Skeletons in the graveyard

[Murphy Siding]

      Yesterday our city signed an agreement to buy 10 acres of the local BNSF rail yard property in the center of downtown. http://www.keloland.com/newsdetail.cfm/downtown-rail-yard-agreement-is-official/?id=184429

      This peoperty currently has the BNSF, Ellis & Eastern and Dakota & Iowa trains running through it daily, in addition to storage of cars on sidings.   It's made up of parcels that once belonged to Great Northern, Milwaukee Road, Chicago Northwestern, Rock Island and Illinois Central railroads and their predecessors. They all had lines running through that spot at one time.

     I'm assuming that the the lawyers at BNSF are more experienced at selling railroad property than our city leaders are at buying railroad property. That would lead me to believe that the city is buying the property *as is*, and is assuming any liability for what me be underneath the property.  What kind of interesting and scary things might we expect to find underneath the topsoil of a 135+ year old railroad property?

[jeffhergert]

Along the right of way, on the railroad's side of the fence, there was a horse's skeleton on the outskirts of Boone.  I saw it a year or two ago.  It's so overgrown now I can no longer see it.

I've heard that old time section foremen would have little caches of tools and supplies buried at points along their sections.  Their own private stock for when they couldn't obtain things from the company.  The Treasury of Railroad Folklore book mentions this, but I've heard the same thing from railroaders back in the late 1970s.  (A RI section crew happened to find such a cache.  It had supplies for 60lbs rail, while the main track by then was 100/112lbs rail.)

Jeff

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

I will assume that environmental concerns are the main issue here.  Having said that, I don't think that we're dealing with a Superfund site.  The most likely contaminants would probably be spilled diesel oil, various lubricants and other petroleum products, and maybe some coal dust and fly ash.  Higher concentrations may be in the former location of the engine house.

[Euclid]

The potential liability for a cleanup has to be known before closing the deal.  I would expect that the lender and the buyer would require the soil to be thoroughly tested.   

[tree68]

I know of a railroad facility in which they decided to dig out the floor so they could install an inspection pit, new floor, etc.  The building is within an old (and formerly very large) rail yard.

They got down 12 feet and the soil was still contaminated...

[mudchicken]

Legacy problems are out there everywhere. What was OK and common practice in the 1940's most likely isn't OK these days. (Try digging up old airport or aircraft manufacturing sites. Long Beach CA airport is a virtual minefield. Worst place I ever encountered was an city storage facility in southern Ohio. It's not only railroads.)

Most likely the town bought the legacy issue along with the land. Class 1 Railroads remediate what they know about and sample constantly. The Class 2 and shortline holding companies are active too.

(*) True story: Syracuse, KS - section truck parked on the R/W overnight disappeared up to the cab windows overnight into the dirt. La Brea move over, the Syracuse tar pits were discovered. During the 1950's, mechanical forces at ATSF Syracuse dumped 2-50,000 gallon tanks of Bunker-C and repurposed the tanks for holding diesel fuel. Guess what the section truck found? Took the better part of a year to remediate that place. When they tried to dig the truck out, it just kept sinking deeper. Company equipment was frequently parked here and there wasn't any report of soft ground. Also wound up removing a BUNCH of waste diesel fuel everybody forgot about. Syracuse, at one point, was a major yard and headquarters of the old ATSF Western Division. Next to nothing there now.

Hazardous Materials? Try wading around wast deep in crushed can cat food, castor oil and Tender Vittles for a day.

[tree68]

Fort Drum discovered a leak in an underground fuel line at the airfield (Is THAT where that missing fuel went?!?!?)  AFAIK, they're still pumping that out of the ground...

[Murphy Siding]

Our city purchased land about 10 years ago that included a scrap metal operation and the old Milwaukee Road yard.  Part of it is now apartments and the rest is green grass.  A big field of green grass with a premium view of our city's namesake water falls will never see any development.  A developer told me that parcel is considered a brownfield site.  Taking care of the contamination would be cost prohibitive, and nothing can be done on the site that strips off more than 24" of the topsoil covering.

[mudchicken]

Murphy Siding

Our city purchased land about 10 years ago that included a scrap metal operation and the old Milwaukee Road yard.  Part of it is now apartments and the rest is green grass.  A big field of green grass with a premium view of our city's namesake water falls will never see any development.  A developer told me that parcel is considered a brownfield site.  Taking care of the contamination would be cost prohibitive, and nothing can be done on the site that strips off more than 24" of the topsoil covering.

