U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley

U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley at a winter meeting about oil train safety. They're seeking help on oil trains from a federal safety watchdog.

(Rob Davis/The Oregonian)

U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both Oregon Democrats, are asking for the National Transportation Safety Board's help to ensure first responders get the information they need to keep the public safe from oil train accidents.

Wyden and Merkley both say a recent emergency federal order didn't go far enough to prepare Oregon for spills or fires involving oil trains, leaving significant gaps. The order required railroads to tell firefighters where they move trains carrying more than 1 million gallons of volatile North Dakota oil.

But oil from other regions is also increasingly moving by rail, posing spill risks to places such as the Columbia River Gorge. Union Pacific, which moves Utah oil through the Columbia Gorge to Portland, didn't have to report to firefighters in the state the routes or volumes of Utah crude it moves.

"Much of the attention in the press and among regulators has focused on oil from the Bakken region," the senators wrote in a letter to the NTSB. "We remain concerned that the emergency order does not go far enough in providing critical information that would allow first responders to better protect the public from a potentially catastrophic accident."

Wyden and Merkley want the NTSB, an independent federal safety watchdog, to report on the locations of oil train accidents involving smaller amounts of oil from other regions. And they want the NTSB to evaluate the risks that trains carrying crude from other regions pose to communities in Oregon and elsewhere.

As evidence of the proliferation of crude-by-rail facilities across North America, the senators pointed to these two maps, showing the industry's rampant growth in the last three years.

-- Rob Davis