Washougal residents had a little scare Saturday morning when some noticed sparks on a BNSF Railway line and crews spraying foam onto the tracks.
But the situation was mostly just a normal railway maintenance procedure, BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas said. Once in a while, BNSF restores the tracks after months of wear and tear using a train called a rail grinder.
Crews worked in the early morning, alarming nearby residents with the noise. Later in the morning, some also spotted white foam spewing from a tanker car.
The trains use grinding wheels to polish out irregularities in the tracks, and the process kicks up a lot of sparks. Another train follows carrying a watery foam fire suppressant and spraying it on the tracks to contain hot spots, Melonas said.
“It’s not any kind of a hazardous release,” he said. “It’s a suppressant we use to spray on bridges and to spray on ties as we grind the structure as we enhance the safety of the tracks.”
In this case, the crews overfilled the tank, Melonas said.
“There was too much foam mixed with the water,” he said. “But there were no waterways impacted, and no environmental threat.”
These situations don’t happen often, he said, but as many passers-by noticed, it can look pretty messy. John Tyger of Camas said the train had been in the area for the past several days, and he was frustrated that more government agencies aren’t looking into the situation.
“Where is the EPA or State DOE, or county?” Tyger said in an email to The Columbian. “What are we dealing with?”
Tyger first spotted the activity Saturday morning. Late in the afternoon, he drove by the site again as the cleanup continued.
“(It) appears as though they would be discharging materials under the railroad tracks and potentially into the discharge of our streams and waterways,” Tyger said.
Melonas stressed that the trains didn’t carry any dangerous materials. He added that BNSF’s engineering department is investigating the overfilling of the tank and talking to the crew members involved with it.
“There’s no public or environmental threat,” Melonas said. “And we’ve advised the necessary personnel, but it’s not any kind of a hazardous release.”
Rail grinding has been used to restore tracks throughout the country for decades, and it’s become more common in recent years.
The process is loud and tends to be eye-catching, so BNSF and the Camas-Washougal Fire Department fielded a wave of calls from concerned residents as the work continued.
