downtown Wednesday alerted the public to an open secret among those
in the know: Every day, by rail, by truck and by ship, hundreds
of thousands of gallons of hazardous chemicals pass through the city.
But no one — not even those who would have
to respond to an accident — knows what dangerous materials are crossing the city at any given time, though many shipments
carry the potential for disaster.
For instance,
the train that derailed two days ago might have been transporting the
gas used in death chambers — hydrogen cyanide — a not
uncommon shipment on Baltimore?s rails.
Or
highly flammable propane, perhaps the most typical hazardous cargo
in this area. Or chlorine, which could send a toxic plume more
than 25 miles downwind if a single 90-ton rail car ruptured.
Federal agencies regulate the types of containers that
hold these chemicals, the safety devices and signs on them and, in some
cases, each car?s proximity to other chemicals on a train.
But no one monitors the types and quantities of chemicals
passing through Baltimore or anywhere else in the country. And no
agency requires that communities be forewarned of such shipments.
It is an information gap that citizens groups have
long fought to close in the interest of better emergency planning.
“There is no federal agency that does a good job of
tracking hazardous materials,” said Paul Orum, director of
Community Right to Know, a Washington-based group. “People have a
right to know if they can be hurt or injured by materials on rails or
roads or on barges.”
Manufacturing plants and other
facilities that keep hazardous chemicals on site must draft a worst-
case accident scenario to let communities know the potential
consequences for nearby schools, hospitals and neighborhoods. But no
similar requirement exists for chemicals in transit.
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“As with so many of the environmental laws, these are the kinds of
issues that come to public attention in response to disasters,” said
Bradley Campbell, former Mid-Atlantic administrator for the
Environmental Protection Agency. “This is not one where there is a lot
of attention, in part because the safety record, particularly for rail,
has been pretty good.”
Maryland has experienced
nearly 5,000 hazardous spills during transit over the last 30 years,
with the annual number increasing over the past decade. About 3,500
occurred on highways; only 217 on railways.
Federal
rail officials said Thursday that 2 million tank-car loads of
hazardous materials were shipped nationwide last year, with 35 train
accidents resulting in the release of dangerous chemicals.
Alerting communities in advance, they said, could have a
dangerous result — inadvertently informing someone
interested in sabotage or terrorism.
“The key is to get the
appropriate information to the emergency crews as soon as it?s
determined there is an emergency,” said George Gavalla, safety
director for the Federal Railroad Administration.
Within 15 minutes of being called Wednesday, the Fire Department knew the contents of the train, including caustic acids that
can cause severe burns and lung damage.
Still,
such information falls short, said Assistant Chief Michael Dalton.
“What the manifest doesn?t tell you is what can happen if the tankers
rupture and the chemicals mix,” he said. “Then the whole picture
changes. It can create its own witches? brew and there wouldn?t even
be a chemical name for it.”
The fire marshal is
routinely notified about the shipment of explosives, Dalton said.
“But a lot of chemicals are far more hazardous under the right
conditions than a boxcar full of dynamite.”
In this
case, the risk of a lethal mix was low because most of the chemicals
involved are acids, rather than a heat-generating and potentially
explosive mix of acids and alkalis, officials said.
For the century-old, 1.7-mile Howard Street Tunnel, there is no
restriction on the types of chemicals that may be transported
through. About two dozen trains pass through it daily, according to
CSX; a similar number, including Amtrak passenger trains, use a 1.3-
mile tunnel west of Pennsylvania Station.
“In an
open area in the Midwest, you can stand back at a safe distance,”
Dalton said. “This incident was inside a tunnel, and we had no idea
even if any chemical was involved or if all of them mixed. That?s what
makes this kind of incident so dangerous.”
Among the
few restrictions that exist in the state are those of the Maryland
Transportation Authority, which manages toll facilities and places
its highway tunnels in a special category.
In the
Baltimore area, potentially dangerous materials are more likely to
travel over the Francis Scott Key Bridge (Interstate 695) than
through the Fort McHenry Tunnel or Baltimore Harbor Tunnel.
The authority prohibits bulk gasoline, explosives, and
large bottles of propane from the tunnels. Police conduct random
checks of tankers and other vehicles. Trucks carrying such substances would be
sent instead over the Key Bridge. Vehicles carrying high explosives or
radioactive materials are required to have a police escort as they
cross.
Potentially dangerous materials can also
enter the city by air or sea. The Maryland Port Administration said
it issued 120 permits last year to shipping companies to bring in
explosives and radioactive materials at the Port of Baltimore.
Many other substances, including poisons and flammable
liquids, are permitted in the port without prior notification or
regulation, though some may be monitored by the Coast Guard or other
agencies.
At Baltimore-Washington International Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration oversees the
packaging and shipping of hazardous cargo. But the rules are frequently violated nationally. The FAA has sought civil penalties a
dozen times this year against airlines or businesses for hazardous
materials violations related to the shipment of gasoline, certain types
of fungus, corrosives and other substances.
Federal law requires states to have plans for dealing with
chemical emergencies. In Maryland, each county and Baltimore City
have committees that are supposed to gather information on
chemical hazards and draw up plans for handling accidents.
But preparation varies widely, said Alan Brown, chemical
emergency preparedness coordinator for the Environmental Protection
Agency?s regional office. In Baltimore, “the local emergency planning committee is for the most part manned by volunteers, and
they don?t have any authority to tell anybody not to transport a cer
tain chemical down I-95,” he said.
The Fire Department is
the lead agency responsible for chemical-emergency planning, though
the state Department of the Environment, community activists and
representatives of local chemical plants also participate.
MDE spokesman John Verrico said the Fire Department
recently practiced responding to a train accident in a tunnel, but
MDE?s hazardous materials team was not part of that drill.
Brooklyn activist Doris McGuigan, who serves on the
city?s emergency planning committee, said the group discussed the
dangers of tunnels about four months ago.
“The
reason it came up is we were doing a segment on terrorist attacks,”
she said. “I know they were very concerned about it.
“I didn?t
even know we had tunnels,” said McGuigan, a lifelong resident. “I
said, ?Let?s get some maps,? and that?s as far as we got.”
<
McGuigan, who has been critical of local emergency
planning, said there have been improvements in the level of
preparedness. In 1998, the University of Maryland Environmental Law
Clinic threatened to sue the planning committee, which rarely met
and had a decade-old emergency plan.
Since then, the
committee has updated its plan, and “they?re working really hard,” she
said.
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“They handled the evacuation fine,” McGuigan
said, but communication with people driving into the city was less
successful.
City officials “need to do some PR work
about the fact that when something like this happens, [citizens]
really need to pay attention to what they?re told. It can save their
lives.”
Sun staff writers Jeff Barker and
Mike Himowitz contributed to this article.