Hugely Deplorable: Quite Atrocious

"This situation is highly deplorable on MMA's part and it is completely unacceptable. Any delay in the cleaning and recovery of hydrocarbons from the site causes a serious prejudice to the town and its citizens."
Lac-Megantic Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche

"We made it very clear at one point last week that this can't go on. We can't continue to work here for nothing. We're not their local fire department.
"You get a call at three in the morning, there's no way you can do a credit check. We do go on faith a bit, but this is the first time this has ever happened."
Jim Carson, president, Ottawa-based Eastern Canada Response Corp.

"We will continue to work as necessary to provide support to the community during the recovery and clean-up stages of the response."
CTEH of Arkansas, toxicology consulting services

Problem, what problem? Well, then, Montreal, Maine & Atlantic railway's public relations appears to leave something to be desired in its horrendous lapses of judgement, commitment and responsibility. Quite apart from the dread fact that one of its runaway trains was responsible for the death of 50 residents of Lac-Megantic, and the wholesale destruction of the town's downtown core, the Environment Department of the province estimates 5.7-million litres of light crude oil spilled.

The 72-tank-car train that rammed its way along the tracks into town, derailed, then exploded on July 6 left a mountainous headache of oily deposits. Oil that swiftly made its way into the surface of the town's soil, oil that ran into Lac Megantic and onward to reach the Chaudiere River. MMA took immediate steps to hire professional clean-up crews, to recover oil from the lake and river.

Unfortunately, not one cent has gone out from MMA to pay for the prodigious clean-up operations. And no enterprise can continue to work for lengthy periods of time, employing the services of countless people without getting paid for their efforts. It has been left to the town to do just that, to foot the bill for the environmental clean-up. Which situation spurred the mayor to write to the railway through their lawyer demanding the $4.1-million it has thus far expended be reimbursed.

But then MMA chairman Edward Burkhardt has been very busy of late. Apologizing profoundly and profusely takes its toll. And informing 79 of 179 employees they are henceforth laid off, including 19 of those employees in a neighbouring town perhaps gives an indication of how the railway is thinking; certainly not of the carnage left in Lac-Megantic, perhaps totally focused on the survival of a company that cut too many corners and now is leaving too many loose ends.

Leaving the municipality to cover the $1.4-million wracked up in costs for Eastern Canada Response Corp.'s work, $2-million to MD-UN Inc., of Saint-Amable, Quebec to clean up environmental hazards, and $750,000 to CTEH of Arkansas for its toxicology consulting services. 

Mr. Carson of Eastern Canada Response Corp. mentioned his company's past work for ships, railways and pipelines, but this instance being the sole time in its 18 years of operation that a client has failed to pay after an emergency situation.

Speaking vast volumes about the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic railway, if anyone harboured any doubts.