December 24, 2020 6:20 am
CUSTER, Wash. Recovery work continues on the wreckage of the BNSF oil train that derailed and caught fire in Custer Tuesday.
Railroad spokesman Justin Piper told a news conference yesterday at three loaded tank cars were punctured in the derailment.
He says they’re currently working to off-load oil from the cars that came off the track.
Courtney Wallace is also with BNSF and said no cause for the derailment has been determined.
She said FBI and other agencies are on the scene and the investigation is on-going.
Speculation has swirled after the arrests last month of two Bellingham women who are charged with sabotaging railroad tracks in Whatcom County.
Cleanup at site of Whatcom County train derailment expected to take months December 23, 2020 at 11:42 am
As cleanup is underway in Custer, Wash., after a crude oil train derailed Tuesday, the news from Unified Command was mostly positive Wednesday, with reports of only minimal impacts to the public and environment thus far into the investigation.
The representative from BNSF, Justin Piper, said during a Wednesday press conference about the cleanup effort that there has been a successful integration with first responders and contract teams to respond to the fire and oil spill. Overnight Tuesday and into Wednesday, Piper says the team has been very successful in extinguishing the fires, with the majority put out “early on.”