GREENFIELD — The “bomb trains” likely to be referred to on signs at a vigil planned for the Town Common from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Wednesday have little to do with bombs.
But the concerns among those expected to show up — over safety from tanker-loads of oil that organizers say pass through downtown Greenfield and across Franklin County — are very real, based on an estimated 2,000 people who turned out at a May 14 nonviolent civil disobedience in Albany, N.Y., says Tim Stevenson, the founding director of Post Oil Solutions in Brattleboro, Vt. Its 99th Monkey Affinity Group is organizing Wednesday’s vigil.
Yet, a spokeswoman for Pan Am Railways says the oil trains haven’t run along the “main line” between Billerica and Mechanicville, N.Y., in at least a couple of years.
“We didn’t have any oil trains last year, and there are not any this year, and right now, there are not any planned,” said spokeswoman Cynthia Scarano, who said the reason had to do with demand by the shippers rather than safety restrictions.
The Greenfield vigil is part of the third annual Stop Oil Trains week of action planned to raise awareness about the trains across North America. The week-long observance is being coordinated by Stand, a California-based environmental advocacy organization.
“This is part of a larger campaign against the growing infrastructure of fracked oil and fracked gas, because we’re very concerned about putting pressure on the oil industry to cease extracting fossil fuels because of climate change,” Stevenson said. Although he pointed to a June 3 derailment in Mosier, Ore., as the most recent example of safety concerns from oil trains, he said, “Our larger purpose, as a climate activist group, is to stop the extraction and burning of fossil fuels. … In trying to get people’s sattention, you always want to deal with something that will be of immediate concern. And safety, of course, would be at the top of anyone’s list. In this particular action, rather than talking about the larger issue of climate change and how what we’re really about is trying to stop the infrastructure, we’re talking about the safety of people in Greenfield.”
Tanker cars carrying petroleum crude oil, such as those Scarano said had been traveling through Greenfield on their way to refineries in the Canadian Maritimes, bear a red diamond placard with the number 1267. A number 3 below it indicates it’s a flammable liquid, according to federal Department of Transportation requirements.
Scarano said, “Safety is the number one priority at Pan Am,” and that the company contracts on an annual or biannual basis to have its “every piece of track” inspected for cracks and alignment, as well as performs its own weekly inspections of the main line weekly. In addition, the company does periodic training sessions with fire departments and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
A National Public Radio report last fall said that following a tanker train explosion in Quebec, the U.S. Transportation Department ruled last spring that as many as 100,000 tank cars known as DOT-111s, used for shipping toxic or explosive material, have to be upgraded or scrapped — a process that has precipitated because of a decline in the petroleum market.
Stevenson said the actions of towns like Greenfield that lie along rail lines where the oil has been shipped remain a good way of calling attention to the bigger issue of fracked oil and its contribution to climate change.
Even in the case of the now-scrapped Tennessee Gas pipeline project through Franklin County, he said, many people became involved because they didn’t want it in their backyard or were initially concerned about the threat of eminent domain. But, he added, “They in turn became educated as they got informed in the struggle about the larger issue, and are now activists in that sense of the word. Which is great.”
On the Web: www.stand.earth
You can reach Richie Davis at rdavis@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 269