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Sheridan County will have training focused on hazardous spills caused by train derailments

A screenshot of the rail yard in Sheridan where a BNSF freight train derailed in late April. Eight cars carrying ammonium nitrate, a chemical used in fertilizer, left the rails, two of which flipped on their side. Sheridan County is planning a hazardous materials exercise focusing on how to plan for and respond to these kind of incidents caused by train derailments.
Hugh Cook
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A screenshot of the rail yard in Sheridan where a BNSF freight train derailed in late April. Eight cars carrying ammonium nitrate, a chemical used in fertilizer, left the rails, two of which flipped on their side. Sheridan County is planning a hazardous materials exercise focusing on how to plan for and respond to these kind of incidents caused by train derailments.

Sheridan County will conduct hazardous materials training later this year. Scheduled to last for one day in late October, it will focus on how to better plan for and respond to hazardous spills caused by train derailments.

There have been several major train derailments that have captured nationwide attention, including those earlier this year of trains carrying hazardous materials. It’s put a renewed focus on rail safety. These include a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio in February that was carrying hazardous materials, including vinyl chloride, causing the evacuation of the community of around 4,800 people. In Wyoming, a Union Pacific freight train derailed in Cheyenne in March when 12 cars left the tracks, though no hazardous materials were released and no injuries were reported.

Jesse Ludikhuize, Sheridan County's Emergency Management Coordinator, said the training will be funded by an U.S. Department of Transportation grant the county was awarded. Train derailments fall under the hazardous materials category, for which the grant was allocated for. Ludikhuize applied for the grant last year specifically for this purpose.

“[The objective is] to test the plans that my office has in place or other emergency managers have in place to make sure that [emergency management] plans are as sound as possible, and then maybe to make adjustments and to just test those plans to the limits to see where the weaknesses are,” he said. “Hopefully, we can address those weaknesses before an event happens.”

Ludikhuize said that in Sheridan County alone, a freight train derailed on April 30 of this year in the Sheridan rail yard with eight cars transporting ammonium nitrate, a chemical used in fertilizer, coming off the tracks, two of which flipped on their side. Due to the small scale of this derailment and the lack of hazardous materials being involved, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, (BNSF), which owns the track, was able to manage the cleanup without local assistance. Ludikhuize said the railroad hasn’t disclosed the reason for the derailment.

Another BNSF train that was hauling coal derailed in July 2022 near Arvada, which Ludikhuize said caused “a lot of damage.” Statistics indicate that while major derailments don’t necessarily occur regularly, such as the one in East Palestine, they can cause major disruptions and public health concerns, among other issues.

“My hope is that in the future after this tabletop exercise [which involves strategizing with local and regional officials], then in the next couple of years, I hope to do a full-scale exercise, which would be more hands on and would involve more line level or kind of boots on the ground individuals in that particular exercise,” he said. “This is a stepping stone to a larger exercise is my plan.”

Sheridan County conducted a train derailment exercise about a decade ago, but Ludikhuize thought it was necessary to conduct another training event as memories from the previous event have faded as well as turnover in local first responders and emergency management officials since that time who haven’t participated in a training event. Other training events not funded by grants and unrelated to hazardous materials or derailments are regularly conducted in the county as well.

“We've had trains derail in our train yard here in Sheridan before and we will have them again in the future, that's just the nature of having any type of switchyard. Many times, these are very minor derailments, where the train just comes off the track or it involves coal or other non-hazardous materials,” Ludikhuize said. “My job as the emergency management coordinator is to plan for a major hazardous material release that would require, say, the evacuation of a large group of people, kind of a Palestine [Ohio derailment] kind of incident.”

Railroads also have emergency response teams that attend to the sites of derailments and spills. They’re required by law to report any of these incidents to local officials. In the case of Sheridan’s recent rail yard derailment, a crane helped to right side the toppled rail cars. Railroad response teams also have capabilities, in addition to those provided by local officials if required, to contain spills when tanker cars rupture.

In addition to local and county officials taking part in the training exercise in Sheridan County are ones from a regional response team that provides support and manpower to deal with any derailment scenarios that might require their involvement. These include response team officials from Campbell County.

“Sheridan is a smaller community, so we would definitely lean on the support of our neighboring counties if we were to have a serious train derailment and so it wouldn't be very good planning if we didn't plan to use their assistance also,” Ludikhuize said.

The Sheridan County exercise is currently the only one that’s funded by the Department of Transportation grant, according to the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security.

Hugh Cook is Wyoming Public Radio's Northeast Reporter, based in Gillette. A fourth-generation Northeast Wyoming native, Hugh joined Wyoming Public Media in October 2021 after studying and working abroad and in Washington, D.C. for the late Senator Mike Enzi.
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