Low-level employees taking the fall for railroad company executives, that’s what we can see in the future of yesterday’s West Virginia oil train explosion by looking at one in Quebec in 2013. Can we expect any different behavior from fracked methane pipeline executives?
Roger Annis, Truthout, 23 June 2014, What Happened in Last Summer’s Oil Train Disaster in Quebec That Killed 47,
Details of the events leading to last July’s oil train disaster in Lac Megantic, Quebec, have been made public for the first time. They reinforce an existing portrait of the accident as a perfect storm of corporate malfeasance.
Insufficient handbrakes applied, instead a locomotive was left idling overnight while spewing lubricating oil. It caught fire; local firefighters shut it down; the insufficient air brakes leaked down, the train rolled seven miles, blew up, and killed 47 people.
The MMA and three of its employees—engineer Thomas Harding, rail-traffic controller Richard Labrie and train-operations manager Jean Demaître—are charged with 47 counts of criminal negligence causing death. They made a brief court appearance on May 13 and were released on bail. The trial resumes on Sept 11.
But were those three people the real cause? No.
Rob Holmes, World Magazine, 21 August 2015, Report on Quebec train disaster downplays main cause,
A year after a runaway oil train exploded near the Maine border with Quebec, the investigation report released this week cited 18 contributing factors. But amid conclusions for mitigating safety and human risks, the report downplayed the obvious: An engine fire in a parked train led to an air-brake failure, setting the train on an unmanned 7-mile journey and leading to the death of 47 people in Lac-Megantic.
The engine fire may have been the proximate cause, but it wasn’t the main cause.
Six million liters of light crude oil spilled and ignited downtown Lac-Megantic, leveling 40 buildings and pouring oil into the lake and nearby Chaudière River. It marked the end of the line for a train that had already transited seven major U.S. and Canadian cities, including Minneapolis, Chicago, and Montreal.
“Accidents never come down to a single individual, a single action, or a single factor,” said Wendy Tadros, head of Canada’s Transportation and Safety Board (TSB). “You have to look at the whole context.”
But the TSB report placed much blame on the train’s owner, Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railways, which went bankrupt after the disaster.
Some more corporate executives pull the ripcord and float away while their company crashes and burns, leaving local and national taxpayers to pick up the tab.
It [the report] claimed the most glaring factors were the rail company’s cutting corners in regard to safety, along with the Canadian government’s failure to conduct safety audits of rail transporters. did not provide effective training to ensure crews understood and correctly applied rules governing train securement,” the report concluded.
A TSB press release on the accident contended there is a need for “additional physical defenses to prevent runaway trains, and for more thorough audits of safety management systems.” In bureaucratic fashion, it linked the tragedy to “systemic problems” and detailed how light crude oil may ignite at a lower temperature than heavy crude.
Only a month after the 2013 disaster, the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration reacted to the incident by ordering new rules for securing unmanned parked trains as well as issuing non-binding advisories for oil transporters in the United States. The U.S. Department of Transportation then echoed the Canadian TSB report by alerting transporters to the potential high volatility of crude from North Dakota’s Bakken fields and Canadian oil sands.
The most glaring factor is the continued increase in oil and gas production and shipping when there’s no increased energy need, and we already know how to shift entirely to sun, wind, and water power.
John Giles, CEO of Central Maine and Quebec Railway, which acquired the assets of Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Canada, said his first move after taking over the railroad in May was to cease operations for two days to talk about safety with the company’s U.S. and Canadian employees.
Giles said his safety improvements include eliminating one-man crews, hiring a senior superintendent for Canadian operations, and retiring old locomotives. The company is budgeting $8.5 million to overhaul track and will delay further crude oil shipments until 2016.
How about delay them forever?
Meanwhile, what’s the status of that court case?
Montreal Gazette, 15 january 2015, New date for preliminary hearing for Lac-Megantic accused to be set in March,
Three railway employees charged in the Lac-Megantic train disaster will be back in court in March to have a date set for a preliminary hearing.
Of the three accused, only train engineer Tom Harding appeared in court in person Thurday as the date was set.
Harding, railway traffic controller Richard Labrie and Jean Demaitre, the manager of train operations, each face 47 counts of criminal negligence causing death — one for each victim of the July 2013 oil-train derailment in the Quebec town.
A conviction carries a maximum life sentence.
Wait a minute: where’s the CFO who cut corners until there was only a skeleton crew and a leaky locomotive? Where’s the CEO who’s supposed to be in charge of the whole company? Or the Chairman of the Board?
Peter Rakobowchuk, The Globe and Mail, 11 September 2014, No more charges coming in case of Lac-Megantic rail disaster, Crown says,
The Crown is ruling out further charges in the Lac-Megantic train disaster, a statement that appears to leave U.S. rail executive Ed Burkhardt off the hook.
Following a brief hearing in Lac-Megantic on Thursday, a spokesman for Quebec’s office of criminal and penal prosecutions suggested it wasn’t expecting to charge anyone else in the case.
Asked in particular about Burkhardt, a spokesman for the office repeated no other charges were expected.
“With all the information and with all the evidence that we analyzed, there won’t be any new charge against anyone,” Jean-Pascal Boucher said.
Being Chairman means you never get charged.
That right there is the main cause.
Instead of taking responsibility, Burkhardt passed the buck to the railroad engineer who left the leaky locomotive running; the same engineer now on trial for charges that could result in life imprisonment.
John Baldoni, Rorbes, 15 July 2013, How Edward Burkhardt Is Making The Lac Megantic Accident Even Worse,
Mr. Burkhardt’s first comments on the accident pointed the finger at those he thought might be responsible. As reported in the New York Times, Burkhardt blamed “’tampering’ with the train’s locomotives”, then he shifted focus to the volunteer firefighters who helped extinguish the massive blaze. Later at a press conference in Lac Megantic, where local residents booed him, Burkhardt fingered a railroad engineer whom he asserted had not set the brakes properly.
Wendy Gillis, Toronto Star, 8 September 2013, Is Tom Harding a villain or victim? How about scapegoat, fall guy, man missing megabucks necessary to not get charged with anything.
Does anybody think the behavior of fracked methane pipeline executives would be any different from these railroad executives? How about we get on with solar power and stop fracking oil and gas.
-jsq
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