Eastern Railroad Discussion > Rail car derailment cleanup to begin soon in Upper Moun

http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/slate-belt/index.ssf/2014/04/rail_car_derailment_cleanup_to.html#incart_river_default

Cleanup is scheduled to begin Tuesday on the rail cars that came off their tracks Saturday afternoon in Northampton County, the train operator said today.

The six cars on the Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad train that derailed along Slateford Road in Upper Mount Bethel Township were carrying clean sand used in hydraulic fracturing, officials said. That's the method being used to extract natural gas from the Marcellus shale geological foundation underlying much of Pennsylvania and parts of neighboring states.

"The cause is still under investigation and cleanup efforts, we're hoping, will start tomorrow," Lorie Ransom, superintendent with the Genesee Valley Transportation subsidiary, said this afternoon. "There's no danger to the public."

Northampton County Emergency Management Director Bob Mateff confirmed the load was labeled as sand. Had the material already been used for fracking, a process that can involve dangerous chemicals, it would have been labeled differently and warranted an emergency cleanup.

"From a response standpoint, sand's sand," he said today, "whether you use it for fracking or whether you use it for filling up a beach."

The train's destination was the Scranton-Carbondale, Pa., area, Ransom said. That section of track is closed to rail traffic, according to Mateff.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection did not respond to the incident, spokeswoman Colleen Connolly said.

Delaware-Lackawanna was obtaining permits for the cleanup from the state, according to Mateff. He was unsure of a timeline for the work.

The cleanup is being handled by Hulcher Professional Services Inc., which has its headquarters in Denton, Texas.