Jun 29 - Not even sure why this made the rounds, pretty much nothing to see here. Basically your run of the mill oil train derailment in the middle of almost nowhere. And no offense I swear to the fine folks in the bustling district of Rock Valley, but the only reason you end up in the burg this derailment happened outside, Doon, IA, especially at this intersection with the BNSF-controlled rail line and Garfield is because you got supremely lost trying to impress your friends that you know a short-cut from Sioux City, IA to Sioux Falls, SD that doesn't use the interstate. Its a fool ‘s errand by the way.
Anyhoo, so the bridge carrying this Texas Tea from strangely enough CANADA to Cushing, OK (notice no Texas actually involved well at least not geographically) decided it had rattled at the spot of that loose bolt for too many decades now and gave its last shake when it ejected one of these fine DOT railcars designed for crude oil and the rest stacked up like a bad game of dominos. In total 14 cars failed and started leaking, another eight survived and are being salvaged of its refreshing black gold.
The conservative estimate is that 230,000-gallons of oil was lost to the mighty Rock River which makes it down to the Sioux and then The Missouri down there in Sioux City but not a worry because drinking water was not impacted a bit due to massive oil boom deployment and the treatment system’s downstream capability of passing it through an oil-water separator.
Whatever magic they do, it worked cause only Rock Valley actually had to scramble for water being so close to the contamination. Now the track is open and soon enough its back to business as usual on the open rail for crude oil in the US.
