County Voices Martinez Train Derail Concerns

MARTINEZ - Contra Costa County hazardous materials officials said Wednesday there are troubling aspects to a company’s initial account of the derailment of sulfuric acid-filled train cars last week in Martinez.

The three train tanker cars, which did not leak their contents, derailed near the Interstate Highway 680 overpass along Marina Vista Avenue at 6:45 a.m. on Jan. 20.

Also on Patch: Hazmat Teams Called To Martinez Derailment

The cars were part of a group of 12 that were separated from a 20-car delivery to a company called Eco Services on an industry line off of Union Pacific’s main line, Eco Services officials said in a report.

When the cars were separated on the tracks to be brought into the company’s facility, they immediately started rolling south down a gradient. According to the report, three of the 12 cars eventually came off the tracks after striking a derail device that’s meant to prevent a collision about 50 feet west of the highway’s overpass.

The report, which was filed Monday, was addressed to Contra Costa County’s chief environmental health and hazardous materials officer, Randy Sawyer.

Sawyer said it should be seen as concerning that the account of the incident may imply that there were cars filled with hazardous materials that did not have a proper braking system applied.

Sawyer also pointed out, as the report itself does, that the company made no effort to contact his agency until shortly after 9:30 a.m., nearly three hours after the derailment.

He added that the company was not legally compelled to report the incident to county hazardous materials officials, given that there was no spill.

“Still, we would expect that they would notify us as quickly as they could, maybe within 15 minutes,” Sawyer said.

Eco Services, a company that removes certain substances from sulfuric acid as part of the oil refining process, was not immediately available for comment. According to the company’s report, it alerted Union Pacific to the incident within around 15 minutes.

All the cars were put back on the tracks without further issues by 7:35 p.m. that day.

But the derailment was something that environmental advocates, including Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community and the local chapter of the Sierra Club, considered a “near miss.”

The activist groups saw the incident as a reminder of the potential dangers of delivering crude oil products by rail. “Every Bay Area resident needs to contact their local representatives and make sure they take a stand against extreme crude by rail,” Ratha Lai of the Sierra Club’s San Francisco Bay Chapter said in a statement last week.

Sawyer didn’t go as far as calling it a near-miss, given the type of materials involved and the lack of a spill, but said he is following up with other agencies to learn more about why it occurred.

The California Public Utilities Commission is investigating the incident, commission officials confirmed today. The agency regulates privately owned rail transit, among other things.

CPUC officials said they are not releasing any information about the investigation at this time.

Officials at Pacific Union, which is also helping to conduct an investigation into the incident, were also unable to provide further details.

-Bay City News, image via Contra Costa County Fire Twitter feed