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Rail lines in Tucson could be terror bait
Thousands of cars a year haul toxic, explosive loads

By Enric Volante
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
(Printed April 1, 2007)

More than 1,600 rail tanker loads of poisonous gas vulnerable to terrorist attack roll through Tucson in a year, potentially threatening most of the city.

A chlorine disaster could kill people up to 5.6 miles downwind of Union Pacific Railroad in Tucson.

In a less-likely or "worst-case" scenario in which the weather and other conditions are ideal for toxic terrorism, the deadly fog could maim and kill up to 9.6 miles away, newly disclosed emergency-planning documents show.

"That's incredible," said Gwyneth Scally, an artist whose warehouse studio is just off the tracks near North Sixth Avenue and East Ninth Street. "I'm sure that would never occur to the people in the (upscale) residences just a block or two off."

Security experts have known for years that terrorists could try to blow open a highly hazardous rail car to send a lethal cloud across a U.S. city.

The chemical industry is scrambling to design rail cars less likely to break open if they derail. Congress, while moving to increase funding for railroad security, continues wrestling with whether to reroute hazardous cargos from densely populated areas when possible.

Metro Tucson, home to more than a million people, has grown up around Arizona's biggest rail yard. Kids play in neighborhoods close enough to hit a baseball into the rail yard, which borders Barraza-Aviation Parkway, stretching nearly from the 22nd Street Bridge to the Palo Verde overpass. Trains crawl or hurtle through the metro area on the state's busiest line, which links cities from Los Angeles to New Orleans. Phoenix is a branch line on this economically vital "Sunset Route."

That main line's potential appeal to saboteurs is one reason the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently named Tucson to a list of 45 areas of "high threat" for terrorism.

There is no known immediate threat to Tucson. The "high threat" designation allows the city and other places to compete for funds to continue hardening themselves against attack. Many say the country has focused on securing airlines and, to a lesser extent, passenger rail lines, while largely ignoring the freight lines...

In 2005, Union Pacific carried 629 tanker loads of poisonous chlorine on the tracks at Tucson and east of the city, the records show.

Another 998 loads at Tucson were anhydrous ammonia — the poison involved in a North Dakota derailment that killed one person and injured 1,442 five years ago.

 Those two gases are highly toxic when inhaled — the type of cargo that is drawing attention these days in part because insurgents in Iraq have increasingly blown open tanker trucks hauling chlorine.

Together, those two gases make up 3 percent of the 231,502 cars loaded with hazardous materials that traveled through Southern Arizona in 2005.The railroad also hauled 2,439 carloads of liquefied petroleum gas.

Other types of highly hazardous cargo also rolled down that Tucson-area track, including 754 carloads of flammable toluene diisocyanate and 541 loads of corrosive hydrochloric acid...

Frank Walter, a hazmat specialist in the University of Arizona emergency-medicine division, warns that the threat of toxic terrorism in this country remains at an all-time high. He calls that a significant concern and says cities must be prepared to respond.

"Obviously, we are on a major rail artery," he said. "So in terms of the possibility, it's always present."

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