’t a possibility, its an eventuality. The event was held in Quincy in part to focus on the vulnerable railway line running through the Feather River Canyon. The river is the main source of Lake Oroville, which supplies water to farms and residential customers across the state.
Although they’ve decreased in number and frequency since oil prices slid, oil trains continue to ply the nation’s rails, ferrying North Dakota crude to far flung refineries, including several in California.
Recent derailments and explosions in Quebec and West Virginia have spurred calls for greater rail safety.
Officials discussed responding to a theoretical derailment, explosion, fire and oil spill into the Feather River.
“The initial response is going to be local government and they are going to do the best that they can with the equipment they have, until we get additional resources on scene,” said Thomas Campbell, the deputy chief of HazMat for the California Department of Emergency Services
California has not been immune from similar disasters. In 1991, a derailment near Dunsmuir resulted in a tanker car transporting 19,000 gallons of herbicide to break apart when it plunged into the Sacramento River. Aquatic life was wiped out along the 20 river miles upstream of Lake Shasta.