Oil train disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Québec 07-06-2013

ferroequinarchaeologist wrote:I would take this pollution report with a very large grain of salt, since the news report also states that it was done in collaboration with Greenpeace, and also quotes Canadian experts as questioning the validity of the findings and labeling the report as "alarmist."

PBM

And I would also take the likely underestimates of pollution from Harper's laissez-faire environmental dept with at least a few grains of salt as well. The truth may be somewhere between the two poles.

NRGeep wrote:

ferroequinarchaeologist wrote:I would take this pollution report with a very large grain of salt, since the news report also states that it was done in collaboration with Greenpeace, and also quotes Canadian experts as questioning the validity of the findings and labeling the report as "alarmist."

PBM

And I would also take the likely underestimates of pollution from Harper's laissez-faire environmental dept with at least a few grains of salt as well. The truth may be somewhere between the two poles.

NRGEEP I hate to see you wasting your Harper monolog but, it's Quebec's Environment Department.

Quebec demands CP Railway help pay for Lac-Megantic cleanup

......."The Canadian province of Quebec has ordered Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. to help pay cleanup costs after a train disaster that killed 47 people and said on Thursday the company has no choice in the matter"........

......."“Let’s be clear. Under the law on the quality of the environment, the minister does not ask for or suggest compensation … he orders it. It’s not optional,” Quebec Environment Minister Yves-Francois Blanchet said in a statement emailed to Reuters".........

......."But Canadian Pacific, which transported the oil as far as Montreal before handing the cargo over to a smaller operator, had a different view.........“As a matter of fact, and law, CP is not responsible for this cleanup. CP will be appealing,” said spokesman Ed Greenberg".........

Quebec added CP, Canada’s second largest rail company, to a legal list of companies it is ordering to help fund the cleanup and decontamination of Lac-Megantic. The train was operated by Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway, which filed for bankruptcy protection last week."

http://bangordailynews.com/2013/08/15/b ... c-cleanup/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

SRM

Carroll wrote:

NRGeep wrote:

ferroequinarchaeologist wrote:I would take this pollution report with a very large grain of salt, since the news report also states that it was done in collaboration with Greenpeace, and also quotes Canadian experts as questioning the validity of the findings and labeling the report as "alarmist."

PBM

And I would also take the likely underestimates of pollution from Harper's laissez-faire environmental dept with at least a few grains of salt as well. The truth may be somewhere between the two poles.

NRGEEP I hate to see you wasting your Harper monolog but, it's Quebec's Environment Department.

I plead guilty for being a woefully ignorant American.

sandyriverman wrote:Quebec demands CP Railway help pay for Lac-Megantic cleanup
http://bangordailynews.com/2013/08/15/b ... c-cleanup/

From the above link:

Quebec said CP was hired to transport the tanker cars of oil and had done a deal with MMA,

An excerpt from an earlier article at http://bangordailynews.com/2013/07/30/n ... relatedBox:

The provincial government of Quebec signed a legal order on Monday obliging the U.S. operator of the train, Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway, and World Fuel Services, whose subsidiary sold the light crude oil carried by the train’s tanker cars, to foot the bill.

Then, at http://bangordailynews.com/2013/08/01/b ... relatedBox:

CP Rail, which had not until now been named in connection with the accident, subcontracted a section of the route to Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway, World Fuel Services said on Wednesday.

So, did the Bill of Lading or other Shipping Document tendered by the Shipper to the Originating Carrier (CP?) have an incomplete routing, or none at all?

of course cp is on the hook as well as world fuel. i suspect irving will get a letter soon. cp should suck it up and get on with the cleanup, not antagonize the government. the overarching number is the pain & suffering awards for the 50 victims. the real property damage is not as severe as the human damage. i trust someone has frozen mma accounts. ken patrick

KEN PATRICK wrote:of course cp is on the hook as well as world fuel. i suspect irving will get a letter soon. cp should suck it up and get on with the cleanup, not antagonize the government. the overarching number is the pain & suffering awards for the 50 victims. the real property damage is not as severe as the human damage. i trust someone has frozen mma accounts. ken patrick

That's ludicrous. How would Irving be on the hook? If a book I ordered from Amazon was on that UPS airliner that crashed in Birmingham, does that mean someone in Alabama whose house was damaged can sue me? And how can you say that CP should just "suck it up and not antagonize the government"? You do realize that the management of the Canadian Pacific has, among other things, a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to not just go throwing the Company's money at random problems for which they may not have a legal responsibility?

