If a chemical plant spilled 50,000 litres of sodium hydroxide into a river, or if an oil refinery dumped 1.3 million litres of fuel oil into a lake, there would be hell to pay. Under Ontario's new provincial law, charges would be laid not only against the company but also against executives of the company and any operators that may have been liable.
When freight trains derail and cause exactly those spills, the rail carriers treat it as just another wreck, governments yawn, and the owners of the chemicals are nowhere to be found.
Canadians who care about the environment were mad about last week's two railway spills, one in Alberta and one in British Columbia, even before the latest news. But news breaking as we go to press could make an environmental disaster into criminal negligence. An estimated 1.3 million litres of bunker C fuel oil were spilled into Wabamun Lake, Alberta, on Wednesday morning last week as a result of a Canadian National train wreck. On Monday evening, more than five days later, it was suddenly announced that one of the tankers that spilled may have contained not bunker C but Pole Treating Oil, an Imperial Oil product that has a high content of polycyclic aromatic compounds that have been shown to cause cancer following prolonged and/or repeated content.
So it took more than five days for residents and tourists to find out that not only fuel oil but also a carcinogen may have been dumped into Lake Wabamun, a prime recreation lake and a source of drinking water for hundreds. We can only say 'may have' because, according to Canadian Press, CN had a 'lack of information from Imperial Oil as to what was being shipped in the [rail] car' and 'an Imperial Oil spokesman couldn't be reached for comment .'
Canada has studied rail safety ad nauseam, but we still treat toxic train wrecks as just another ho-hum. It's time for that attitude to end. Under provincial legislation, toxic spills from industry and trucks are absolute liability offences: the owner of the material is liable regardless of fault. But provinces do not directly regulate the railways. So we need the federal government to apply the same absolute liability regime to the railways as some provinces apply to the roads. Charges should be laid against the railway company executives responsible for dispatch of the two trains that wrecked. And if it is found that one of the cars that spilled part of its load into Lake Wabamun indeed contained a human carcinogen, then the CEO of Imperial Oil should be charged with criminal negligence. Nothing less will get our railways, and the companies that use them to ship hazardous goods, to pay attention to Canada's environmental security.
Colin Isaacs
Editor