CHESAPEAKE, Va. — The cleanup of a coal-train derailment in the Great Dismal Swamp will likely take weeks, the Virginian-Pilot reports.
Thirty-six cars of the Norfolk Southern train derailed in the swamp early Tuesday. [See “Amtrak service to Norfolk suspended following NS derailment,” Trains News Wire, June 26, 2019.]
Chris Lowie, manager of the Great Dismal Swamp Wildlife Refuge, said he is working with NS to get the necessary permits to complete the cleanup work. Railroad spokesman Tom Werner told the paper via email that it will take two to three weeks to remove the damaged cars and right-of-way. It will then need to work with the Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Virginia Department of Enivronmental Quality to restore the 2.3 acres of swamp affected.
Rail service was restored Thursday after repairs to about 1,000 feet of track damaged in the derailment.
If I recall, coal is the result of ancient swampland, so coal is made of the same material. Yes can be cleaned up but this is not a catastrophe.
W Cook: Great post!!
So what if it takes 3 or 6 months to cut up the cars and suck up the coal? Big Deal. Its a swamp and it will return to a swamp.
What the big deal? Big fuss over nothing. In a year you will never see the different.
I read it was a wildlife refuge but it is just the edge of a refuge next to the railroad. It is still a swamp and the railroad was through there long before they claimed it was a wildlife refuge. I know that swamp as the SS&S railroad logged through a part of it and many other logging swamp railroad worked all through it. So the wrecked coal cars ran a few hundred feet out of their railroad of way, when there are hundred of square miles of swamp beyond. The coal spill I would guess might cover 00.01% of the square miles of that swamp. Hardly any intrusion that would effect anything on the edge that can just move another100 feet to get back into the wilderness of the wildlife refuge. I bet the railroad can trade them some swamp land nearby to exchange the square footage that was effected. Why the extrema crying to hurry the clean up just to make it a swamp again.
“Drain the swamp”.
W Cook
It’s a WILDLIFE REFUGE, it is not just another swamp, sort of like the Everglades in Florida…perhaps you should read before commenting. Not all swamps are created equal!