Omnitrax Canada is set to do a test run
this August of shipping crude oil by rail to the underutilized port
in the great town of Churchill, Manitoba. From there it would be
transported by ship to the east coast and to European customers.
Frustrated by the American procrastination on the Keystone XL
pipeline to the southern States, and environmental objections to
pipelines to the west coast or the arctic, the Conservative
government is expected to support this venture. This route for
transporting oil would need no approval because it is already used
for shipping oil for use in northern communities and storage tanks
are already in place.
Present plans for the mitigation of oil
spills would be to simply lay heavy plastic down both sides of the
track. This would be much less expensive than to rebuild the present
track which moves around due to frost heaves in the permafrost the
whole year round. Figures from the Transportation Safety Board of
Canada show there have been 63 accidents on the Hudson Bay rail line
between 2003 and 2012. All but 10 were derailments. Derailments
would be inevitable so the best plan would be just
to make it easy to mop them up when they happen. It would also
create year round employment opportunities for the locals who
could cut the tress and underbrush which grew through the plastic and
keep any holes and rips repaired with duck tape.
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