Railroad Company to Pay $4 Million Penalty for 2005 Chlorine Spill in Graniteville, SC

(ATLANTA­­ – March 8, 2010) Norfolk Southern Railway Company has agreed to pay $4 million penalty to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and hazardous materials laws for a 2005 chlorine spill in Graniteville, S.C., the Justice Department and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today.

Under the settlement filed in federal court in Columbia, S.C., Norfolk Southern will be required to pay a civil penalty of $3,967,500 for the alleged CWA violations, to be deposited in the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.  The alleged CWA violations, included in an amended complaint filed in March 2009, are for the discharge of tons of chlorine, a hazardous substance, from a derailed train tank car and thousands of gallons of diesel fuel from ruptured locomotive engine fuel tanks.  For the alleged Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) violation for failure to immediately notify the National Response Center of the chlorine release, Norfolk Southern will pay a penalty of $32,500, to be deposited in the Hazardous Substance Superfund.

Climate: Eight Convenient Truths

By Amory B. Lovins

(Editor’s note: this piece originally appeared in Roll Call on Nov. 9, 2009, in a slightly different form.)

In his remarks at the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen in December, President Obama did say (to my delight) that climate solutions advance both prosperity and security, but he hadn’t time to rebut in detail the “sign error”—the widespread fallacy that climate solutions are intrinsically an economic burden.

Now that the post-Copenhagen dust has settled and it’s time to refocus on what we should be doing and get back to work, here are eight convenient truths to consider and share about climate and energy.