 

The kicker would be is how much is legitimate and what is not in the report, if there is one. Getting an identical environmental assessment from more than one source for a given location is rare. Results and remedial actions can be wildly different.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

In addition to the above:

• Solvents and degreasers - benzene, acetone, and other nasties ("LNAPL" = "Light Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids", less dense than water, does not dissolve in it, i.e., gasoline)
• "DNAPL" = "Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids", denser than water, also does not dissolve in it (can't hink of one right now) 
• Lead from old chipped and discarded paint
• Asbestos from steam locomotive insulation
• Sulfuric acid frm batteries - also lead again
• Lead from old friction bearings - "babbitt metal"
• Whatever leaked or spilled from the cars - fertilizers, agricultural poisons various active raw materials (chromium-6), etc. 

- Paul North. 

[erikem]

Paul_D_North_Jr

Solvents and degreasers - benzene, acetone, and other nasties ("LNAPL" = "Light Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids", less dense than water, does not dissolve in it, i.e., gasoline)

Curious thing about acetone, one of the places where it is made is the human body. Go on a low carb diet and within a short time your body will be producing ketones, with one of course being acetone. Apparently this fact has sunk into some of the people reulating chemicals and they no longer treat it as a variant of ethyl-methyl-death.

 - Erik

[Deggesty]

Also, that acetone is found in a person's breath is an indication that the person may have diabetes.

It is interesting that acetone (dimethyl ketone) is relatively harmless (but, don't bring a flame near it), but when you substitute an ethyl group for one of the methyl groups you get the really nasty MEK.

[tree68]

Then there's the places that have problems with dihydrogen monoxide...

[mudchicken]

Please send to Denver (properly placcarded)

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

In addition to benzene . . . ethylene, toluene, & xylene (= "BETX") in some environmental science circles.

- Paul North.

P.S. - Slowly some of it is coming back . . . .

[ChuckCobleigh]

tree68

Then there's the places that have problems with dihydrogen monoxide...

And people like W. C. Fields.

[rdamon]

Throw in a transformer or two full of PCBs ..

Here is a story from Las Vegas where the taxpayers ended up holding the bag ..

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/court-rules-las-vegas-liable-cleaning-old-rail-yard

 

[tree68]

mudchicken

Please send to Denver (properly placcarded) 

Here's the MSDS:  https://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927321

 

[Paul of Covington]

tree68

 

mudchicken

Please send to Denver (properly placcarded) 

 

 

 

Here's the MSDS:  https://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927321

 

     One thing puzzles me:    "Melting Point: Not available"

[samfp1943]

Murphy Siding

"...Our city purchased land about 10 years ago that included a scrap metal operation and the old Milwaukee Road yard.  Part of it is now apartments and the rest is green grass.  A big field of green grass with a premium view of our city's namesake water falls will never see any development.  A developer told me that parcel is considered a brownfield site.  Taking care of the contamination would be cost prohibitive, and nothing can be done on the site that strips off more than 24" of the topsoil covering..."

 

THis is an on-going lesson that Politicians of any stripe are seeming doomed to keep repeating ( and many are supposedly 'learned jurists(?)".  

        They seem to have missed to lesson in the statement[paraphrased] "...Those who cannot remember their history are doomed to repeat it..."      Sounds as if the local pols in Sioux Falls have bought ring-side tickets to their own SuperFund site; once more? 

But after all they are just spending mostly, someone else's money.

[Wizlish]

Paul of Covington

tree68

mudchicken

Please send to Denver (properly placarded) 

 

Here's the MSDS:  https://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927321

     One thing puzzles me:    "Melting Point: Not available"

That URl doesn't produce a file I can read on my system.  But if it's hydrogen monoxide, that most insidious chemical, the melting point is defined with respect to the applicable standard.  While this may not be listed in politically-correct tomes like the ICMA Green Book, you can find it in the Rubber Bible, probably best referenced with respect to STP and adjusted as needed for whatever impurities the material actually contains (as you know, it is usually found with considerable environmental contamination, some of which can make it decidedly more harmful to human life and well-being).

