As Pat Calvert steers a small motorboat over the James River, it’s impossible to not notice the smell of motor oil, and it’s not coming from the boat.
Two days after a CSX train derailed and put three tank cars full of crude oil into the river, Calvert, who keeps tabs on the Upper James River for the James River Association, is only beginning to survey the spill’s impact. Wednesday’s derailment spared the town from catastrophe, but not the river.
Much of the spilled crude burned in a spectacular fire on Wednesday, and the river, flooded from recent rains, washed the rest downstream toward the state capital, Richmond, and the Chesapeake Bay.
Floating orange barriers called boom had been placed in the water surrounding the derailment site to capture spilled oil, but they might have been too late to make a difference. Calvert said his organization had measured an oil slick 17 miles long.
The sky outside is hazy orange, and my five-year-old son is screaming bloody murder. “Sorry, buddy,...
A tornado struck north-eastern Wisconsin on Monday, blackening the midday sky and sending workers sheltering in...
Large swaths of Central Oregon have become consumed by wildfire, with several blazes burning across the...
At least 40 million people were under extreme heat warnings across central and southern parts of...
