Top News Outlets Discuss Dangerous Cargo

Watch the D.C. Council hearing on Transportation and the Environment - Jan. 23

Testimony of Fred Millar, Friends of the Earth, Save Our Neighborhoods Project, before the D.C. Council Committee on Public Works and the Environment pdf

Text of DC Council BILL # 15-525, The "Terrorism Prevention and Safety in Hazardous Materials Transportation Act of 2004" pdf

Read the letter we sent to the D.C. Council regarding the inadequacies in local terrorism prevention and preparedness.

Terrorist Threat: Dangerous Cargo

Last year, Friends of the Earth successfully convinced the city council of Washington, D.C. to ban hazardous cargo trains from passing through city neighborhoods.

Friends of the Earth has since assisted Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and Philadelphia in getting similar ordinances introduced.  

FBI director Robert S. Mueller III said, "Subways and bridges in major cities and airlines continue to be al Qaeda targets. There are strong indications that al Qaeda will revisit missed targets until they succeed, such as they did the World Trade Center. And the list of missed targets now includes both the White House as well as the Capitol."

- Washington Post, Feb. 25, 2004

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security identified the nation’s capital, along with Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and New York City as the seven High Threat Target Cities. The insurance industry considers Washington, D.C., 100 times more likely to be targeted for future terrorist attacks than any other city.

Over a decade later and after the most serious terrorist attack in our nation’s history on Sept. 11, the threat remains and is arguably greater. The Chlorine Institute’s own calculations say the worst case release scenario from the 90-ton rail tank car could involve a cloud 41.5 miles long and 4 miles wide. Depending on the wind and weather, the cloud could be lethal as far as 8-10 miles away. Just one ammonia tank truck, according to the former top regulator at the U.S. Department of Transportation, if punctured by accident or terrorists in a city, could release a toxic gas cloud big enough to “cause a Bhopal-scale disaster” – i.e. 6000 dead and 100,000 injured in a toxic gas release in India, 1984.

Despite this clear risk, the public is being systematically kept in the dark about the catastrophic hazards of these shipments, for fear, say local officials, of “scaring them to death.”

The Bush administration has not acted aggressively to protect high threat cities from this danger. The U.S. Department of Transportation  has no rules on routing hazardous cargo nor are any in the works. Residents in our nation’s capital continue to be at extreme risk.

New York City – is one of the only top seven target cities that has had a long-standing Fire Prevention Code ban on the transportation of three of the most dangerous classes of truck hazardous materials - bulk gases, compressed gases and toxic-by-inhalation gases through the city.

Using New York’s ban as a starting point, Friends of the Earth has spearheaded a coalition that has successfully convinced District of Columbia’s elected officials to introduce legislation to ban through-shipments of the most dangerous substances.

The “Terrorism Prevention and Safety in Hazardous Materials Transportation Act of 2003” introduced by D.C. Councilmember’s Patterson, Schwartz and Catania last October, will require shippers of hazardous materials, by rail and truck, to obtain a permit and to follow routes and travel times specified by the Department of Transportation when they travel through the District.

As expected powerful anti-environmental interests are circling in hopes of finding ways to weaken this important legislation. We need your help to finish what we started and get this legislation passed to better protect American citizens.