SHOULD YOU BE WORRIED ? LAWSUITS FILED AGAINST DEPTFORD TOWNSHIP SCHOOL BOARD
Monday, February 23, 2015
by William E. Cleary Sr.
SHOULD YOU BE WORRIED?--After watching the news report about an oil train derailment in West Virginia, it was good to see Conrail workers in the area installing new railroad ties and track ballast. The ballast is used to bear the load from the railroad ties, to facilitate drainage of water, and also to keep down vegetation that might interfere with the track structure. This also serves to hold the track in place as the trains roll by. It is typically made of crushed stone, although ballast has sometimes consisted of other, less suitable materials. The new material was placed along the Conrail line that runs south and north from Camden through Gloucester City, Brooklawn, Westville and beyond.
The project was long overdue. Many of the railroad ties were rotten and broken.
For some time now trains carrying flammable Bakken crude oil, just like the one in West Virginia, use that route to reach the Sunoco refinery in West Deptford. The crude oil product is also shipped to a refinery in Linden, NJ.
The product, which is fracked out of the ground in North Dakota’s Bakken rock formation, has led to a modern-day oil boom in the United States. Some of the credit for the reduce price of gas goes to the North Dakota Bakken oil discovery.
Those who live close to the rail line, not only here in Gloucester City, but in other communities as well, are worried about one of these trains derailing. Most of these trains heading to the West Deptford refinery travel late in the evening and early in the morning.
In July 2012 a tanker train carrying toxic, flammable gas vinyl chloride derailed over Mantua Creek, sending four tank cars into the water. Thousands of pounds of vinyl chloride was released into the air. Residents had to be evaluated.
When the West Virginia train derailed on February 16 residents said a large fireball of oil flew 100 feet or more into the air. The flames could be seen for miles. Firefighters fought the blaze for three days before declaring it under control. The 109-car train was carrying more than three million gallons of Bakken oil from North Dakota when 27 cars derailed midday on Monday, February 16, near the Kanawha River, Mount Carbon, West Virginia.
“When one of these car ruptures, it heats up the adjacent cars,” says Alan Stankevitz who runs the website DOT111.info, which monitors oil train safety issues. “It begins to boil.… You can hear it hiss.”
John Kemp, a Reuters market analyst, says U.S. oil trains are taking high-stakes risks with our lives.
He stated, "Five hundred and ninety-one days have passed since a train carrying crude oil derailed and incinerated the town of Lac Megantic in Quebec. In that time, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has still not finalized new safety rules on tank car standards and operational controls for trains carrying highly flammable liquids.”
“DOT started working on new rules in April 2012 — more than a year before the devastating fire at Lac Megantic in July 2013, which claimed the lives of 47 people — so the process has so far taken 1,041 days.”
According to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) between 2006 and April 2014, there were 16 significant accidents involving high-hazard trains carrying crude oil or ethanol. In total 281 tank cars derailed, nearly 5 million gallons of crude or ethanol were released when the tank cars were breached, and there were 48 fatalities.
Does your community have a plan in place if one of these trains derailed in your town?
Ask your council members and fire departments if they have a plan in place to handle such a fire. And if so ask for a copy of it.
DEPTFORD TOWNSHIP SCHOOL BOARD FACES MULTIPLE LAWSUITS--John Paff, the Chairman of the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Open Government Advocacy Project as well as the NJLP's Preempted Ordinance Repeal Project, was able to obtain information about several lawsuits filed against the Deptford Township (Gloucester County) Board of Education. Paff has submitted OPRA requests for the settlement agreements and will update is blog entry upon their receipt.
The first case involves Walter Berglund. Paff states, “I have submitted an OPRA request to identify which Board of Education member allegedly retaliated against Berglund for disciplining the fiancé of her sister, who worked for the Board.
Caption: Walter Berglund v. Stacy Gray, Rachel Green, Linda Rosser and the Deptford Board of Education, Federal case no. 1:14-cv-01972. The lawsuit is on-line here.
Summary: Plaintiff Berglund served as president of the Board of Education until he resigned on May 23, 2012 and was hired by the Board as Supervisor of Buildings and Grounds on December 3, 2012. He said that Gray, Green, and Rosser, who are also on the Board of Education, posited that was undeserving of his new job because he got it because of his "political associations" rather than merit.
Berglund said he attempted disciplined an employee who lived with and was engaged to the sister of Gray, Green or Rosser (the lawsuit does not specify which). The employee, who was allegedly guilty of neglect of duty, insubordination and conduct and unbecoming a public employee, reportedly said that "I'm just here to collect a paycheck" and "I'll never be supervised by a white person."
Berglund said that on the same day he suspended the employee, Rosser made a motion during the public portion of the Board meeting to replace him with another employee. Berglund said that Gray, Green and Rosser all voted in favor of a January 28, 2014 motion to discharge him.
Status: Active. An amended complaint was filed on October 23, 2014. Check back for an update to this blog.
To read more about this incident and other lawsuits that involve the Deptford Board of Education go here
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