Local Video
|
| Fencing will keep post-wreck sediment from river |
By: By JOEL GROSTEPHAN
|
Posted: Friday, April 18, 2008 11:59 pm
|
 Email  Print
|
NORTHFIELD — Glenn Switzer, an environmentalist and former mayor of Dundas, has been raising alarm about the sediment since last Friday, sending e-mails and calling city agencies, worrying about mud piling up on the road threatening to drain into the nearby Cannon River.
“There’s still dirt in the gutters, and by the curb — it hasn’t been cleaned up,” Dave Legvold, executive director of Cannon River Watershed Partnership, said Thursday. Legvold said he planned to call Northfield’s street department that afternoon.
Northfield Public Services Director Joel Walinski said the city swept the streets Friday morning and hired crews to install fencing designed to catch the mud and stop erosion.
Walinski said the measures are temporary, but they will control the erosion until a soil blanket can be placed at the site this weekend. The blankets are biodegradable and are often used to reinforce vegetation on slopes and ditches.
A meeting Friday morning between the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the Soil & Water Conservation District and the railroad sparked the action, Walinski said.
Legvold, with the Cannon River Watershed Partnership, said rainfall of an inch or more would take all the mud into the river. Friday afternoon’s forecast called for up to a quarter-inch of rain.
Getting there sooner
The last train car from the 28-car derailment, which had leaked 655 gallons of sulfuric acid, was removed on April 1. Union Pacific leads all railroads in derailments since 2004, according to Federal Railroad Agency statistics. The railroad had 32 derailments last year in Minnesota.
Coordination of the cleanup effort had been unclear, according to Steven Pahs, Rice County Soil and Water Conservation manager. Pahs said the Rice County Soil and Water Conservation District is supposed to work on the MPCA’s behalf in making sure cleanup is completed. However, if push comes to shove and there’s a disagreement about how or when cleanup should be done, Pahs said his agency will refer enforcement issues back to the MPCA.
“We haven’t dealt with this type of issue before,” Pahs said, referring to all the different agencies involved. “Not a whole lot of people know who is in charge.”
A soil blanket isn’t a permanent solution either, said Walinski, the city’s public services director. Once the cleanup is complete, the area will be graded and sidewalks will be repaired.
Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said the railroad’s cleanup crews removed 100 tons of soil with sulfuric acid treated with lime. The remaining soil was tested and the results, which Davis said showed the soil was not contaminated, were submitted to the MPCA.
Under MPCA regulations, the railroad has done all it needs to clean up the site, Davis said. But on Friday, the spokesman said the railroad’s engineering crew will continue to work to mitigate erosion.
“And once we get further into the spring, we’ll re-seed and landscape the area,” Davis said. “Generally, our guys leave it better than we found it.”
Brian Livingston, stormwater policy and technical assistance unit supervisor for the MPCA, said that unless the accident site was larger than an acre, there aren’t a lot of options for additional efforts to make sure Union Pacific stops the runoff.
If the site had been an acre or more, the federal Clean Water Act requires a permit that shows how the company will repair the soil and mitigate runoff and contamination. The RCSWD serves as inspectors on the state’s behalf in such a case, Livingston said.
“We have sites that have metric tons of runoff each day from a cleared 200-acre development. Those demand our attention and resources,” Livingston said. “I know that’s not satisfactory to folks, but we have to draw a line somewhere on enforcement.”
Davis said the cause of the derailment remains under investigation. After the accident, the two crew members underwent drug/alcohol testing. Davis said because the investigation is ongoing, he could not reveal the results of those tests.
— Managing Editor Jaci Smith and Senior Reporter Suzanne Rook contributed to this report. Send comments to editor@northfieldnews.com.
|
|
|
|
Story Comment Guidelines:
Registered members who identify themselves by name are authorized to automatically post comments to stories. Readers who wish to remain anonymous submit comments to a pending queue, where they will be reviewed for approval within 24 hours of their submission. To determine the author of a comment, click on the user name.
Those who identify themselves will be given broader boundaries to express their opinion. Only those anonymous comments that contribute to the conversation in a thoughtful, respectful, civil manner will be approved. The decision to approve or reject a comment is a subjective one and is ours alone. Authors of rejected comments will receive an email response.
If you would like to report abuse click here to notify us.
|
|
| Show Comments | Hide Comments
|
|
| Login and voice your opinion!
|
|
|
|
|
Top Jobs | Top Homes | Top Cars
09 Jetta
09 white Jetta asking $16,000
less than 48,000 miles
|
|
Digg
Del.icio.us
Facebook
MySpace
StumbleUpon
Google
Yahoo!
