The D.C. Council plans to continue its efforts to keep railroads from carrying hazardous materials through the District, despite a government announcement this week that it will require tank cars to be built more securely.
The new Federal Railroad Administration standards for tank cars are designed to avoid spills of deadly chemicals, like chlorine, that the D.C. Council said could kill thousands of residents within minutes.
One of their greatest concerns is that a terrorist attack might detonate explosives that could rupture a tank car in the nation’s capital.
FRA Administrator Joseph Boardman said the new standards scheduled to be phased in over the next eight years would make tank cars 500 percent more resistant to punctures from derailments, collisions and explosions. They require use of stronger materials and designs by manufacturers.
“Whether it’s derailed as a result of an [improvised explosive device] or it’s derailed as a result of a broken rail, it would be that kind of improvement,” Mr. Boardman said.
A lawsuit by CSX Transportation and the federal government seeks to overturn a ban the D.C. Council approved in 2005 to prevent railroad shipments of hazardous materials within 2.2 miles of the Capitol. The ban is not in effect while the lawsuit is pending in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Both sides have filed motions for summary judgment.
Railroads say their costs escalate significantly if they are not allowed to carry their shipments, including hazardous materials, by the most direct routes. Some of the routes pass through major cities.
Mr. Boardman declined to comment on the lawsuit or the D.C. Council’s actions, other than to say, “We provide for the policy-makers in cities and the states and the regions to have a safer tank car.”
Other proposed FRA regulations would require trains to operate at speeds that reduce chances of a tank car rupture in a derailment or collision.
D.C. government officials said that regardless of whether the tank cars are made sturdier, they do not want hazardous materials transported through the District.
“They can make the cars as strong as imaginable and they will still be vulnerable to terrorist attack as long as they are running within blocks of the Capitol,” said Phil Mendelson, council member and at-large Democrat who backed the District’s legislation banning rail cars.
Alan Heymann, spokesman for Interim D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles, said the rail cars might be safer but “they don’t deal with the routing of the rail cars, and that’s what the lawsuit is about.”
CSX continues to run tank cars within a half-mile of the Capitol, but it has rerouted the cars that carry chlorine and other hazardous materials around the District. Tank cars that pass through the District do not carry hazardous materials.
Railroad industry officials say they knew the FRA was developing new tank car standards but still are evaluating how they will affect them.
“The provisions are not a surprise,” said James Barnes, spokesman for Union Pacific Railroad, one of the nation’s largest railroads.
The new FRA standards would add about $40,000 to the cost of tank cars, which now cost about $85,000, FRA officials said.
• Gary Emerling contributed to this report.
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