Should railroad insiders be hired to convince us how safe oil trains are?

Tesoro Savage wants to build an oil train terminal in Vancouver, WA that would be the largest offloading terminal in North America. So it’s important to get the facts right before the permit decisions are made.

McClatchy News has reported that three of the four consultants hired to write the risk analysis for this terminal are former BNSF Railroad insiders. These insiders now work for a consulting firm which also represents BNSF--one of the prime beneficiaries if this project is approved. Not surprisingly these industry insiders “vastly understate the worst-case scenario for a catastrophic oil spill.”* In fact their analysis of the worst case scenario entirely ignored the actual worst case that happened in Lac Megantic Quebec in 2013 when an oil train derailed and killed 47 people. The state should never have hired former BNSF insiders to analyze a project that would benefit their old company. It’s unquestionably a conflict of interest to have former employees of that railroad downplaying the risks of North America's largest oil train terminal. They need to be fired and replaced.

Send a message to the regulators in charge of this process -- let them know that that you demand a transparent process, unbiased information, and that the BNSF consultants be taken off the job.

Submit your comments now to join the call for an unbiased review of the risk this project poses to human health and safety.


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