What if there is a derailment and oil spill? If you were even 10 miles on either side of this, you had sunshine and not a drop of rain. Mohawk River Named for the Native American Mohawk Nation, one of the five tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy that lived in the river valley, the Mohawk River runs through upstate New York.
It also includes the elimination of the requirement for Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) braking systems (advocated by Senator Schumer) that are thought to result in a reduction of derailment and puncturing of oil-laden train cars (12). At the time, the Little Falls Gulf Curve crash of 1940 was called one of the most spectacular and disastrous wrecks in eastern railroad history. The accident occurred on the tight, sharp Gulf Curve where the trains needed to negotiate a 7\u00B0 bend. Forensics after the crash revealed that the train was going too fast: the speedometer tape showed that the train was traveling 59 mph, well above the 45 mph limit at the time (2). A cold front is swinging into the Tug Hill this morning and it'll be the first weather-maker of the day.Bottom line is, we get warmer and stay dry starting Monday and lasting through at least Wednesday.Skies will clear out after sunset and as the wind lays down, it'll be cool to chilly as we get our Monday started. Westbound CSX train with oil cars along the Mohawk River in January 2020. At the coroner’s inquest it was revealed that the engineer failed to slow in time, but did apply the brakes (3). The train was late leaving Albany and then travelled at speeds to 75 to 76 mph in the time before the crash. A wreck had occurred at the same site - the Gulf curve - in 1903 in which a three-car derailment resulted in two fatalities. Although the oil is expensive to produce, it is still economic to exploit this resource and ship the crude oil across the country by train for refining. While this activity has been ongoing for some time, we still need to consider the effects this transport may have on our watersheds.CSX owns one of the primary rail lines along the Mohawk River and this line is also used (leased) by Amtrak. The CSX freight trains include oil cars and tank cars that carry other hazardous materials. While there is nothing fundamentally wrong with this activity, there are potential issues with oil and other hazardous materials if a derailment results in catastrophic spills into the Mohawk. For example, in 2007 a CSX trail carrying liquid propane derailed and exploded near Oneida in central NY (outside of the Mohawk Watershed). In this accident, 25 of 79 rail cars derailed and 5 cars loaded with liquid propane ignited and exploded (14).Clearly this issue is not resolved. Oil output is higher then the sparse pipelines in that area can handle, hence trains are used to move the crude oil to refineries. The field has 15,943 producing wells (7) and the current rig count, which is high, would indicate that the strong growth will continue (9).The issue here is whether the states have the right to regulate material transported by rail or whether the Federal government has sole regulatory authority. NY Attorney General Letitia James wrote the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) on October 23 2019 on behalf of the four-state coalition (12).The press release from Senator Schumer\u2019s office notes that there have been issues with the rail transport of crude oil, ethanol, and other hazardous material for years. In the last decade there has been surge of the volume of crude oil transported by rail largely due to the enormous increase in production in North Dakota.The Devonian-Mississippian Bakken Shale is an oil- and gas-bearing unit in the Williston Basin of North Dakota, Montana, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. Over a decade ago a report from the US Geological Survey suggested that the unit has recoverable reserves of 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels (some estimates are much higher), and exploitation was possible and economic by hydraulic fracturing or \u201Cfracking\u201D (5, 8). Some storms will develop from roughly Albany south, and they'll get a bit stronger as they go with gusty wind and perhaps some small hail. We had a storm that blew up as it emerged from the Helderbergs and progressed east, sparking the sole severe thunderstorm warning of the day.