'Vast amount of water': Beaver dam blamed for 2023 Maine train derailment
Maine environmental officials pinned an April 2023 train derailment that hospitalized three people and spilled hundreds of gallons of fuel on a beaver dam Wednesday.
The train derailment occurred in rural Somerset County where three engines and six train cars from Canadian Pacific Kansas City railway were knocked off the tracks and caught fire, according to the Bangor Daily News.
Audie Arbo, a permitting and compliance manager for the Maine Land Use Planning Commission, told the commission at their meeting Wednesday that a beaver damn "let go," causing a “vast amount of water” to flow under the tracks and cause a washout.
The derailment sent an estimated 500 gallons of diesel fuel into local waterways and Little Brassua Lake after the railway company failed to empty the saddle tanks on the locomotive during clean-up of the derailment site, according to the Daily News. The diesel spill saturated the surrounding soil and extended past containment measures.
Restoration of the derailment area was completed and the state's enforcement case against the railway company was closed in December.