Stand with Mosier - Call Governor Brown

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Arlene Burns, Mayor, City of Mosier, 541.399-6780
Emily Reed, Council President, City of Mosier, 503.360-3532


Union Pacific Says It Plans to Restart Train Traffic Through Mosier Before Oil is Removed from Derailed Rail Cars Along Track:

City of Mosier Passes Emergency Motion Calling on UPRR to Remove All Oil from Damaged Cars Before Traffic Reopened

June 5, 2016 (Mosier, OR) The City of Mosier held an emergency meeting this afternoon and passed a motion objecting to Union Pacific’s plans to restart train traffic while derailed oil cars, many still full of oil, sit just feet from the tracks in severely damaged condition.

The City is calling on Union Pacific, as well as Gov. Kate Brown and Oregon’s Congressional delegation to:

  1. Remove all oil from derailed cars prior to starting any train traffic in light of the risk of igniting the damaged oil train cars;
  2. Complete the investigation determining what went wrong and have it fixed before any oil train or other high risk train traffic resumes.

“The City of Mosier strongly objects to Union Pacific’s plans to restart running trains, including oil trains, as early as tonight through the derailment site where damaged oil tankers continue to sit feet from newly laid railroad track,” says Arlene Burns, Mayor, City of Mosier. “Restarting trains before the high-risk carnage of their last accident is even cleared from the tracks is telling Mosier they are going to play a second round of Russian roulette without our town -it’s totally unacceptable.”

“Everyone wants to see train traffic restarted, but we are very concerned about the safety of our town. The new tracks will be no safer than before the derailment and now we have tens of thousands of gallons of oil sitting in damaged rail tankers just feet away from the proposed new active track,” says Mosier City Council President Emily Reed. “They do not yet know what happened in this section of track to cause the accident on Friday so on what basis can they safely re-start running oil trains down this same section of track? This is literally hundreds of feet from our homes and school.”