There is no such thing as a safe oil train. But the “waxy” crude oil in the Uinta Basin is less volatile than others that are commonly transported by rail.

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A massive increase in the quantity of oil being shipped by rail and a dangerous lack of regulation has led to numerous disastrous oil train derailments across the U.S. and Canada.  In 2013 an oil train derailment in Lac Mégantic Québec, burned down half of the town’s downtown area, killing nearly 50 people.

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Many of these accidents involved oil from the Bakken oil field in North Dakota and from tar sands operations in Alberta, Canada. The industry had claimed that tar sands oil would be safer to ship, but because of the way it was manipulated for transport, that has proven to be false.

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Crude oil from the Uinta Basin is relatively inert and solidifies at temperatures below about 100 degrees. The oil is waxy and contains relatively low levels of the volatile compounds that cause some oils to be flammable or combustible. But a spill could still pose risks to communities and ecosystems through which the trains would pass. Furthermore, because they are long and heavy, oil trains — no matter what type of oil they contain — are particularly prone to accidents.

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We don’t yet know exactly what these trains would carry, under what conditions particular oils would be transported or where the Uinta Basin Railway oil trains would travel. We should be wary of those who dismiss the potential risks involved.