NS ORDERED TO PAY $188,749 IN '85 SPILL THAT CLOSED ARSENAL

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 12, 1992                   TAG: 9202120225
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-11   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
NS ORDERED TO PAY $188,749 IN '85 SPILL THAT CLOSED ARSENAL
A federal jury in Roanoke ordered Tuesday that the Norfolk Southern railroad pay the government $188,749 for a chemical spill that caused the Radford Army Ammunition Plant to close for a week in 1985.
After hearing two days of testimony in U.S. District Court, the jury ruled that Hercules Inc. was reasonable when it decided to cease operations temporarily because of the spill. Hercules operates the plant for the Army.
The case dated back to Oct. 5, 1985, when a Norfolk and Western freight train collided with another train that had stalled in Montgomery County.
The collision caused a gash in a Dupont chemical car and spilled about 26,000 gallons of DMF, a toxic industrial solvent, into nearby Slate Branch, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Mott.
From there, the chemical flowed to Stroubles Creek and into the New River, near a water intake for the Radford arsenal.
Because the arsenal is a federal facility, Mott represented the government in seeking to recover from the railroad what it cost to shut down the plant.
Mott said the arsenal decided to close because it was concerned that the water may have been too contaminated for human consumption, as well as for use in the production of volatile propellants manufactured at the arsenal.
However, James Jennings, a Roanoke lawyer who represented the railroad, argued that the chemical's concentration was not dangerous by the time it reached the New River and that Hercules' decision to shut down was "unjustified."
Jennings said the railroad was able to contain the spill well upstream of the arsenal and Hercules - a company that specializes in chemicals - should have been able to assess the danger.
"If anybody should have been aware of the chemicals coming down the river, it should have been Hercules," Jennings said.
Testimony during the trial showed that there were fish kills in Slate Branch, near the spot of the spill, but not in the New River.
However, Mott said the arsenal still felt obligated to cease operations out of an "abundance of caution." If taken in large enough concentrations, DMF can cause liver and kidney damage, he said.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB