{"id":9473,"date":"2013-07-10T11:27:58","date_gmt":"2013-07-10T15:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=9473"},"modified":"2013-07-10T11:36:53","modified_gmt":"2013-07-10T15:36:53","slug":"lac-megantic-tragic-and-complicated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/07\/10\/lac-megantic-tragic-and-complicated\/","title":{"rendered":"Lac-M\u00e9gantic: tragic and complicated"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Prime<\/a>

Prime Minister Stephen Harper talking with residents of Lac-Megantic on July 7. Photo: Office of the Prime Minister<\/a>, Creative Commons, some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n

Updating yesterday’s post<\/a> on the tragic derailment and fire at Lac-M\u00e9gantic, Quebec, according to the Montreal Gazette, provincial officials say oil containment efforts are going very well<\/a> and there is little risk of contamination reaching the St. Lawrence River.\u00a0Environment Minister Yves-Fran\u00e7ois Blancet told reporters:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe source has been plugged, practically nothing is getting into the river.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Physical clean-up will be more complex, requiring decontamination (or removal?) of soil contaminated by the spill and the fire.<\/p>\n

And the emotional recovery? Well, that’s barely begun. Consider this: the\u00a0death toll as of this writing still stands at 15 but the number of persons considered missing has risen to 60.\u00a0This remains a landscape of prolonged pain for the people of Lac-M\u00e9gantic.<\/p>\n

The story has several main elements: the tragedy and its impact on\u00a0Lac-M\u00e9gantic, the cause of the event, the implications it raises for moving oil by rail and the safety issues faced by any<\/em> community where dangerous rail cargo regularly rocks past homes and businesses. In New York’s North Country towns, the sound and sight of a cargo train passing by an everyday thing, and this tragedy raises questions about how we should <\/i>be thinking about those trains.<\/p>\n

Turning to the cause of the “event” – what had initially looked like an accident is now the subject of a criminal investigation. As reported by CBC<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Police said they are investigating whether Saturday’s derailment and subsequent explosion \u2014 which leveled the centre of the lakeside Quebec town killing at least 15 and probably dozens more \u2014 involved foul play or criminal negligence.<\/p>\n

“We are conducting a criminal investigation. We are not neglecting anything so far,” provincial police inspector Michel Forget told reporters on Tuesday evening.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Press reports say this could be North America’s worst rail disaster since 1989. (Those interested in deeper details or current developments would do well to check Canadian news accounts on line.)<\/p>\n

NCPR’s Brian Mann has long experience reporting on oil spills and environmental issues. He’s heading to\u00a0Lac-M\u00e9gantic today to cover the\u00a0situation\u00a0for NCPR and NPR.<\/p>\n

Brian will check in with Martha Foley on tomorrow’s 8 O’clock Hour and may have photos or videos to share on line. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Updating yesterday’s post on the tragic derailment and fire at Lac-M\u00e9gantic, Quebec, according to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[883,884,12655,900,12654,12656],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9473"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9473"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9595,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9473\/revisions\/9595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}