Eleven cars of a Union Pacific freight train derailed along Highway 70 in the Feather River Canyon, in Plumas County early Tuesday, sending loads of corn and several rail cars plunging into the canyon.
Work began almost immediately to replace track and pull cars out of the canyon, but rail traffic had to be diverted to other routes as work continued Tuesday night.
A small army of workers descended on the site just east of the tiny community of Belden, about 50 miles northeast of Oroville.
State Office of Emergency Services Deputy Director Kelly Huston said the state "dodged a bullet" because the train was only carrying corn. Huston said each week a train carrying 1 million gallons of highly volatile crude oil from the Bakken oil field in Montana and North Dakota travels down the canyon, with plans to add a second train shortly. The crude oil goes to refineries in California.
Huston said an oil spill could have caused serious contamination in the Feather River, which flows into Lake Oroville -- California's second largest reservoir that supplies water to the the California Water Project and millions of people.
Residents also worry about the possibility of an oil spill or explosion.
"It does worry me that they need to build up the containers that they're hauling that oil in so that it does not fall into the river and contaminate it, you know?" Belden resident Wayne Richard said.
The rail cars that carry Bakken crude oil are obsolete and even railroads say the DOT 111 rail cars need to be retrofitted or replaced completely.
There have been eight major explosions in the United States caused by oil trains since 2012.
But Huston said the hidden danger here is not the danger of a massive explosion but the threat to California's water supply "during an epic drought."
Union Pacific workers expect to have the line reopened by sometime Wednesday morning. Bulldozers are cutting a road down to the base of the canyon so derailed cars can be hauled away and the spilled corn cleaned up. That's expected to take several more days.