This is just the beginning as the ambulance chasers try to get their tentacles into the nearest and deepest pockets. The MMA is essentially broke busted so like all parasites they scramble to find the next host. Lord only knows how convoluted and Byzantine Quebec's legal system really is. We are getting a clue as this cataclysmic train wreck and its aftermath unfold. Like the Amtrak Chase accident, this pile up will have long and far reaching consequences for the rail industry. Lost in the legal wrangling are the victims and their families who no doubt will have to suffer through the legal haze for many years to come. I said ten pages back, it is amazing the Sturm and Drang one train wreck can produce, and I pity the person or persons who are ultimately found responsible for this disaster.

NRGeep wrote:

Carroll wrote:

NRGeep wrote:

ferroequinarchaeologist wrote:I would take this pollution report with a very large grain of salt, since the news report also states that it was done in collaboration with Greenpeace, and also quotes Canadian experts as questioning the validity of the findings and labeling the report as "alarmist."

PBM

And I would also take the likely underestimates of pollution from Harper's laissez-faire environmental dept with at least a few grains of salt as well. The truth may be somewhere between the two poles.

NRGEEP I hate to see you wasting your Harper monolog but, it's Quebec's Environment Department.

I plead guilty for being a woefully ignorant American.

You're not a woefully ignorant American NRGeep. For some inexplicable reason, the word "Harper" makes people say all kinds of things at times.
Now, having said that, I will stop.
Carroll

KEN PATRICK wrote:of course cp is on the hook as well as world fuel. i suspect irving will get a letter soon. cp should suck it up and get on with the cleanup, not antagonize the government. the overarching number is the pain & suffering awards for the 50 victims. the real property damage is not as severe as the human damage. i trust someone has frozen mma accounts. ken patrick

Ken, I don't know how you can say that. Has there ever been a Class I railroad in North America forced to pay for a clean up that happened on one of it's connector or bridge route railroads that handle their traffic?

There are derailments almost every day all over the place, which are negligible compared to the number of trains en-route at the time, and not once has there ever been that the originator, the buyer or shipper have ever been held responsible. The railroad an accident occurs on is solely responsible. That mess in Hinton along time ago, did the victims families go after the wheat board or the grain buyer for compensation, no, they went after CN.

I don't no why you continuously throw reason to the wind. You always blame every company or government for everything. You blame all of them if something happens all the while ignoring the fact that there is only one that's responsible and that's the one directly responsible for the accident.

To have it your way you go to the mall and by a fridge. You hire a delivery/moving company to deliver it. On the way to your place the driver goes through a red light and either kills or maims people in the other car. Following your trend of thinking, the victims can sue, the truck driver, the company and you because, you bought the item and hired the company. It doesn't sound very reasonable to me but, from what you express in your thoughts, I guess you would be okay with paying the victims.

Now, I'm sorry Ken if this insults you, it certainly was not my intent. As I said, I just can't understand your reasoning. It makes no sense.

Carroll

Gents, as I earlier noted, if a road accepts a car (or train) in interchange, absent gross negligence or fraud, i.e. a car was placarded crude but actually contained gasoline, the delivering road is 'off the hook'.

Review AAR Freight Mandatories for more information.

KEN PATRICK wrote:of course cp is on the hook as well as world fuel. i suspect irving will get a letter soon.

