West Virginia went into a state of emergency because of an oil train derailment and explosion on Monday. The blast caused 1,000 people to be evacuated from their homes and an unspecified amount of crude oil spilled into the Kanawha River threatening drinking water. The wreck was only about 30 miles from a location where 10,000 gallons of a coal industry chemical dirtied the water a little over a year ago.
The West Virginia problem comes on the heels of another spill Saturday night from 29 of 100 cars loaded with Bakken crude oil that derailed near Timmins, Ontario, Canada. Bakken crude killed 47 people in the Lac-Magentic Canada explosion about a year ago. It’s believed the extra volatility of the oil may be caused by the addition of toxic chemicals used during its extraction usually by hydraulic fracturing.
As long as we rely on fossil fuel for our primary energy needs, there will be spills, contamination, explosions and other environmental disasters. Retire the old fossils and transition to clean renewable energy.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/02/17/3623474/west-virginia-derailment/