Another Massive Train Derailment With a Hazardous Materials Spill

Train derailment at Wyndmere, North Dakota. (Credit: Bailey Hurley)

There’s been another train derailment.

This one involved a 70-car Canadian Pacific train that was hauling hazardous materials around Wyndmere, North Dakota on Sunday night.

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31 cars went off the tracks sometime late Sunday night. (Fox is saying 11:15 p.m., and the local report is saying around 1 a.m.)

They’re saying it will take seven to ten days to clean up the derailment. No one was reportedly injured in the incident.

Some leaked petroleum that is used in the making of asphalt. Officials said that they would let the cold weather solidify the materials that spilled rather than doing anything else and that this would in effect turn them into a gel.

Bailey Hurley, who reports for the Valley News, said authorities on the scene weren’t identifying the hazardous materials but that she was being kept a mile back.

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Hurley said she spoke with the Wyndmere fire chief who said this was an “evolving” situation. “He says crews are monitoring the air and all property owners around the incident have been notified, but said he couldn’t share much more than that.”

Hurley shared a video of the derailment taken by a viewer with the apt description, “What a mess.”

This is just the latest train derailment in the wake of greater concerns about the issue being raised following the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio in February. In that incident, about 50 cars derailed, and there were hazardous chemicals involved, leading to environmental contamination and all kinds of resident concerns.

The Biden administration came under a lot of fire for the response to that incident particularly because Joe Biden seemed to prioritize going to Ukraine and putting on theatrics there, over going to East Palestine and being with the American citizens who were facing problems and health concerns there. Biden said he held a meeting on the derailment on Zoom and appeared to think that was sufficient, recalling the old song, “Whose Zooomin’ Who.” That’s the guy we have in charge now. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg took a long time to even acknowledge the incident and didn’t get there until almost three weeks later. Buttigieg went only after former President Donald Trump went to the town bringing water and buying food for the residents and the first responders. As we reported, the health problems of the people in East Palestine are concerning.

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While derailments are not entirely uncommon, when they are combined with hazardous materials spilling into the environment, it raises the stakes with the danger to the public. I don’t know if the weather might have had anything to do with the North Dakota incident — it looks like they had a lot of snow there. But the perception now from the public is that these incidents are increasing and that there’s a problem, but again, we’re not hearing much from the Biden team to address this to allay people’s concerns, or to deal with what might be going on here. Congress is likely to push more now with this latest incident to address the question, whether Biden does or not.

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