Up-ended tank cars. Dwarfing hard-helmeted disaster clean-up workers.
Fire-retarding foam: “Safe and state of art”
RAYMOND, Minn. – Agents of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency began monitoring air and water at the derailed Burlington Northern freight train wreck outside Raymond. The ground was still relatively frozen, which meant the that pockets of ethanol still in the punctured cars was burning off before penetrating the soil, the agency said. Firefighters were using foam to extinuguish occasional flare-ups. The foam, agents said, didn’t contain carcinogenic PFAS, the so-called “forever chemicals” in original fire-retardant products from the 1950s. Governor Tim Walz noted flare-ups were to be expected as bulldozers and cranes moved and lifted cars to clear the right-of-way. The flare-ups were from pockets of ethanol trapped in the wreckage, About the flare-ups Walz said: “That doesn’t mean they’re going to explode. It’s not a bad thing. That’s just what’s going to happen. And then they will foam these things down.”