[Semper Vaporo]

I have the same problem downloading a lot of PDF files by just clicking on the link... I have learned to right-click the link and select "Save Target as..."; let it store in the "Download" folder (or stick it someplace else), then I can open the file that gets downloaded.  (Have to remember to periodically empty the "Download" folder of the junk it collects!)

[ericsp]

Paul_D_North_Jr

In addition to benzene . . . ethylene, toluene, & xylene (= "BETX") in some environmental science circles.

- Paul North.

P.S. - Slowly some of it is coming back . . . .

Do you mean ethylbenzene (instead of ethylene)?

[ericsp]

tree68

Then there's the places that have problems with dihydrogen monoxide...

 

If anybody wants to get rid of any of that very dangerous dihydrogen monoxide, we will take it here in central California.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

ericsp

Paul_D_North_Jr

In addition to benzene . . . ethylene, toluene, & xylene (= "BETX") in some environmental science circles.

- Paul North.

P.S. - Slowly some of it is coming back . . . .

 

Do you mean ethylbenzene (instead of ethylene)? 

Don't know - beyond my knowledge and memory.  How are they different ?

[Wizlish]

Ethylene is a simple alkene, not something anyone but an idiot would consider a dangerous toxin.  Among other things, it's involved in ripening many types of fruit.

Ethylbenzene is indeed part of BTEX - which is a list of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) - but my understanding was that BTEX was intended more as a way of determining gasoline contamination than of calling out chemicals dangerous to life.  Ethylbenzene is a precursor to styrene (which is used to make the plastic in typical model kits) and is, considering its structural similarity to things like phenol, surprisingly unexciting as VOCs go.

And when did MEK become a terrifying and deadly horror?  Jeez, it's in nail polish remover.  Did you think anything that sounds like 'methyl ethyl death' has to be methyl ethyl awful?*

Old USGS page on BTEX is here.  (If it helps any, I first heard it listed as BETX too..)

 

*NOTE: It appears that MEK can induce developmental problems in human embryos between the gestational ages of 6 to 15 days.  I do not know if the alternative nail-polish solvents (particularly acetone) have the same effect.  So newly pregnant ladies reading these forums should be advised that during this particular week in development they should either avoid nail polish or use a better remover (MEK is lousy on most modern polish formulations anyway) that they check is not teratogenic or whatever.

[tree68]

Nobody used to think TriChlor was a problem.  Heck, they used it in fire extinguishers...

[Wizlish]

tree68

Nobody used to think TriChlor was a problem.  Heck, they used it in fire extinguishers...

Let us not forget that trichloroethylene was viewed as a substantial improvement on the previous thing they used in those fire extinguishers -- carbon tetrachloride!

(Right, let me get this straight, you're going to use a chemical ejected from a glass ampoule when fire breaks it, which pyrolyzes at a relatively low temperature into what?

For fun, the original patent on trichloroethylene in 'passive' fire extinguishers is here.  Note the discussion about how the generation of hydrogen chloride is actually an advantage because it causes 'olfactory warning' before the phosgene can reach lethal levels...

Ah well, at least it's still not as bad as Whink.  Very little can be that bad, except maybe Tylenol.  How those two can be sold over-the-counter to minors and winos, in a country full of scheisters, is a mystery to me...

[MidlandMike]

Euclid

The potential liability for a cleanup has to be known before closing the deal.  I would expect that the lender and the buyer would require the soil to be thoroughly tested.   

 

Right you are.  A land buyer needs to do due diligence, and depending on state and federal laws, may become jointly liable for environmental problems.  For former industrial sites this means an environmental assessment.  It is inconceivable that the city did not do so.  When environmental problems are found, the buyer and seller can work out agreements for assumption of liability, usually after getting a clean-up plan approved by an environmental agency.

BTEX was mentioned as a possible contaminant.  BTEX is a common constituent of petroleum products and fuels, especially lighter ones, and is a main component in some solvents.  Benzene is carcinogenic, and drinking water is considered unfit if it contains 5 parts per billion.  Luckily it is biodegradable.  However, some of the other mentioned likely contaminants are long lasting.  In a city, drinking water comes from protected areas, and the brownfields are restriced against using underlying water or soil.  As another poster had noted, sometimes the area is capped with clean soil, parking lots, or slab foundations.