United States Environmental Protection Agency
Region III
POLLUTION REPORT

Subject: 

At approximately 2045 hours, on Friday, October 20, 2006, a train derailed off a railroad trestle in New Brighton, Pennsylvania.  EPA received notification via the National Response System of the incident.  EPA coordinated with Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) and determined that EPA should respond to the incident.  EPA OSC Easton notified START of the incident and requested their assistance.  At approximately 0215 hours on Saturday, October 21, 2006, OSC Easton and START mobilized to the Site.

At 0400 hours, EPA met with the unified command, Beaver County OES Hill and Norfolk and Southern Zottola and receives a status update.  The train contained 86 cars of ethanol, of which 24 cars either derailed, were damaged, or were leaking. A fire began at the scene and emergency crews evacuated approximately 100 people from their homes. There are no known fatalities at this time.  The conductors were able to escape.  It was not know how much quantity of ethanol has spilled from the rail cars.  At least 3 rail cars fell into the Beaver River.  It is also unknown if the rail cars that fell into the river lost its product.  It was determined that the safest option would be to allow the fire to burn itself out before removal of damaged rail cars would occur.  The undamaged rail cars however, are currently being removed.  Downstream notification to all drinking water intakes has occurred.  Foam application is being applied to the railroad trestle to prevent structural integrity failure.  Water is also being applied via an unmanned monitor to a nearby house to prevent fire damage.  NTSB is en route to investigate the accident.  Air and surface water monitoring and sampling are being conducted by Norfolk and Southern contractors.  OSC Easton and START depart scene.

EPA OSC Matlock arrives on Site later in the afternoon.  Two rail cars remain burning.  PADEP is coordinating with Norfolk and Southern on water quality sampling.  No boats will be launched into the rain swelled river waters.  Water samples have been taken from readily accessible areas along the shore and also from downstream past the dam.  All downstream intakes have been notified.  Residents from 3rd to 7th streets (approx 4 block area from the incident) remain evacuated.  Traffic control extends farther out from the incident.  At present there has been no identifiable environmental impact to the air, nor from the ethanol in the Beaver River.  No fish kill as been noted.  New Brighton mayor, as well as other political officials, are at the City Municipal building to provide updates.  News crews remain at the scene (Pittsburgh TV channels 2, 4 and 11) Next operation is to transfer product from 4 damaged rail cars which is expected to take about 10 hours.

Removal of damaged rail cars and assessment of contaminated soils is expected to occur once the fire is extinguished.

Continue to perform air and surface water monitoring and sampling.