Will Congress Derail Attempts to Reduce The Terrorist Threat of Toxic Trains?

(NOTE: Aside from this great piece by Thomas Edsall, NPR ran a good story today on the threat of toxic freight to U.S. cities, and this coming Saturday -- June 23rd -- PBS' "Expose" will feature chemical & rail security as it follows the work of Pittsburgh Tribune reporter Carl Prine, which should also be posted in advance on their web site.)

By virtue of the fact that it is unwilling to phase out the production of chlorine -- a gas that was eliminated from use in warfare after WW I -- the chemical industry and its major customers that use and transport the deadly green-yellow substance have condemned towns across the country to be perpetual potential targets for terrorist attacks.

The industry's claim is that they don't need to make safer substitutes so long as their plants are guarded by the 4 G's -- guards, guns, gates and gadgets.

In 2006, DHS passed new chemical plant security rules that follow that approach.

Even then, thousands of chemical plants were exempted, including 3,000 U.S. water treatment
plants. Close to 100 of the exempted facilities put an estimated 100,000 or more people at risk.

DHS has identified 4,391 plants that put 1,000 or more people at risk.

Even if the chemical industry were able to barricade all of these other facilities effectively, there would still be a huge problem: 5 million tons of highly toxic chemicals are transported by rail from chemical plants to their customers -- through highly populated communities each year.

Railroads, by their nature, are wide open and largely insecure, providing easy access -- as evidenced by the graffiti that frequently marks the rail cars. This makes it practically impossible to provide security commensurate with the risk presented by the transportation of chlorine gas.

So it's worth asking: We don't let anyone drive ten-ton trucks of TNT through our cities, so why should we let the rail companies and the chemical industry criss-cross the country with 90 ton tankers of a lethal chemical weapon gas that is so dangerous we don't use it as a weapon anymore?

The problem has been flagged as a high priority by national security experts for years. Nine months before the March 11, 2004 attacks on Madrid passenger trains in Spain, an FBI specialist in weapons of mass destruction warned, "You've heard about sarin and other chemical weapons
in the news. But it's far easier to attack a rail car full of toxic industrial chemicals than it is to compromise the security of a military base and obtain these materials."

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory estimates that more than 100,000 people could be killed or injured within the first 30 minutes of a terrorist attack on just one 90-ton rail car of hazardous chemicals passing through a major city such as Washington, D.C., warning that "lethally exposed
people can die at the rate of 100 per second."

Clearly the terrorists know how lethal this stuff can be -- in the last six months alone, there have been at least five successful terrorists attacks in Iraq using chlorine gas -- killing dozens of people.

Some in Congress understand the threat and have attempted to taken action. Rep. Markey (D-MA) led the way in the House with an amendment to the Rail and Public Transportation Security Act of 2007 (H.R. 1401) that would dramatically enhance rail security and safety by re-routing ultra-hazardous cargo, such as chlorine gas, around high threat urban areas.

The bill was adopted in the House by a bi-partisan vote (299 to 124) on March 27th. Nevertheless, there is still plenty of resistance to the re-routing language in the Senate, where it would likely need approval from both the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.

Congress can reduce the threat to tens of millions of people immediately with this rerouting requirement, but ultimately, to eliminate the threat we we need to phase chlorine out of industrial use, just as we've for the most part eliminated it as a tool of war. The way to do so has been described many times, including by Joe Thornton in his book, Pandora's Poison (MIT).

Reducing the threat from chemicals of mass destruction like chlorine is not only possible, but in the absence of federal leadership, some communities have begun to lead the way. As Rees Rushing and Paul Orum suggest in their report, "Toxic Trains and the Terrorist Threat," "the good news is this vulnerability can be removed."

Since 1999, some 25 water utilities that formerly received chlorine gas by rail have switched to safer and more secure water treatment options, such as liquid bleach or ultraviolet light. These alternative treatment options eliminate the danger of a catastrophic toxic gas cloud. As a result, more than 26 million Americans who live near these facilities are safer and more secure.

These conversions also remove the threat to communities along rail delivery routes.

Terrorists are determined people and we're not likely to see the issue go away for decades. The U.S. is already a "target-rich" environment for terrorism, and Mike Scheuer has suggested, it's likely that the war on terror will eventually be fought here in the U.S. A frightening prospect, to be sure, but rather than wait for the next major attack, we should be reducing the threat by making our infrastructure less vulnerable.

Good fences may make good neighbors, but when it comes to the threat of chemicals of mass destruction, they make for a lousy national security strategy.