Oregon Hikers

Here we go...

http://www.kgw.com/news/report-fire-smo ... /230412557

Oh no! People were warned over and over of this possibility and the government assured everyone it would be ok...

Only real surprise is that it took this long for it to happen...

I'm crossing my fingers that the fire is limited to one car and the oil remains inside of the other cars. Sadly, it was just a matter of time.

I didn't even realize this was a thing. I guess the silver lining of this accident is that more people will learn about the issues.

(By the way, what's the alternative to shipping oil on trains through the Gorge: sending it through Snoqualmie Pass? Donner Pass? The Panama Canal?)

This may not be a popular idea, but

maybe they should put a pipeline in? they leak less often than rail cars. Oil rail car crashes around the U.S. are somewhat common

make sure the pipeline is state of the art at not leaking, and controlling it if it does, like have valves all along that automatically close

adamschneider wrote:(By the way, what's the alternative to shipping oil on trains through the Gorge: sending it through Snoqualmie Pass? Donner Pass? The Panama Canal?)

Best alternative is leaving it in the fracking ground! (At least until we burn up everyone else's.)

Here's the location:

maybe enough land between it and the river so there won't be oil in the river

adamschneider wrote:I didn't even realize this was a thing. I guess the silver lining of this accident is that more people will learn about the issues.

(By the way, what's the alternative to shipping oil on trains through the Gorge: sending it through Snoqualmie Pass? Donner Pass? The Panama Canal?)

I think it matters what the final destination of the oil is. Everything I've heard says our oil comes from Alaska, which if true would mean this oil was for export in which case the risk we're taking isn't even for ourselves. Maybe it's hypocritical to look at it that way but I think there's a difference in taking risk at least a bit for your own interest or instead for some multinational corporate profits.