HE SHOULD GO TO JAIL LIKE WHITE COLLAR CRIMINALS GO TO JAIL. HE NOTHING BUT POND SCUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Buffalo engineer at helm in huge ’06 train derailment
77 mph descent leftmillions in damages,killed thousands of fish
By Michael Beebe NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 06/30/07 6:52 AM
GARDEAU, Pa. — A year ago today, a Norfolk Southern engineer from Buffalo slowly took a freight train up Keating Summit, and then raced down into an environmental disaster, a derailment that caused millions of dollars in damages, killed thousands of fish, and endangered one of Pennsylvania’s finest trout streams.
On a descent so steep the track speed limit is only 15 mph, engineer Michael Seifert’s train never slowed as it cleared the summit, hitting a top speed of 77 mph on its wild, roller coaster trip to the bottom.
Seifert, 46, a Norfolk Southern engineer for eight years, failed a drug test after the derailment. He tested positive for opiate-based pain killers as well as the class of drug found in Valium.
He was fired by Norfolk Southern and is scheduled to go on criminal trial in July in Smethport, about 120 miles southeast of Buffalo. He is charged with two felony counts of causing a catastrophe, and a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment.
Thirty-two of the 44 cars in Seifert’s train jumped the tracks because of excessive speed and operator error, the Federal Railroad Administration said. The derailed cars included four tankers carrying sodium hydroxide, also known as caustic soda or lye, an ingredient found in drain cleaners.
A nearly $3 million environmental cleanup by Norfolk Southern is almost complete, and local officials are hopeful the trout streams here, a large part of the local economy, will not suffer any permanent damage. The railroad is appealing $8.9 million in penalties the state assessed.
The environmental damage was caused by 42,000 gallons of sodium hydroxide that was dumped into Big Fill Hollow and carried downstream to Sinnemahoning Portage Creek, a Class A trout stream in its upper reaches that attracts fishermen from throughout the Northeast.
The sodium hydroxide slowly made its way downstream, killing everything in its wake.
“Big fish were jumping out of the water, something they do when they’re distressed,” said Jim Zoschg, a local fisherman and Cameron County conservation official at the time. “I
found dead fish 35 miles downstream.”
Laura Haynes, the landowner nearest the derailment, said the smell from the chemical was so intense that her daughter Peggy had trouble breathing.
“He must have been flying,” she said of Seifert, as she surveyed the cleanup of her property on Thursday. “Because most of those trains just creak down that hill.”
Witnesses said the sodium hydroxide came downstream in a white foam, then turned the water a chocolate color as the chemical leeched out soils along stream banks, leaving thousands of dead trout, bass, and other fish along the way.
“They didn’t find any dead fish right at the scene of the spill,” said Todd Deluccia, a watershed specialist in nearby Cameron County. “The thinking was that the chemical was so concentrated there, the fish just disintegrated.”
The train’s conductor, Stev an Rogers of Buffalo, also was fired along with Seifert by Norfolk Southern, but was not charged criminally. Both men are appealing their dismissals.
Neither Seifert nor Rogers was injured, because the three locomotives and the first several rail cars made it safely to the bottom. Nor were any nearby residents injured, though more than 20 were evacuated because one of the derailed tank cars carried chlorine. It did not rupture.
Seifert could not explain what happened when he testified last July 16-17 at a Norfolk Southern disciplinary hearing on the derailment.
“My last recollection was cresting the hill, with the train out of control,” said Seifert, who as engineer sat behind the controls on the left side of the lead locomotive.
The next thing he knew, Seifert said, was that Rogers, the train conductor seated on the right side of the locomotive, was shouting his name, “Mike, Mike.”
“When you were cresting the summit, did you fall asleep?” a Norfolk Southern supervisor asked Seifert at the hearing.
“It’s possible,” he said. “I do believe I asked (Rogers) and he said my eyes were open, just staring straight. He just kept calling my name.”
“Did you fear for your life?” the supervisor asked.
“I feared for both of our lives, sir,” Seifert responded.
Seifert testified that when he came to his senses, he decided the best course was to try to ride it out, as he said he had done once before when he was a trainee and part of a Norfolk Southern program making test runs on Keating Summit in 2000. That time, he said, the train hit 70 mph without incident.
Seifert’s urine and blood tests, according to the court file, showed that shortly after the derailment, he tested positive for opiates, the class of drugs found in prescription painkillers, and diazepam, a type of benzodiazepine and the drug found in Valium.
McKean County District Attorney John Pavlock accused Seifert of being “under the influence of controlled substances.” A Federal Railroad Administration report said Seifert’s “recent or chronic use of unauthorized opiates and benzodiazepine may have contributed to the cause of the accident.”
Seifert testified at his railroad hearing that he had been under a lot of stress because of a divorce and had been sleep deprived and depressed prior to the accident. He said he had seen a psychotherapist afterward, but had not yet been prescribed any drugs.
Seifert has recently moved, disconnected his phone, and could not be reached to comment. His attorney, Paul Malizia, of Emporium, did not return telephone calls and was unavailable Thursday when a reporter stopped at his office.
Norfolk Southern estimated the derailment caused $934,000 in equipment damage and $1.2 million in loss of cargo. Wall board, lumber and aluminum were scattered in the crash.
The railroad said it has removed and replaced 4,600 cubic yards of contaminated soil, restored sections of Big Fill Hollow and Sinnemahoning Portage Creek, planted thousands of trees and wetland grasses, installed ground water monitoring wells, and tested more than 100 residential water sources.
Zoschg, the former watershed specialist, and his replacement, Deluccia, took a News reporter on a tour of the derailment site Thursday, pointing out the return of young trout, minnows and tadpoles to the cleaned-up stream. There were also bugs flying above the creek, a good sign to both.
“There wasn’t a single insect up here last year,” Deluccia said.
and publisher of the weekly Endeavor News in Emporium, said it was impossible to gauge the economic impact from the loss of fishing last summer after the derailment. But he said it turned out to be less a disaster than everyone thought at the time.
“To see how deadly it was, was simply amazing,” said Hooftallen, whose paper’s front page last week showed a young man holding a 25-inch brown trout he caught. “The rebound has been incredible.”