(Montreal) Authorities in the state of Maine have issued a notice of violation to Canadian Pacific Railway Kansas City (CPKC) regarding its cleanup efforts following a freight train derailment that occurred last month.
On April 15, a CPKC train derailed in a wooded area near Moosehead Lake in northwest Maine, setting several cars on fire.
Government officials said they sent a notice of violation to the railroad after heavy construction equipment deployed to access the crash site crushed culverts and caused a significant amount of sediment to enter the yards of water, thereby violating a pollution control law.
“Culverts were run over and dirt was moved around a number of waterways due to heavy machinery using forest management roads,” the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and State Forests.
Department Commissioner Melanie Loyzim sent a second letter asking CPKC to implement erosion control measures “immediately”.
The CPKC said last month that derailed locomotives and four timber carriages caught fire, with crews using booms — absorbent tube-like barriers — to contain the spilled diesel fuel.
Railcars carrying drums of ethanol and other hazardous materials also ran off the tracks, but did not catch fire, according to the CPKC. State officials said there was no threat to public safety.
Three crew members were taken to a local hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries, the railroad said. They were discharged the same day.
CPKC had about 60 spill emergency responders and environmental professionals on site as of Friday to clean it up and monitor soil and surface water quality, state officials said.
“The remote and forested nature of the area, combined with the spring thaw, has made cleanup efforts difficult, including the entry and exit of people and equipment,” CPKC spokesperson said Tuesday. Patrick Waldron, by email.
“CPKC is committed to restoring the derailment area and completely cleaning up the affected environment. CPKC crews are on the ground working in full cooperation with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and other agencies, as we have done since the derailment,” he said.
The track is the same one where the fatal Lac-Mégantic disaster unfolded about 90 kilometers further west in 2013. Canadian Pacific did not own the track at the time.
The line — which was owned by CP Rail until the mid-1990s and later dubbed the Central Maine & Quebec Railway — was in dire need of an upgrade when the rail company bought it from the capital corporation -Fortress Investment Group investment in 2020.
“CP plans to invest up to $90 million over the next three years to bring CMQ’s rail infrastructure up to Federal Railroad Administration Class 3 standards,” Canadian Pacific said nearly three years ago. years.
Last week, CPKC told the Maine Department of Environmental Protection that its response team recovered nearly 33,000 sorbent pads, more than 15,000 feet of sorbent boom and 12 cubic yards of fluid — oil. , water and diesel — using vacuum trucks.