- Rick Rappapport
- Protesters holding signs with victims’ names
About 60 people on Monday temporarily blocked the rails outside ARC Logistics in NW Portland to mark the two-year anniversary of a Canadian oil train explosion that killed 47 people.
Much of downtown Lac-Megantic, a Quebec town of about 6,000, was destroyed in a raging fire that started after an unattended train with 72 oil tankers derailed as it rolled downhill and into the small town.
The 47 protesters held signs with the names and ages of the people killed in the blast.
Reverend Kate Lore, social justice minister at First Unitarian Church; Reverend Jayna Gieber from People of the Heart; and community organizer Bonnie McKinlay spoke to honor the lives lost in Lac-Megantic and to call attention to the risks from the fossil fuel industry in Portland.
“It’s corporate greed versus the common good, whether its rail safety or climate change,” says long time activist Lowen Berman.
Today’s action coincides with others across the United States and Canada for “The Oil Train Week of Action,” a project sponsored by Forest Ethics and 350.org. Oil trains travel weekly through North Portland to get to ARC Logistics.
Tragedies happen in the quest to supply us with our power needs… sad but true.
It ain’t like there is any going back, or solar power will save us either, at least for the foreseeable future.
The fact remains, this – overall – is a pretty safe method of moving fuel from one place to another.
Are you going to stop driving because of an auto accident, or flying becuase of a plane crash?
The crash was caused by the failure of the railroad to have the proper kind of parking brakes on their cars. The parking brakes are applied with air pressure and when the air pressure goes down, which happened in this case because someone shut off the engines, the brakes release. They are just the opposite of truck brakes, which are released by air pressure.