Deric Gruen

With no fanfare whatsoever, Tacoma has claimed a new, though dubious, distinction: it is now the Northwest city most threatened by oil trains. As new research by Sightline reveals, a combined 80,000 barrels per day of crude oil---about 8 loaded trains per week---are permitted to travel on a publicly owned railway into the heart of Tacoma’s industrial area. In addition, another 15 loaded trains bound for north Puget Sound refineries can also pass through the city each week. No other urban center in the region plays host to so much oil train capacity inside city limits. The risks of oil trains have been made plain by the 10 catastrophic explosions that North America has seen in the last two years, to say nothing of the billion-dollar risk to the public that is virtually un-insured. The two terminals put the people of Tacoma directly in harm’s way of a fiery derailment, the likes of which have become all-too-common in the news.