Local politics, the county, and the world, as viewed by Tammy Maygra
Tammy's views are her own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bill Eagle, his pastor, Tammy's neighbors, Earl Fisher, Betsy Johnson, Joe Corsiglia, President Obama, Tony Hyde, Pat Robertson, Debi Corsiglia's dog, or Claudia Eagle's Cats. This Tammy's Take (with the exception of this disclaimer) is not paid for or written by, or reviewed by anyone but Tammy and she refuses to be bullied by anyone.

The rail disaster that involved crude oil tankers in Quebec could happen in Columbia County. The accident in Quebec involved 73 tankers. The crude oil tankers that pass through our communities are longer than that. The crude tankers locally are 1 ¼ long and pass through four major towns and several smaller bergs.
The firefighters in Quebec are trying to extinguish the fire but after 36 hours 2 of the 5 exploded cars are still burning and the death toll is rising. The town looks like a war zone everything is charred, trees look like burnt toothpicks. The fire from the accident was so extreme that it prevented fire fighters from reaching the 73 tanker cars and the firefighters are afraid of more potentially fatal blasts. The downtown area was the initial blast zone where the establishments are bars and the popular place for summer night activities.
Because of limited pipeline capacity in North Dakota's Bakken region and in Canada, oil producers are using railroads to transport much of the oil to refineries on the East, Gulf and West coasts, as well as inland. The Obama administration is deciding whether to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast. Environmentalists are fighting this issue all over the United States and Canada. Concerns have been brought up prior to this accident about railway safety involving crude oil trains.
Many of the railways need extensive upgrading, which include new ties, new rail, rail bed corrections, reinforced bridges and bridges that need their load stabilizers replaced while some are missing their load stabilizers, including revamped bridges which the trains pass over.
In Columbia County we have the potential for a rail disaster involving crude oil tankers, and in the future when the amount of crude trains WILL be increased the potential for a devastating disaster happening in one of our populated communities will become a high possibility.