Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Oil Trains On PA Tracks Getting More Scrutiny After West Virginia Explosion

AP Photo/ Office of the Governor of West Virginia, Steven Wayne Rotsch,File
This aerial photo made available by the Office of the Governor of West Virginia shows a derailed train in Mount Carbon, WV., Tuesday Feb. 17, 2015.

The fiery oil train derailment in West Virginia on President’s Day, which forced the evacuation of nearby residents and sent Bakken crude into the Kanawha River, has environmentalists and local lawmakers taking a more critical look at the oil trains running across Pennsylvania’s tracks.

The burning CSX rail cars in the West Virginia accident carried shale oil from North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields. Dozens of those same oil trains role across Pennsylvania each day on their way to Philadelphia area refineries.  And driving, walking or biking around Philadelphia these days it’s hard to miss the rows of black cylindrical tanker cars lining the city’s railroad tracks.

Philadelphia City Council passed a resolution Thursday urging the city’s Office of Emergency Management and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency to work together and make more information about the oil train routes and safety plans available to the public. Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds-Brown says the 2014 oil train derailment that had tanker cars hanging over the Schuylkill River close to the downtown area of the city was a warning.

Read more of this report at the website of our partner StateImpact Pennsylvania.