Boom.. We Could Be Blown to Smithereens...

Thursday the city of La Crosse was one of 51 cities this week known to commemorate the deaths of 47 innocent people killed in a Canadian town called Lac Megantic after an oil train derailment exploision last year at this time. Our city's memorial of this train disaster was held at one of the city's high schools, Central, whose athletic field borders the railroad track.

CARS, Citizens Acting for Rail Safety, organized the ceremony where victims's names and a brief bio were read as their photos were affixed to model oil tankers. The only sound that followed each name was a hand bell being rung that is until the ceremony's solemnness ironically was drowned out as one of the 42 weekly oil trains rumbled past parallel to where we were seated. 103 tanker cars long to be exact carrying about three million gallons of highly explosive Bakken crude oil on each train, pass through the heart of La Crosse every week. Chilling to say the least...

Notice real Bakken Oil Train passing behind ...

You see we had faces to associate with the death toll  and the majority of the Canadian victims were young people who had barely begun to live their lives. Many bodies were deemed unrecognizable by the coroner's office... 

We listened to the how and the why during this ceremony. These deaths were unnatural as they were the result of an industrial accident. Yes, collateral dammage such as community buildings can be rebuilt but what happens to the community who suffers the losses and are still suffering? We owe it to those that have been injured / lost their lives to learn something from these tragedies.

The 1267  red diamond designates flammable oil

We have to remember and do something because these DOT111 tanker cars have been deemed unsafe since the 1970's.  And nothing has been done about replacing them. These unsafe cars can also carry other equally dangerous chemicals like fertilizers/ chlorine/acids.

A sewer drain was directly in front of where we were seated.

And when these cars leak/ explode they can run into sewer systems and carry their damage much further from their initial sites as the flames did in Lac Megantic.

Unbeknownst to our community 10 miles south of where we were sitting, the recents rains have brought the Mississippi flood water  only one foot from where rails have previously been washed out. Imagine this is where these oil trains sit daily to wait for other trains to pass! This stretch south of town is the Upper Mississippi Refuge Area. One doesn't replace ecosystems.

Railroad crews have also been quietly repairing an unsafe bridge not even 5 miles from the End of the Rainbow Valley that runs over Coon Creek, one of the state's best trout streams...

The railroads have known that they endanger us and many other communities every day with these unsafe oil tanker cars and they have done nothing except increase their traffic.  It is our responsibility to do something about their immoral behavior. 25 million people live within the blast zone of the Bakken crude oil tanker routes.

I know one man who has the power to stop this unsafe oil transport and this is our President. 
          Why don't you join me and write him today?

 It is not a question of if another accident will happen, it is the question of when and where...