Freight trains, some stretching 100 cars long, carrying ethanol, crude oil and other hazardous materials travel within feet of thousands of homes, businesses and schools in Bergen County.
Local officials and emergency responders say more needs to be done to improve rail safety, particularly after the derailment of a train in East Palestine, Ohio, in February spilled more than 100,000 gallons of toxic chemicals and forced the evacuation of nearby residents.
Two bills pending in the state Legislature seeking to address rail safety concerns were not passed before lawmakers broke for recess last month.
“There’s such an urgency now, I don’t want to lose the momentum,” said Assemblywoman Ellen Park, D-Bergen, the sponsor of one of the bills. “You can see the train cars carrying these tanks through Teaneck and Bergenfield. If an accident were to happen, it would affect so many people because of the density of the area.”
How can laws make ‘high hazard’ trains safer?
Park’s bill would require operators of “high hazard” trains carrying 200,000 or more gallons of petroleum or petroleum products or 20,000 gallons or more of other hazardous materials to provide an emergency response and cleanup plan to the state Department of Environmental Protection. Those plans would be shared with local officials.
The bill was held up because of disagreement over what information about the materials carried by rail is shared and how, Park said.
“We want to know exactly what the chemical is that happens to leak in an accident,” she said. “We’re trying to figure out who should have that information and how to relay it. We’re not going to push this bill without that right-to-know language.”
Potential for terrorist targets?
Former state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg sponsored a bill during her time in office that faced similar pushback. That bill would have required rail companies such as CSX and Norfolk Southern to submit detailed descriptions of their emergency response plans and to disclose the routes and volumes of hazardous cargo every month on a website available to the public.
But in 2017, then-Gov. Chris Christie vetoed the bill, saying that providing local emergency responders with more information on the trains traveling through their communities could become a security threat because of the trains’ potential as a terrorist target.
Another bill, sponsored by state Sen. Gordon Johnson, would place limits on the length of trains and require the installation and inspection of detectors along the tracks to spot a problem and at least a two-person crew on trains carrying hazardous substances.
Avoiding another train tragedy
“In recent years we have seen a number of tragedies that have exposed the need for new, safer regulations and procedures in train transportation,” Johnson said in a statement. “Considering the high volume of train traffic through our state we should learn from these tragedies, be proactive and protect the people of New Jersey.”
Weinberg said that where she lives in Teaneck, the tracks are within 100 feet of the ambulance corps, a firehouse, a middle school, and several parks and synagogues.
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“The trains pass within feet of all these major population centers and institutions,” she said. “It’s an environment set up for problems.”
Weinberg, who retired last year, said little surprises her after nearly three decades in Trenton.
“But I’m always surprised that it would take so long and with such anguish to get something on this done when there are so many roads we could take to make things safer,” she said. “It’s disappointing. We were attempting to address problems before they happen, without success.”
Meeting in Bergen County on rail safety improvements
In the years since Weinberg’s legislation stalled, CSX has taken steps to improve safety along the River Line, which cuts through Northvale, Norwood, Harrington Park, Closter, Haworth, Dumont, Bergenfield, Teaneck, Bogota, Ridgefield Park and Ridgefield.
Mayors and first responders from those 11 Bergen County communities met with CSX representatives in Teaneck last Monday. A CSX spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment but told officials at the meeting that the company will spend $1.7 billion this year on track, bridge and signal projects, Teaneck Township Manager Dean Kazinci said.
The rail company has improved its detectors to spot overheated bearings, with connectivity that allows for remote monitoring. CSX also uses an acoustic detection system to monitor bearings for defects, Kazinci said. Imaging portals perform 360-degree inspections on moving trains, and autonomous assessment cars gather data on the tracks and relay information on anything that needs repair.
A strong freight train lobby
But some believe more needs to be done to prevent a potential disaster.
Much of rail safety is controlled at the federal level, and the freight train industry is a powerful lobby, said Glenn Corbett, a professor of fire science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.
A rail safety bill introduced in Congress in March called for more regulations for trains carrying hazardous materials.
“We’re to a great extent powerless, but once an incident occurs it’s local,” said Corbett, who is also a volunteer firefighter in Waldwick. “You’re talking about mostly volunteer departments. You get a major hazmat derailment in a town, it would push us to our limits.”
North Jersey is dotted with buildings storing hazardous materials, but first responders know more about what is in those buildings than what is on the rails because of the Worker and Community Right to Know Act, which requires companies to report hazmats stored at their facilities.
First responders don’t have all the information
“A lot of these chemicals end up going through Bergen County to go to other places in New Jersey or wherever. But we know less about these trains than hazmat facilities in town,” Corbett said.
Firefighters can look up what’s inside a train using the numbers on hazmat placards on the sides of the tankers. But having that information beforehand would allow first responders to better train and prepare for an emergency, Corbett said.
“You’ve got to rely on a placard,” he said. “Whatever does happen, we have to figure out first what it is and then how do we deal with it. These are incredibly challenging situations.”
Firefighters train and prepare to respond to hazmat incidents, but more is needed, said Jerry Naylis, a former Bergenfield fire chief.
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As chief in 2015 and again in 2018, he pushed for special training provided by CSX for local departments. Naylis and other officials are pushing to coordinate another drill soon.
Hazardous materials traveling through densely populated North Jersey
The density of North Jersey complicates the already enormous task of responding to an emergency such as a hazardous material spill. If Bergenfield needed to evacuate people within a half-mile of the rail line that bisects the borough, it would mean evacuating nearly all of the 28,000 people who live there, Naylis said.
“These are the kinds of things we have to continually monitor and plan for,” he said. “We need to make sure that everyone who would respond to these emergencies is as trained as they can be.”
The train that derailed in Ohio carrying vinyl chloride was bound for a plastics plant in Pedricktown in New Jersey’s Salem County.
Another train hauling vinyl chloride to the same plant derailed in Paulsboro in 2012 while going over a bridge and released 23,000 gallons of the chemical.
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The meeting with CSX last Monday was closed to the public, but Teaneck Mayor Michael Pagan said he hopes it is the start of an open dialogue with the company.
“Communication is so important,” he said. “This was a good first step in the right direction.”
A voice for stricter safety measures
Paula Rogovin, a retired educator in Teaneck, has spent the past decade lobbying for stricter safety measures on the trains that travel behind her home.
The Coalition to Ban Unsafe Oil Trains, a group co-founded by Rogovin, held a rally this month in Teaneck to mark the 10th anniversary of the derailment in Canada of a train carrying Bakkan crude oil that killed 47 people.
When a derailment happens, there is a spotlight on the rail safety issue, but as that spotlight fades, so does some of the political will to act, Rogovin said.
“We need to keep the pressure on,” she said. “We want to get something passed. It’s incredibly important.”
Staff Writer Kristie Cattafi contributed to this article.
