First responders find source of oil leak in Dallas Township

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Pittston couple hosts pool tournament to raise awareness of Cockayne syndrome, a rare genetic disorder

Train cars, some of them presumably passing through Northeastern Pennsylvania, are hauling record amounts of oil &#8211; resulting in far more spills and combustible-fed catastrophes.&#8220;More than 141 &#8216;unintentional releases&#8217; were reported from railroad tankers in 2014, an all-time high,&#8221; the Washington Post recently reported. Each leakage can potentially contaminate soil and water. In the most attention-grabbing cases, the spills also involve massive explosions and widespread evacuations.Last month in our region, the environmental advocacy group PennEnvironment Research &amp; Policy Center cautioned that certain Wilkes-Barre neighborhoods in the 18702 ZIP code are among the most at risk in the state for a mass evacuation if an oil-toting train derails there. Scranton also was identified as a high-impact spot, where some 15,000-plus people could be temporarily displaced.Granted, rail remains a statistically safe way to move North America&#8217;s surging amount of crude oil headed to market; only a tiny fraction of cars carrying it are involved in mishaps, the railroad industry reports. Even so, there&#8217;s recognition from Pennsylvania&#8217;s elected officials and others that more can be done to further minimize risks.Gov. Tom Wolf has written to President Barack Obama requesting transportation safety improvements. Likewise, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, joined with Senate colleagues from New York, Ohio and three other states to push for the speedy release of new tanker car standards. In a letter to the federal Office of Management and Budget, the senators wrote, &#8220;These outdated cars, when laden with unstable crude oil, pose a significant risk to communities that they travel through and must be removed, replaced, or retrofitted as quickly as possible.&#8221;Meanwhile, Casey also has co-sponsored legislation called the Response Act, aimed at ensuring firefighters and others are properly trained to respond when the inevitable occurs. That&#8217;s a sensible move, considering the nation lacks a short-term fix for better handling the movement of oil from the fields where it&#8217;s pulled to refineries, cities, ports and other places where it&#8217;s needed.Building a higher-capacity pipeline network takes time. Ditto for switching America to cleaner fuels, presuming advances in technology will allow them to power more of the country&#8217;s energy needs.A recent Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial stated, &#8220;Short of a nationwide ban on crude oil shipments, there isn&#8217;t much that can be done quickly, but there is one thing: The government can make sure that emergency teams and technical experts are fully trained to respond when a derailment occurs.&#8221;In Luzerne County and surrounding areas, let&#8217;s not wait until a disaster strikes to test our capability to cope with an oil tanker emergency.

Our Opinion: Oil trains – and oil spills – are on the increase; let’s prepare for possible catastrophe