US Senator wants DOT to phase-out ethanol tank cars deemed hazardous

In New York state, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer urged the federal Department of Transportation (DOT) to require freight rail carriers to create a plan to retrofit or phase-out DOT-111 tank cars that haul ethanol and oil, which have proven to be flawed, out-of-date, and result in hazardous material spills during derailments.

Currently, the CSX lines through Buffalo and Cheektowaga have about 200 to 300 DOT-111 cars carrying crude oil or ethanol each day, and Schumer therefore called on the federal DOT to impose requirements on freight rail carriers to phase-out these cars and avoid potential explosions, environmental spills or other dangerous occurrences in Western New York communities along the rail line in a federal rulemaking expected later this year.

Standing in front of a freight rail yard in Sloan, Schumer highlighted an NTSB report, which found that the specifications of the DOT-111 tank cars were a factor in the hazardous materials release in a 2009 crash in Cherry Valley. The train in Cherry Valley was carrying 2 million gallons of ethanol when it derailed. Out of the 15 cars that piled up in the accident, the structure of 13 failed and sparked a massive fire. In a 2006 ethanol train derailment and fire in New Brighton, Pa., 20 of 23 derailed cars released ethanol. The cars that derailed in Lac-Megantic were also DOT-111 cars.