Vague Manifest Cited in Cleanup Delay : Chemicals: Lack of precise information stymied response efforts and left potentially lethal gas pluming, officials say.

As emergency workers scrambled to clean up a train wreck in Seacliff, their greatest obstacle was a lack of information on the shipping manifest listing the hazardous chemicals aboard the Southern Pacific freight train, authorities said Monday.

Investigators said the manifest met federal requirements in listing the broad category of chemicals in each containerized rail car, but did not list specific chemicals by name or detail their quantity and type of container.

The lack of precise information stymied response efforts and left potentially lethal gas pluming from the wreckage longer than necessary, Ventura County fire officials said.

A similar problem arose two weeks ago, officials said, when a Southern Pacific tank car derailed and dumped its lethal cargo of pesticide into the upper Sacramento River, poisoning a 45-mile stretch from north of Dunsmuir south to Lake Shasta.

The back-to-back spills have prompted calls from a variety of sources--from local officials to environmentalists to the governor’s office--for greater disclosure of specific hazardous substances moved by rail through the state.

“The manifest could not tell us what the chemicals were,” said Ventura County Fire Capt. Dean J. Dysart, head of the hazardous materials team. “There needs to be a lot of improvement in the warning system we’ve got.”

The latest derailment came just two days after Gov. Pete Wilson sent a letter to federal Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William K. Reilly, raising questions about the adequacy of regulations governing rail transport of hazardous materials. The letter was sent in response to the July 14 Dunsmuir spill.

Franz Wisner, a spokesman for Wilson, said Monday that the governor would expect the federal officials to respond to policy questions posed by both spills.

“Obviously, when you have two train derailments like this back to back, something’s broke,” Wisner said.

A spokesman for one environmental group made the point more forcefully.

“There is a toxic time bomb ticking out there and it’s going to explode unless we pass some key legislation,” said Paul Gargan of the California Public Interest Research Group in Los Angeles.

The problems encountered by the Ventura County team illustrate the difficulties for local response teams generally under the federal reporting requirements, said Jack Rich, supervisor of the Public Utility Commission’s railroad operation and safety division.

Rich said the pesticide that spilled into the upper Sacramento River was not listed as hazardous by the federal Department of Transportation, although the chemical, alco metam-sodium, proved toxic enough to destroy the river’s ecosystem.

Because the pesticide was not a regulated substance, the tank car was not labeled. That caused confusion about the tanker’s contents and how emergency crews should handle it. Rich said questions remain about whether the EPA, in its advisory role to the transportation department, apprised the DOT of the pesticide’s danger.

The PUC is scheduled to vote Aug. 7 on a state order that would require railroads to provide communities with lists of hazardous materials transported through their areas, Rich said.

However, Rich added, the state will not be able to mandate disclosures beyond the generic classifications required under federal law.

PUC President Patricia Eckert, who visited the wreckage Monday, said she may move to postpone the commission’s vote to determine if greater safeguards should be put in the order.

Southern Pacific President Mike Mohan, also speaking at the accident scene Monday, disputed charges that emergency workers at the scene of the crash had no way of figuring out what specific chemicals might be involved and how to neutralize them.

Mohan said his employees at the site knew almost immediately what chemicals were involved in the accident and shared that information.

But Dysart said the key problem in the initial effort to contain possible damage was the vagueness of the shipping documents.

The Southern Pacific shipping manifest carried by the train’s engineer disclosed only that one of the derailed cars was carrying “an aqueous hydrazine” solution inside a truck trailer loaded on a flatbed that also carried a tank of “aromatic hydrocarbon,” Dysart said.

The hydrocarbon could have been one of 67 different chemicals, several of which could have reacted very differently with the hydrazine had the tank ruptured and the two chemicals mixed, Dysart added.

The manifest also did not divulge the percent of water contained in the aqueous hydrazine. Not until emergency workers wearing protective suits and oxygen tanks ripped a label off one of the 76 drums did Dysart’s team discover the hydrazine was in a 51.2% solution with water.

Had the solution been greater than 64% hydrazine, Dysart said, it would have been far more combustible and potentially lethal, and he would have been forced to expand the evacuation area beyond the Seacliff community and nearby campgrounds and oil-field operations.

And not until six hours after the accident was it confirmed that the “aromatic hydrocarbon” on the flatbed car was naphthalene, an industrial solvent, Dysart said.

That discovery was welcome news to the emergency crews, Dysart said, because naphthalene does not react violently with hydrazine. He should have been able to gain that information earlier by an initial reading of the train’s manifest, Dysart said.

Times staff writer Jenifer Warren in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

The Seacliff Train Derailment

A northbound Southern Pacific freight train derailed just north of Ventura on Sunday afternoon, spilling several drums of hazardous materials, causing the closure of a portion of U.S. 101 and evacuation of more than 300 people.

The Accident: Witnesses reported seeing the train spewing sparks for miles before Sunday’s derailment. Investigators from the Federal Railroad Administration said the derailment occurred when a bearing in an axle assembly overheated, causing the axle to snap off. Here is a look at what investigators believe may have happened:

1. The bearing--located inside the roller bearing assembly--burns out, possibly because of a lack of lubrication or a defective part.

2. That causes a shift of the car’s weight directly onto the axle, increasing friction on it.

3. The axle then overheats and breaks.

4. A burned portion of the assembly, known as the journal, was found at the scene.

5. In all, 12 cars derailed. The first 17 cars remained on the tracks, as did the cars behind the derailed section.

The Detour: Since the wreck, traffic in both directions has been rerouted off U.S. 101 to California 150 and 33. What is normally about 10 miles of freeway has now become a 35-mile route on mostly two-lane, winding roads.

Background: The accident was the second derailment of a Southern Pacific freight train in California this month. On July 14 a tank car spilled a pesticide that fouled 45 miles of the Sacramento River.

SOURCE: Jane’s World Railways 1989-1990