RAILROAD MUST PAY FOR SPILL

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

DATE: THURSDAY, February 13, 1992                   TAG: 9202130357
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
RAILROAD MUST PAY FOR SPILL
A federal jury in Roanoke has ordered that the Norfolk Southern railroad pay the government $188,749 for a 1985 chemical spill that caused the Radford Army Ammunition Plant to close for a week.
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 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 chemical car and spilled about 26,000 gallons of DMF, a toxic industrial solvent, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Mott.
The chemical eventually flowed into the New River near a water intake for the arsenal.
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.
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."
Mott said the arsenal 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