Train in Alabama Oil Spill was Carrying 2.7 Million Gallons of Crude
A train that derailed and exploded in rural Alabama was hauling 2.7 million gallons of crude oil, according to officials.
The 90-car train was crossing a timber trestle above a wetland near Aliceville late Thursday night when approximately 25 rail cars and two locomotives derailed, spilling crude oil into the surrounding wetlands and igniting a fire that was still burning Saturday.
Each of the 90 cars was carrying 30,000 gallons of oil, said Bill Jasper, president of the rail company Genesee & Wyoming at a press briefing Friday night. It’s unclear, though, how much oil was spilled because some of the cars have yet to be removed from the marsh.
“Most of the cars did not spill all of the product that was inside it,” Don Hartley, a regional coordinator for the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, told the Los Angeles Times.
Emergency responders have to wait until the fire has burned out, Hartley said.
Hartley said that the marsh where the oil spilled is stagnant, so the oil hasn’t spread to other water systems. Scott Hughes, spokesman for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, told The Times that responders had set up booms to absorb some of the oil.
Read the rest of this story on the Los Angeles Times here.