County Wants Railroad to Pay Costs in Wreck

Ventura County emergency officials said Friday that they will ask Southern Pacific to pay more than $650,000 in overtime and equipment costs for the cleanup of toxic chemicals spilled in a train wreck at Seacliff.

Meanwhile, environmental chemists began testing soil at the wreck site Friday for traces of aqueous hydrazine spilled in the July 28 wreck.

Ongoing air testing since the cleanup ended Aug. 4 has not detected any hydrazine, but a Boise, Ida.-based firm began more sensitive testing to learn whether remaining hot spots of hydrazine have evaporated as chemists hoped.

Hundreds of gallons of the chemical spilled in the wreck when an axle snapped, derailing 12 freight cars that then slammed into an overpass of the Ventura Freeway. Hydrazine, used to develop photographs and make pharmaceuticals, is a suspected carcinogen that irritates the eyes and respiratory tract and can be fatal.

The crash and spill forced the evacuation of 49 houses in the gated beachside community of Seacliff and the closure of the Ventura Freeway for five days.

Southern Pacific Transportation Co. President Mike Mohan said during the cleanup operation that the railroad would pay for all costs incurred.

But railroad officials might balk at paying some expenses which they believe Ventura County emergency agencies would have incurred anyway during normal business, such as routine patrols of Seacliff, said Southern Pacific spokesman Mike Furtney.

“We’re not surprised” at the cost estimate, Furtney said. “We shouldn’t be surprised, it looked like Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey out there.”

Fire and police agencies from around the region joined in the cleanup. Hazardous materials-handling teams of firefighters arrived from the county and the cities of Ventura, Oxnard and Los Angeles, and the California Highway Patrol controlled the detour of freeway traffic through the Ojai Valley.

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department devoted 2,378 man-hours to the job and provided a helicopter crew that repeatedly flew emergency officials, politicians and journalists over the site.

The hours alone cost approximately $100,000, but it could be two weeks before a more precise bill is ready, said Sheriff’s Cmdr. Merwyn Dowd.

“The county did spend a lot of money, and I suspect the county would seek some kind of reimbursement for the taxpayer,” Dowd said.

The Ventura County Fire Department devoted $558,293 in firefighters’ salaries, supplies, fuel and equipment to the job, said Richard Broughton, the department’s finance director.

In addition, the Ventura City Fire Department spent $65,600 in salaries and supplies on the cleanup. Santa Barbara’s fire department spent $21,800, the Carpinteria-Summerland Fire District spent $13,290, Kern County spent $8,675 and Montecito spent $3,776, Broughton said.

Broughton said he is assembling a master invoice for Southern Pacific, but it does not yet include cost estimates from the Ventura County Department of Environmental Health, California fish and game officials, and other agencies which worked at the site.

Southern Pacific’s Furtney said the railroad is self-insured, and will pay the costs it deems appropriate out of a special fund set aside for such incidents.

The same fund is paying for the July 14 derailment of seven cars and a Southern Pacific engine near Dunsmuir which dumped 45,000 gallons of pesticide into the Sacramento River, he said.