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Pollution Reports
(POLREPS)




Date: July 24, 2001
Subject: CNIC Train Derailment, Ruddock, St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana
From: Mike Torres, OSC, U.S. EPA, Region VI
To: Director, OERR To: Director, OERR
Charles A. Gazda, Chief, RPB, EPA Region 6
Director, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality
Louisiana State Police

POLREP No.: 02

Event: Train Derailment
Site ID Nos.: NRC# 573731
Start Date: July 21, 2001
Completion Date: TBD
Incident Type: Railroad Train Derailment Site Type: Landfill Fire
Site Latitude/Longitude: 30 deg., 13 min., 6.66 sec. N /90 deg., 24 min., 52.7 sec. W

I SITUATION

At about 1545 hours on July 20, 2001, a Canadian National/Illinois Central (CNIC) freight train traveling north derailed 26 of 149 cars near Ruddock, St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana. Mr. Paul Anderson of CNIC contacted the National Response Center (NRC) (Incident Report #573731) at 1919 hours on July 20, 2001, and reported the derailment. CNIC, the potentially responsible party (PRP), reported several cars containing styrene had released the material due to the derailment. On July 20, at 1930 hours, EPA Region 6 Response and Prevention Branch (RPB) was notified by the NRC about the derailment and release.

II ACTIONS TAKEN

For activities conducted before July 22, 2001, please see POLREP No.1. On July 22, 2001, a tank car assessment was conducted to determine the number of railcars derailed and the status of railcar inventory. The assessment revealed that a total of 26 railcars (sequence #37 through #62) were derailed and of those 26, 16 contained hazardous materials, 8 contained fertilizer, and 2 hopper cars with polystyrene (plastic) pellets, were involved in derailment.

Also on July 22, 2001, a unified incident command system was set up to organize recovery and clean-up operations. Operations were divided into four main scopes of work and included the following; 1) Air Monitoring, 2) Spill Area Operations, 3) Road Construction, and 4) Environmental Assessment.

1) Air Monitoring

A total of 8 air monitoring instruments including 5 photoionizing detectors (PIDs) and 3 combustible gas/oxygen meters were used in the air monitoring program. The established Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) permissible exposure level for styrene is 50 parts per million (ppm). The Superfund Technical Assessment and Response Team (START-2), Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health (CTEH), Eagle Construction (Eagle), and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) conducted air monitoring in the following areas; on the lake near north recovery efforts, at the spill derailment area, south of the derailment area during construction of the south access road, and west of the spill area on Interstate 55. On July 22, 2001, the CNIC Incident Commander determined that since the air monitoring readings collected at the spill work zone were above the OSHA PEL of 50 ppm, that the level of protection would be upgraded to modified Level C with respirators. At 1330 hours, on July 22, 2001, CTEH established a meteorological (MET) station at the incident command center to monitor wind speed and direction. Elevated volatile organic compound (VOC) readings were detected above 100 ppm appeared to be a direct result of wind shifts from the spill area westerly toward Interstate 55 and southernly along Highway (Hwy) 51. Consequently, crews in the spill area remained in Level C personal protection equipment (PPE).

2) Spill Area Operations

Hulcher Professional Services (Hulcher) continued to re-rail and up right the rail cars and Eagle continued recovery and transfer operations of product from the rail cars into vacuum trucks. Crews also continued to conduct hazard and damage assessments from the northern to southern end of the derailment area. The railcar status as of July 22, 2001, is as follows: 8 railcars (1-vinyl chloride (VC), 3-soluble nitrate, 3-hydrochloric acid (HCl), and 1-sodium hydroxide (NaOH)) are re-railed and upright, 9 railcars (1-HCl, 2-tetra ethanol, 1-pentafluoroethane, and 5-fertilizer) are upright and require transfer, 3 fertilizer railcars are turned over and require transfer, and the 2 polystyrene hopper cars are upright. Of the 3 fertilizer railcars turned over, one railcar was discovered leaking. The fertilizer car was unloaded and emptied at approximately 1600 hours, on July 22, 2001. The two phosphoric acid and two styrene railcars remained derailed and its was determined that one of the phosphoric acid cars and one of thee styrene cars had each released approximately 17,000 gallons and 20,000 gallons of product, respectively. The remaining contents of these railcars, 4,000 gallons of phosphoric acid and 3,000 gallons of styrene, were offloaded at approximately 1530 hours on July 23, 2001. The second phosphoric acid railcar was uprighted and determined to be full of product and the second styrene railcar had a slow leak; however, it is believed that the car has retained most of its cargo.

Due to the high concentrations of VOCs in the ambient air at the derailment area, Industrial Environmental Services (IES) was contracted to apply a foam to suppress the VOCs in the spill area. Containment operations began by deploying hard and absorbent booms in the swamp and marsh areas using air boats and using pumps to spray water and direct spilled hazardous material toward the derailment area for recovery.

3) Road Construction

Crews completed the construction of a road from Hwy 51 to the rail line to allow access to the derailed cars for transloading of the remaining hazardous materials in the rail cars into vacuum trucks.

4) Environmental Assessment

LDEQ conducted a wildlife assessment and stated no wildlife kills were observed. On July 22, 2001, a work plan was developed by START-2 and Hulcher to address the sampling and remediation under the railroad tracks. On July 23, 2001, the plan was reviewed and approved by the EPA OSC, LDEQ, and CNIC.

On July 22 and 23, 2001, fly ash was placed in the area of the phosphoric acid spill for neutralization. Excavation of the spilled styrene area closest to the railline began by removing the two styrene cars and excavating and placing of the styrene-contaminated soil into closed top roll-off boxes for disposal. However, at about 2130 hours on July 23, 2001, during the excavation of the styrene contaminated area nearest to the railline, elevated styrene and ammonia vapors were detected. The LDEQ representative witnessing the cleanup requested CNIC to extend the cleanup area to remove all of the contaminated soil impacted by the derailment including the styrene and urea spill that resulted in the ammonia-like odor.

At 0800 hours of July 24, 2001, and meeting was held at the incident command center and CNIC agreed to remove all contaminated soil below the railline by over-excavating then collecting confirmation of cleanup samples; therefore, the area could be immediately backfilled, and railroad track panels laid down so the railroad could continue their rail traffic. All perimeter contamination will be assessed and removed during Phase 2 activities.

III FUTURE PLANS

EPA will continue to monitor the progress of the cleanup. PRP contractors will continue to unload hazardous materials from rail cars and begin cleanup of spilled product from the spill area. Crews will continue to re-rail and offload cars and continue to relay panels of railroad track. Once the soil area impacted by the spill has been remediated, samples will be collected in baggies, allowed to dry for 15minutes, then the head space will be field screened with a PID. Once the excavation depth is reached and the head space screening of the soils samples are below 100 ppm for total VOCs, START -2 will collect confirmation of cleanup samples and submit the samples to a laboratory for analysis by EPA SW-846 method 8260 and pH. CNIC plans to repair the damaged tracks and reopen the line before conducting remediation of contaminated soil and swamp away from the railroad tracks.

IV KEY ISSUES

V ATTACHMENTS
All photographs are in JPEG format.

NCICP2-Pic1 Derailment area on July 23, 2001
NCICP2-Pic2 Styrene tank car submerged in swamp
NCICP2-Pic3 Offloading of tank cars the have been re-railed

Case Pends

EPA OSC: Michael Torres, Gary Moore
START-2: Troy Naquin, P.G., CHMM, Derrick Cobb, Patty Kulow

NCICP2-Pic3.wpdNCICP2-Pic2.wpdNCICP2-Pic1.wpd
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