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>From the Surface Transportation Board, Washington, D.C.
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The Surface Transportation Board today acknowledged that coal dust poses a
serious problem for railroad safety and operations, but found that BNSF
Railway Company's attempt to mitigate those problems was not reasonable.
Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp.
had asked the board to prevent BNSF
from using a rail side emission
monitoring system that sought to
measure coal dust blowing from the
top of coal cars. If a certain
emission standard was exceeded, the
shipper of the cars would have been
subject to unspecified enforcement
measures.
The Board acknowledged the safety
and maintenance issues brought on
by coal dust fouling track ballast.
And it found that BNSF may require
shippers to take "reasonable
measures" to address the problem.
But the Board found the provisions
of BNSF's tariff "not reasonable"
given the level of uncertainty and
the available methods to control
coal dust.
"Under the challenged tariff, the
railroad would accept rail cars
loaded with coal and then inform
coal shippers at a later date
whether and to what extent coal
dust was released during
transport," the decision said. "In
addition, the tariff does not
explain what consequences coal
shippers would face if they are
found to have tendered loaded coal
cars to the railroad that
subsequently released coal dust
during transport. The challenged
tariff also does not acknowledge
any steps that, if taken by a
shipper before coal cars are
tendered to the railroad, would
guarantee that the shipper would be
deemed in compliance with the
tariff."
The decision went on to say,
"Rather than using this decision to
define a specific,
government-approved approach to the
problem at hand, we expect the
railroads and their customers will
collaborate to develop a solution
that guarantees that loaded rail
cars are fit for safe travel, while
also ensuring that commodity
spillage during transport is
minimized.''
The full record of Arkansas
Electric Cooperative
Corporation-Petition for
Declaratory Order, Docket No. FD
35305
( http://www.stb.dot.gov/decisions/readingroom.nsf/WebDecisionID/40436?OpenDocument )
, can be found at www.stb.dot.gov.
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