State lagged on telling townspeople of benzene hazard

RAYMOND, Minn. – The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency found major ground poisoning where an ethanol train derailed in March but failed to tell the local people, according to an investigative journalism report. Television station KSTP reported that the agency found 75 times more of the chemical benzene than state health standards allow. Benzene causes cancer. The Pollution Control Agency was aware of the benzene problem as early as September, six months after the accident. Since then the agency quietly has ordered the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad to drill wells to track how the contamination may be spreading. But the agency failed to tell anyone in the southwest Minnesota town of Raymond, population 470, where the derailment occurred, that anything was amiss. KSTP interviewed the mayor and townspeople. They had no idea. The town had been evacuated on March 30 after tanker cars loaded with ethanol left the tracks and exploded. The last word that townspeople heard from officials who allowed to return home a few hours later was that contaminants would burn off. In other words: Nothing to worry about. Mayor Ardell Tensen told KSTP tyat  he was unaware of the Environmenal Protection Agency’s internal report this September about benzene poisoning in groundwater. “I never received a call, email or anything,” he said. The mayir took solace in that the town’s drinking water wells apparently have been unaffected. The state pollution agency defended its lack of communication with local people, telling KSTP that its legal responsibility was to guide and assist  the railroad “to ensure it properly deployed its emergency response plan.” In response, Anne Borgendale, communications director with Clean Up the River Environment, called the tax-funded enforcement agency’s stance a lame excuse. Borgendale told KSTP that the agency should have alerted people who live near the derailment immediately on every development in its evolving assessment of contaminant issues — even if the impact seemed minimal. KSTP’s investigation began with a leaked copy of the agency’s September report on discovering massive benzene quantities in groundwater.