Carroll wrote:Ken, I don't know how you can say that. Has there ever been a Class I railroad in North America forced to pay for a clean up that happened on one of it's connector or bridge route railroads that handle their traffic?
go to the mall and by a fridge. You hire a delivery/moving company to deliver it. On the way to your place the driver goes through a red light and either kills or maims people in the other car. Following your trend of thinking, the victims can sue, the truck driver, the company and you because, you bought the item and hired the company.

I don't play a Quebec lawyer on TeleVision, but in the U. S. of A., "can sue", getting paid, and actually wining in court can be 3 different things. Ambulance chasing lawyers have tried the argument that you are responsible to hire a safe carrier or to avoid one that you should have known was unsafe. I don't know how much the courts have agreed with that idea. A pitfall could be if you employed the truck driver or delivery/moving company instead of just hiring them. It's much easier to make you responsible for the failings of your employees, especially if following your instructions might have caused the loss. Quebec law could be different.

Life seems to have a way of imitating art - and with tragic results.

Tom Clancy writes a book 'Debt of Honour' - and 9/11 occurs.

Tony Scott produces a movie titled 'Unstoppable' - and Megantic occurs.

The moral is that even far fetched fiction can happen; and when it comes to litigation arising from Megantic, you know the ambulance chasers will be on the scene. I'd like to say that gross negligence by any party outside of Montreal Maine and Atlantic Canada is not evident, but I can think of one who could be so held accountable. That party is the insurance broker and/or underwriter who determined that their insured, MM&AC, was adequately insured to carry HAZMAT in the volume being handled.

I still don't understand why MMA's US assets are necessarily at stake. MMA in Canada is a "seperate corporation". Except the engine that caught fire is probably owned by the US company.

JimBoylan wrote:

KEN PATRICK wrote:of course cp is on the hook as well as world fuel. i suspect irving will get a letter soon.

Carroll wrote:Ken, I don't know how you can say that. Has there ever been a Class I railroad in North America forced to pay for a clean up that happened on one of it's connector or bridge route railroads that handle their traffic?
go to the mall and by a fridge. You hire a delivery/moving company to deliver it. On the way to your place the driver goes through a red light and either kills or maims people in the other car. Following your trend of thinking, the victims can sue, the truck driver, the company and you because, you bought the item and hired the company.

I don't play a Quebec lawyer on TeleVision, but in the U. S. of A., "can sue", getting paid, and actually wining in court can be 3 different things. Ambulance chasing lawyers have tried the argument that you are responsible to hire a safe carrier or to avoid one that you should have known was unsafe. I don't know how much the courts have agreed with that idea. A pitfall could be if you employed the truck driver or delivery/moving company instead of just hiring them. It's much easier to make you responsible for the failings of your employees, especially if following your instructions might have caused the loss. Quebec law could be different.

Well Jim if you were their employer you'd be on the hook too, I would say, since, they were doing it in your name unlike here as MMA did it in their name not CPs, Rail World or the Florida buyer.

When choosing a moving company to deliver an item - I'm not talking about the man with a half ton and half a half ton trailer called "Bucks trucking; We move stuff" - I doubt people give it much thought since delivery and moving services companies are subject to having a business license, liability insurance and their vehicles are safety checked, etc., on a regular basis and randomly at DOT spot checks. In some cases companies require their employees to be bonded. And we also assume that if they were bad they wouldn't be allowed to operate.

So how would a person know, the rumour mill? Like would you be allowed to go on company property, providing you were a licensed mechanic or you hired one to take with you, to inspect the vehicle that would be moving your stuff? It's the same with CP. Would MMAC allow them to take over TCs job of safety checks and checking records of maintenance before they made a deal with MMAC & A to be a forwarder and collector of and for CP traffic. I don't think CP would have any rights to do that. Like the moving company, all railroads are governed by TCs Railway Safety Act which includes safety inspections. MMAC&A, like all Railroads, are responsible for everything that happens on their rails and operating at least to the minimum safety standards set out in the RSA.

Things are always different with Quebec. They have that need.
Carroll